A taste for swiftlets
I watch my nephew Phannon as he consumed his big bowl of bird’s nest soup.
We are in our favorite restaurant that offers authentic bird’s nest soup (I have tasted ersatz bird’s nest soup made with crushed pork cracklings). The place is full, today being a Sunday, which is also our family day. Our table is full of conversation, but my eyes are on Pannon.
He makes contented slurping sounds and suddenly exclaims, “Bird’s nest soup is my favorite forever!”
I laugh, thinking just how cautious he is when it comes to what he eats. He’s hardly out of boyhood but he’s already careful with what he eats. He’s taken after his mother, Amy, who would put author and business magnate Martha Stewart to shame.
Amy can be considered an expert in everything related to running a house. When it comes to food, she is more strict compared to the city food inspector. She washes leafy green vegetables in running water for maybe ten times. Not content, she rinses each leaf thoroughly.
Perhaps from watching his mom go through her cooking rituals, Pannon has imbibed the same meticulousness with his food.
Like a good man, I hold my tongue. I know where the main ingredient of bird’s nest soup comes from, and you wouldn’t want to think about it. I don’t. It’s my favorite soup also.
The gelatinous strings in your bird’s nest soup comes from the saliva of the edible-nest Swiftlet or white-nest swiftlet.
Swiftlets, known as balinsasayaw in the dialect, make their nests in caves located in high cliffs. They build the nest in shallow holes in the caves, using their saliva. The opaque product is said to be rich in calcium, iron, potassium and magnesium.
There are bird’s nest gather in Palawan who pass down the trade from generation to generation. They use bamboo poles to help them reach the highest nests, but sometimes they use their skill in scaling the jagged face of the caves without using ropes.
It’s a risky business that offers the nest gatherers an income to feed their families and to send their children to school.
Even if I know the fact about the saliva, I still order bird’s nest soup. I heard that there is cooperative in Palawan that protects the nest gatherers territory and the swiftlets at the same time. By having bird’s nest soup, I am helping the busyador, or bird’s nest gatherer, sustain his livelihood.
I know Pannon likes facts, but the fact about the saliva is not yet for him. He may not be ready for it. Meanwhile, I watch him finish off his soup. I smile. He smiles back. All’s well with the world (from the poem Pippa Passes).