Chapter 1: What Is Actually Edible Birdnest?

The first time I was introduced to this subject matter, about 5 years ago, I laugth to myself.

What the heck is this Birdnest all about?

I thought all swallows birdnests are made of twigs and grass. How the hell can they be so precious. This guy who first talk to me about it must be a nut case !!!

He was my wife classmate and I happenned to be invited for lunch during one of the CNY reunion.

I was given a seat beside him and I asked him what business was he in. His answer Birdnest Farming. I laught Ha ha ha (inside me of course). In my mind I said to myself this guy was a nuts case. He was crazy and why should I be sitting beside a crazy nut guy?

He was very pesistant and told me exactly what type of birdnest farming was he into.

To make it very simple, he explained that there are two types of swallows birdnests. The first is non edible and the other is edible.

Again the non edible are made of clay or grass/twigs while the edible are those made mainly of the birds saliva.

Just look at these pictures:



Nests that are made of mud which are non edible. Just look at the mud thickness? Do you think people will eat them?

They also seem to have more then two babies?





What about those nests that are made of grass? They look nice but can they be eaten? How many babies to you think they have in one nest?



If you look carefully you will notice that the grass nests are quite delicate. Each grass are being binded with a kind of glue. What glue do you think the bird uses?

If you are not very sure you should ask. They use their "saliva". Not much just a bit, about 10 to 20% only.

Now let us look carefully at the edible birdnests:


Note that they are totally made of saliva plus perhaps some of their feathers.



This is what you are talking about when you said edible birdnest. They look very much like dried agar-agar.



You must remember this white stuff is worth more then a 99.99 pure gold. We call them the "White Gold".