Swallow's Nest? Anyone here ever cook with it?

[CatWoman]

The Iron Chefs are having a "swallow's nest" battle.

UGH!!x(

[Terwilliger]

1. swallow's nest?

what is that, a spice?

[CatWoman]

2. I have no idea

I think it comes from the sea? :shrug:

Anyho, they paid $24,000 for it. I didn't get the quantity, but, still :crazy:

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. It is what it says....

a swallow's nest. Same stuff as the main ingredient in bird's nest soup, if I'm not mistaken. The main ingredient is saliva...not something I'd eat, but then, there's no accounting for taste...

[CatWoman]

5. OMG

Saliva??

UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. Yes, the swallows use saliva to hold the nest together

And that's wherein the taste comes from.

I've never had it, but bloody expensive, and supposed to be tasty.

[KC21304]

3. I think it is a reall swallow's nest and they use it to make soup.

Don't ask me how they clean it, if they do. Maybe the flavor is better if they use it as is. LOL.

[jumptheshadow]

7. Actually, swallow's nest is a delicacy

Much better than the eel contest.

The Fat Ladies used to cook some pretty gross stuff. But the Iron Chefs outdo them all the time.

[kayleybeth]

8. Not me

But I have a friend who knew some folks who cooked and ate a human placenta once. Then they used the broth to make tea. They weren't cannibals or anything, it was just a ritual of celebration after the wife had given birth to their first child. Sorry, but ICK.

What is "swallow's nest"? The bird's nest? If it's just a bird's nest you'd think it wouldn't be that expensive.

[Fuzz]

9. Um, hmmm, um, :::shudder::: speechlessness,

bad taste in the back of my throat, wishing I hadn't read that. . . .um. ick.

:puke:

[kayleybeth]

10. I know

Kinda makes the swallow's nest seem less disgusting, saliva and all.

[Philosophy]

11. Actually eating placenta is a completely natural thing

Individuals in all mammal species do it. For carnivores it has high nutritional value - it's a fresh, undiseased piece of meat, and herbivores eat it even though they can't digest it very well probably primarily to hide the evidence from predators that there is a weak newborn animal around.

Plus placenta is full of hormones that can reportedly alleviate some of the physiological distress of recovering from a delivery and post-partem depression.

Women probably do have some instinctive urge to eat the placenta raw immediately after giving birth, but they have usually been psychologically conditioned by civilized society to to view such an act with revulsion. Some primitive societies like tribes in the Amazon still promote the practice though.