Edible Bird Nest in China

Sweet Papaya Bird Nest Soup is my mom and mine favorite soup. We always order it when we dinning out. Not only the Sweet Papaya Bird Nest Soup is delicious, but also it’s nutritious and healthy. The cook recipe of the soup is simple. Sweet papaya, edible bird nest and tremella (a kind of semi-transparent white fungus) are boiled in water with 3 spoons of cane sugar for half or one hour. Finally, the soup would be served in a hollowed sweet papaya. Last weekend, I went to a Cantonese restaurant called Empire Chinese Seafood Restaurant where serves customers bird nest soup in Denver. The soup is transparent, stinky and sweet. I enjoyed drinking it so much.

Edible bird nest is the most essential part of the Sweet Papaya Bird Nest Soup and it’s the most expensive material. Edible bird nests are nests produced by a few swiftlet species. White-nest swiftlet and black-nest swiftlet are the two major species that produce edible bird nests. They built edible nests on face wall of island and inland caves or sea-caves in southern China, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Borneo and Philippines (Marcone, "Characterization of the Edible bird’s Nest the “Caviar of the East."). Edible bird nests’ major colors are white, red or some colors between white and red. Some scholars believe the blood-color edible bird nests contact mineral-like irons in the cave and present the blood color. Furthermore, the edible bird nest is extremely light and the shape looks like a half of a bowl. Collectors usually collect nests before young swiftlets are mature enough to left their nests. “If procured before the young are fledged, the nests are of the best kind; if they contain eggs only, they are still valuable; but if the young are in the nests. Or have left them, the whole are then nearly worthless” (397).

Bird nest is expensive for reasons. In China, the Sweet Papaya Bird Nest Soup is about 16 to 40 dollars per bowl in most restaurants. Edible bird nest is expensive because high concentration of nutritious materials, such as collagen. According to “Ben Cao Gang Mu” (a famous ancient Chinese medical literature), bird nest was one kind of medicine in ancient China because ancient medical scholars found that it could keep healthy (Manna Science, “History of Birds’ Nest.”). Moreover, collecting of edible bird nest is dangerous because most of bird nests are on steep cave walls. Finally, the process of cleaning the edible bird nest is complicated. In general, those are reasons why bird nest is valuable and precious. Although edible bird nests are expensive, the market needs still could not be met by production. Some edible bird nest producers use toxic chemical material to reduce the time of cleaning process or replacing real edible bird nest by fake one that is made by jelly. Nowadays, edible bird nest became a debatable and conflict food material.

The history of bird nest is more than one thousand years. The bird nest has been regarded as a delicacy for royal and rich peoples since Ming Dynasties. The bird nest was discovered by He Zheng - a famous explorer and diplomat in Ancient China. One day, He and his sailors were trapped near an island of Malaysia by a violent storm. He found many bird nests on the cliff face and he asked his attendants to collect and cook them as food for the whole team. Several days later, sailors became energetic and almost every one had ruddy complexions. He brought some to the empire of Ming Dynasty. In stem of this event, bird nest became a luxury and royal delicacy since Ming Dynasty (Jing, “Do You Know the History of Edible Bird Nest?”). Not only Asian area, the edible bird nest is spread all over the world recently.

The collecting and cleaning process of edible bird nests is complicated and effortful. Because nests are built on steep islands’ face walls and cave walls, security settings for collectors are useless. Collectors have to climb steep walls to collect nests only by traditional and simple tools like bamboo ladders. As for the cleaning process, collected nests would be soaked in water until nests are soft enough for workers to clean small feathers and plumage out. The following step is rearrange clean nests and put them into molds for different shapes. After air-dried process, the further processed edible bird nests are finished (Koon 30). 

In general, edible bird nest is a kind of luxury and nutritious material as a kind of food or medicine. Only white-nest swiftlets and black-nest swiftlets could produce edible bird nests. Moreover, He Zheng, as the first person who discovered the edible bird nests, sharing others the value of edible bird nests and making the edible bird nests become a big part of Asian food culture since Ming Dynasty. What’s more, the production and process of edible bird nests are hard and time-consuming. According to my research, not only benefits of edible bird nests but also risks associated with huge consumption by human beings are found. More specifically, more and more young swiftlets would be hurt or became homeless because collectors are finding the best kind of edible bird nests – nests that are procured before the young are fledged. Some people would doubt whether it is ethical to eat edible bird nest. More seriously, the nature balance and species diversity would be thread by over-collecting nests. Secondly, there is a finding that one kind of protein called 77 KDa in edible bird nest would contribute to some children allergic reaction by consuming edible bird nest products (qtd. Marcone, "Characterization of the Edible bird’s Nest the “Caviar of the East."). The last point is production of fake and toxic edible bird nest products. Because of the increasing sky-high price of edible bird nests in the market, more and more producers try to get the highest profit in a series illegal ways. As a result, the toxic edible bird nest products would have unpredictable negative effects on human health.

Sweet Papaya Bird Nest Soup is always my favorite soup. However, I was shocked by the research I made, as well as those facts that showing the negative side of consuming edible bird nests, for example, the potential destruction of swiftlet species. I probably would stop eating them because I want to respect and protect swiftlets, giving people a remainder that edible bird nest is not a perfect health and medical product and it also would cause negative effect on human health.

Work Cited

            1. Marcone, Massimo F. "Characterization of the Edible bird’s Nest the “Caviar of the East." Food Research International 38.10 (2005): 1125-34. Print.

2. "Edible Birds'-Nests of China." Harper's New Monthly Magazine 2 (1850): 397. Print.

3. Manna Science. "History of Bird's Nest." Manna Science. 2009. Web. 9 May 2012.

4. Jing, Liu. “Do You Know the History of Edible Bird Nest?” Yanwobaike. 2011. Web. 9 May 2012.

         5. Koon, L.C. “Features – Bird’s nest soup – Market demand for this expensive gastronomic delicacy threatens the aptly named edible-nest Swiflets with extinction in the east” Wildlife Conservation 103(1) (2000): 30-35. Print.

How Far are We from the Biology Rather Than Marketing?

In the industrialized world, food production recently seems like running under the consideration of market needs rather than biology needs. The taste, nutrient, sanitation and process of producing of what people are eating now are completely different from people used to eat. There is no doubt that the industrialized food production style increases the producing efficiency, profit, as well as meeting human being’s increasing desire. However, chaos would be the result of the broken of the rule of nature.

First of all, I believe disease would be the most influence affect of the broken of nature rule. Take the producing the broiler chicken as an example, those chickens are raised especially for meat production and the terrible environment of the broiler chicken plants threats chickens and workers’ health. More specifically, losing the fingernail is exactly the reaction to the bacteria on chicken carcasses. Cook (the author of “Fowl Trouble”), mentions that “today 50% of the nation’s 245,000 poultry workers are immigrants.” They could not get welfare or disability benefits with injured hands.

Secondly, the lower concentration of nutrient of food is another result of factorized food. According to the article “The Introduction to Estabrook’s Tomatoland”, “Todays industrial tomatoes are as bereft of nutrition as they are of flavor”. Compared with the concentration of Vitamin C, Thiamin, Niacin and Calcium of tomatoes, they decreased dramatically except sodium (four time much than 1960s). As we all can see, modern factorized fruits are have perfect color, shape and weight but less tasty with less nutrients. In my city, a group of people establishing a club called “Planting DIY”. Members use their leisure time to planting tomatoes, apples and other vegetables in their own small field. They can take their production home and cook them. Recently, more and more people attend this club for healthier food.

Luckily, we have some people realized the animals’ scarify. Animals should be respect and protect. Also, we should treat them as our friends. Though they are at the lower part of the food chain, human beings could not curtly kill them without any respect. One year ago, I decided to become a vegetarian when my best friend Emily gave me a handout of vegetarian club. She was a vegetarian and she really proud of being a vegetarian. The sprite of the club was written in bold and it’s pretty touchable. I didn’t keep being a vegetarian because I thought it’s not healthy to keep doing that. However, I do believe the say “We’d eat them with the consciousness, ceremony and respect they deserve” (Pollan12). Human being would not be a strict vegetarian or vegan but at least we should respect their scarify and constrain our desire to protect them. 

Pressure Under the Food Fed?!

During the period of the first golden age of American food faddism, American citizens’ eating hobbit changed dramatically with disorder. Following the fashion trend is the nature of human beings. However, blindly pursue the food faddism would cause a serious phenomenon that is called “eating disorder”. According to Michael Pollan, the author of “Our National Eating Disorder” , comes with a idea to explain the reason and symptoms of national eating disorder. According to my understanding, people choosing and purchasing based on those various nutritional scientific reports, and leading by government or someone who have a medical degree. Moreover, author also mentions “As a relatively new nation drawn from many different immigrant populations, each with its own culture of food, we Americans find ourselves without a strong, stable culinary tradition to guide us. ” (Pollan 4). America as a huge immigration country that is influenced by enormous foreign food cultures would gradually lost it’s own traditional food culture and don’t have a strong guide of food diet.

American food faddism causes a series problems. Many American food industries would be modified to face the food fad. Many food that Americans love and used to eat would disappear in the food factories. I’m the kind of person who always chose what I like and I don’t really care about the calories or nutrient. People around me always know I’m a slow eater and I have never been a fussy eater. I enjoy eating and I believe I won’t change my eating diet. However, I always keep healthy and skinny even I eat cheesecake or potato chips. I agree with the author’s idea at the end of the article is that '' We could eat less and actually enjoy it more,'' suggests Rozin. Let’s enjoy our food!

Diffusion of Asian food culture in Denver

 Denver is a relative big and well-developed city in America with a population of 600,158 (2010 census). Like many other cities in America, Denver shows the typical American culture – multiethnic culture. In addition, three-fourths of the recent U.S. immigrations have originated from Asia and Latin America (James M. Rubenstein 88). More and more Asian restaurants or tea places show up in Denver. I believe the diffusion of Asian food culture in Denver has both positive and negative influences. Besides, mixing of culture is the biggest product of globalization. Culture diffusion causes many effects to both the originated area and being influenced area. In the following paragraphs, many Asian tea places or restaurants in Denver would be listed and analysis one by one. Then, a conclusion of all the observations would be given to show how positive and negative impacts of Asian food culture in Denver.

  

The Lollicup Tea Zone in Denver on the south Colorado Blvd. Lollicup is probably the most famous boba place in Denver. I would like to use it as the most typical case of the result of the diffusion of Asian food culture in Denver. Boba is little pearl-sized tapioca ball at the bottom of drinks. It is made by the starch of the cassava root and would become sweet and chewy ball after cooking. Boba was originated from Taiwan. Within around two years, Boba was diffused to nearby countries, such as mainland of China, Singapore, Philippines, Canada and west coast of America. (U.S. TimeMagzine 2001) Boba as a kind of Asian food culture, being diffused and strongly influenced by foreign culture, presents to peoples from other ethnic groups a fresh Asian food idea and affect those peoples. Boba gradually became popular in America nowadays. In 2001, Jeffrey Ressner described the diffusion of Asian boba in states on U.S. TimeMagzine, “It (Boba) traveled to North America via the large Asian community in Vancouver, then migrated to Chinatown areas in New York and other U.S. cities before popping up at trendy college campuses in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.” Americans love it because it’s attractive by adding some chewy balls in milk tea. Compared with boba, British milk tea became a kind of plain and boring drink. I interviewed one of the American guests in the Lollicup called Alice and she said, “Boba is so ethnic and unique that people could not buy it from somewhere else. ”

As an Asian, when I ordered a cup of boba in Denver Lollicup, I felt that everything here was what I was familiar with. Suddenly, I felt that I was lost because everything here was strange. Boba in America, as a result of culture diffusion, is somehow changed. In the Lollicup tea zone, we could see how Asian food culture and American food culture mixed and presented a new food style. To be specific, Asian peoples prefer to call boba as pearl milk tea rather than boba or tapioca. Asian boba places would only provided milk tea with boba at the bottom of the milk tea with various temperatures for guests to choose, such as hot, warm or cold. However, Lollicup in Denver provides guests with boba slush, snow bubble and normal boba milk tea. Boba slush is a drink that is made by boba and blended ice. While snow bubble is creamy and similar to boba slush. Moreover, Lollicup in Denver provides both Asian and American nibbles. Not only Asian steamed bun but also American bread and cakes are served in Lollicup. According to my observation, Lollicup in Denver serves hot chocolate, cappuccino and black coffee too. Lollicup as a tea place in America should serve drinks that are loved by Americans, such as hot chocolate, cappuccino and black coffee. However, Lollicup is showing Asian food culture that is relative fresh and attractive to Americans at the same time. Similar to Asian boba places, many social activities are associated with eating and drinking. Lollicup in Denver, as a result of Asian food culture in America, offers guests both Asian and American activities that they could spend time on. For example, Asian manga and American fashion magazines are putted on the bookcase. Besides, walls are decorated with oil painting and Japanese cartoon drawings. Finally, American foosball table and board games are also accessible.

Except the Lollicup Tea zone in Denver, Vietnamese Pho is quit popular in Denver too. There is a common characteristic between the pho restaurants in Vietnam and American pho restaurants. In addition, I believe the characteristic which is keep boiling the soup-stock for 24 hours is the most attractive point of pho. While the cow bones are keeping boiling, more nutrients would dissolve into the soup and the flavor of the soup would be tasty and the soup would be more nutritious. However, the flavor of pho in Denver is a little bit different from the original Vietnamese pho. Two years ago, I spent a whole month in Hanoi (Capital city of Vietnam). I was fall in love with pho at that time. There were a lot of spices and sauces that guests could add on in Hanoi’s pho restaurants. Take the fish sauce as an example. Fish sauce is not available on the table of pho restaurants in Denver. Like many other American restaurant, salt, pepper, Sriracha hot chili sauce and soy sauce are always on the table of Pho restaurants in Denver. However, the American type of Vietnamese pho has a unique flavor and I enjoy eating it too. Specifically, traditions of Vietnamese pho would boil the basil when cook the pho. As a result, pho soup would have the flavor of the basil. However, some foreign customers didn’t like the smell of basil. According to me observation, guests could decide whether add basil in their soup or not in American pho restaurants, as well as the basil in the pho is not boiled and the smell of the basil is not strong. Some people may love Vietnamese pho in the states because of the freedom to choose which vegetable they want add in and which not.

According to the guests survey on Yelp, the Pho 96 ranks as the No.1 pho restaurants in Denver. As the typical American pho restaurant in Denver, the décor and the setting of the pho 96 are showing the Asian culture. To be specific, bamboo elements occur in Pho 96 frequently. There is a pot of bamboo in the front desk of the restaurant. Moreover, a big drawing of bamboo putted on the wall. Bamboo has a significant meaning for business mans because the bamboo is growing quickly and always grow upward. It would represent the bamboo owner would be successful on his or her business and more and more money would be earned by he or she. As a result, many Vietnam restaurants would use many bamboo elements to sent the best wish to the business. Similar to bamboo, some Asians believe that fish globes would “grow gold” and the business would be successful with a fish globe in. In the pho 96, there is a huge fish water globe like many pho restaurants in Vietnam. Bamboo and fish globe are two typical elements that are always used in Asian restaurants.

 

Generally speaking, the development of transportation, Internet and media (Television) promotes the globalization. As a result of globalization, culture diffusion is enhanced. I hold the view that diffusion of Asian food culture in Denver brings both positive and negative impacts on the original food culture and American local food culture.

The Asian food culture diffusion is positive for both Denver and Taiwan food culture for several reasons. First of all, the modification of the Asian food culture in Denver restaurants would make this kind of drink more creative and popular. The snow bubble, boba slush and pho without boiling of basil are widely welcomed by guests from various groups. Secondly, the Asian food culture could be known and promoted in Denver. The only way to protect food culture is that more and more people know about it and want to protect it. Besides, the variety of the restaurants in Denver would be enhanced that local people would have the chance to know about foreign food culture and have a chance to taste them. Also, many Asian immigrants and international students in Denver could order food from their hometown because of the variety of food selection in Denver. More importantly, the boss and several staff of most Asian restaurants and tea places like Lollicup and Pho 96 were come from Asian. Asian culture diffused in Denver would provide many immigrants or long-term residents working opportunity and living on running an Asian restaurant or tea place that they could do it more successful than people didn’t come from Asia.

On the contrary, the diffusion of Asian food culture has many negative impacts at the same time. To begin with the loss of traditional values, the Asian food culture is changed and lost it’s tradition by being modified in Denver in order to be more and more guests accepted and welcomed. Furthermore, when a new food or drinks selling is boomed in Denver, other Denver’s traditional food industry would face a risk of break down because of the competition. Also, the local food culture would be changed by mixing and influenced by foreign food culture. For example, the dining hall of DU (the university of Denver) serves their student Asian rice or Japanese Tofu in most meal. Like I mentioned that, the traditional milk tea was boring for guests in U.S. when people were crazy about the boba from Taiwan.

Generally speaking, the diffusion of Asian culture in Denver makes huge impacts on both areas (being influenced area and origin area) in positive and negative ways.