The Risk of Bird's Nest Soup

There is something odd and not altogether natural in the way that we humans anoint certain foods, prepared in a particular way, as a delicacy. This is especially evident for those foods that lack any obvious visual, aromatic or flavorful appeal. In such cases, human desire for such dishes can be understood only in terms of the alleged power of that dish to satisfy some primordial drive, such as enhanced sexual capacity, especially for men. In the pursuit of sexual potency, men from various cultures have for centuries ingested rhinoceros horn, powdered scent glands of bears, and parts or pieces of dozens of other exotica said to have the power to “put a little lead in your pencil”. In South East Asia there is a dish reputed to be a delicacy, but this reputation can be understood only in the context of a firm belief in its potential as an aphrodisiac.

In the Andaman Sea, off the coast of Malaysia and southern Thailand, limestone islands erupt directly and vertically from the ocean floor, often attaining heights of 1000 feet above the sea. These islands are old, 500 million years or so old, mute witnesses to the evolution of life from the fishes of the Devonian, to naked apes in the most recent ticks of the geological clock. The monsoons that sweep this area twice a year cause these islands to be heavily eroded, undercut, broken, striated and otherwise dissected by the ravages of deep time and an infinite solute. The various cracks and crevices provide visual interest for interloping tourists, but they are the homesteads that attract the Cliff Swiftlets, aerial acrobats that eat several belly-fulls of insects each day to fuel their flights. These birds build their nests in the most precarious positions imaginable, but the lift forces offered by the rush of air over their wings on that first step from the nest is a perfect match for their stratospheric lifestyles. Nevertheless, one cannot help wondering what thoughts, what uncertainties, or even what panic goes through the minds of new hatchlings as they step off the cliff, trusting in Venturi’s lift in a world of Newtonian mechanics and the mortal acceleration of gravity.

These Swiftlet nests, tiny things plastered into the crevices in regions so high and so recessed that even high powered binoculars offer but a poor view, must stick solidly to these rock faces for at least the duration of a nesting cycle, supporting both the weight of the nest as well as the weight of the various hatchlings and parents. The nests are kept together with a gelatinous goo, a rubbery substance made from Cliff Swiftlet regurgitation, or - not to put too fine a point on it - Swiftlet vomit. Indeed Swiftlet vomit comes in two colors: red and white; the red variety owing its color to.... you guessed it ....the blood in the vomit of certain Swiftets. It is this congealed vomit, bloody or not, that is the critical ingredient in the eponymous delicacy of these parts known as bird’s nest soup.

If you are like me, you could probably spend the rest of your life with little or no desire to ever sample this dish. Minestrone, Chinese hot-and-sour, or even Campbell’s chicken noodle will suffice to appease our cravings for soup. But apparently, others view the situation quite differently. The going price for this gelatinous goo is currently 100,000 bhat per kilogram of Swiftlet nest, which at a 40:1 conversion rate of bhat to dollars (January 2006), converts to $2,500 per kilo. With the price of a typical meal in a local restaurant costing about 200 bhat, there must either be precious little nest per serving, or an elite clientele ordering from a different menu than you and I see. I imagine that such bird’s-nest gourmands must smuggle something awfully valuable to feed this desire, as there are few ways of accumulating noticeable wealth in this part of the world. It must be that the desire destined to be satisfied by this soup is not hunger in the traditional sense.

Which brings us back to those limestone sentinels, towering straight up from the sea, and to the Swiftlets that inhabit their nether regions. At $2,500 per kilo, these birds, in effect, have a considerable price on their heads, albeit indirectly though the extraordinary value of the nests. In a region of the world where the crew of the local freighter ships earn 300 bhat per day, the 100,000 bhat per kilo for Swiflet vomit provides a considerable incentive to harvest birds’ nests, with each kilo of nest earning what a year of hard labor would bring. This incentive, in turn, has led to the birth of an intrepid brand of rock wall climbing that owes little to the traditions of Royal Robbins and Yves Chinouard. To reach these nests, these Andaman climbers assemble what appear to be the flimsiest bamboo scaffolds the world has seen to help them scale the towering rock faces. Bamboo scaffolding is common in this part of the world. I have seen ten story concrete office building under construction in Mandalay surrounded by bamboo scaffolding, lashed together in geometrically recognizable patterns, to create a suitable work platform that can support workmen and their building materials. But on these limestone cliffs, the scaffolds have no recognizable angles nor lashings. Rather, long bamboo poles appear to be jammed in bundles of a dozen or so against the cliffs, with their ends bound by friction to whatever crevice offers sufficient purchase to support them. Some bundles rise vertically, others lie obliquely against the cliff, still others appear held to the cliff by nothing more tangible than the imagination of those who will ascend them. The climbers reach these islands in the ubiquitous “long-tail” boats common in this part of the world. The boats are tied or held to the rock face below the bamboo scaffold, and up the climbers go, with barely their limbs to support them as they harvest the nests.

It is hard to imagine a misstep that would not be lethal. In many places, it seems impossible to recover the bodies of those whose reach exceeds their grasp. So how effective are these intrepid climbers? On Phetra, one of the larger of these vertical slabs of limestone, there is a hut occupied by two watchmen, whose principle job is to keep an eye out for would be nest raiders. At first I thought this was a welcome sign of a nascent conservation ethic in a part of the world were conservation usually takes a back seat to more pressing worries, like AIDS, or securing enough food to make it through the next day. Alas, my Western environmental optimism was misplaced. The Cliff Swiftlet nests on Phetra are the property of the owner of the nest concession on this particular island, and the guards ensure the nests go to those who own the concession. The owners are not the guys swaying on the end of the bamboo poles, fingers grasping, tendons straining, stretched between a nest and kingdom come.

What of the birds? It is January as I write these lines, an exceedingly pleasant time of year in this part of the world: warm days, mostly gentle breezes, an assortment of fishing and squid boats suggesting some measure of marine abundance. Fish eagles, kites, and frigate birds soar above us daily, sometimes in groups of a hundred or more, marking graceful circles around local thermals. Perhaps there is another region on this earth that the Swiftlets of the Andaman Sea prefer this time of year, for we saw no Swiftlets on our seven days here. I hope that is the explanation, though it is hard to imagine a legal system that could suppress nest harvesting until after the nesting season against market pressures of this magnitude. Perhaps the conservationists of this region will need to advertise Pfizer’s little blue pill as an alternative to save the Swiftlets.

What are we to make of this world in which the cliff climbers risk their very lives, each day, for the 100,000 bhat? Taking the wages of the freighter crew member as a baseline, if a climber can harvest a kilo of nests in a day, he makes a year’s salary in a day, if he doesn’t die. What risks would we take for a comparable gain? Many people risk a few dollars for a lottery ticket with next to no chance of winning, in the hope of a million dollars, and we consider that risk to be normal. At the other extreme, the executives at Enron and WorldCom were making millions per year, yet risked their careers and imprisonment to make yet more millions than they already had. Most of us would consider their pre-risk salaries to be more than enough to live on, and find their actions unfathomable. But let us not forget the Cliff Swiftlets, whose very survival depends upon risk. Perhaps were their nests under the eves of each house, so that sexual potency could be serviced with nothing more risky than a step ladder, bird’s nest soup would never have achieved its exotic reputation for performance enhancement. But as it is, the survival of the Cliff Swiftlets and the cliff climbers is bound together by a contract that neither bargained for. The Swiftlet gambles that its first flight will be a success, and the climbers gamble that their next ascent will not be their last. And the holder of the contract, in a cramped dining room, with steamed-over windows, hunched over a bowl, gambles that this night will be different from all the other nights, and that his soup will have made the difference.