Bird nest

Bird's nest soup is a delicacy in Chinese cuisine. A few species of swift, the cave swifts, are renowned for building the saliva nests used to produce the unique texture of this soup.

The edible bird's nests are among the most expensive animal products consumed by humans. The nests have been traditionally used in Chinese cooking for over 400 years, most often as bird's nest soup.

Since thousands of years ago, the kings and the noble of China has been interested to consumed swallow's nest.
Until now the Chinese still consume it because there are a lot of advantage by consuming swallow's nest, for example :
1. To speed up blood circulation and to refine skin.
2. Strengthen our lungs
3. Maintain our health
4. Also the Chinese have a belief that by consuming swallow's nest can make them to remain young.

The nests are built during the breeding season by the male swiftlet over a period of 35 days. They take the shape of a shallow cup stuck to the cave wall. The nests are composed of interwoven strands of salivary laminae cement. Both nests have high levels of calcium, iron, potassium, and magnesium.


The nests were traditionally harvested from caves, principally the enormous limestone caves at Gomantong and Niah in Borneo. With the escalation in demand these sources have been supplanted since the late 1990s by purpose-built nesting houses, usually reinforced concrete structures following the design of the SE Asian shop-house ("ruko") These nesting houses are normally found in urban areas near the sea, since the birds have a propensity to flock in such places.

This has become an extraordinary industry, mainly based on a series of towns in the Indonesian Province of North Sumatera which have been completely transformed by the activity. From there the nests are mostly exported to Hong Kong, which has become the centre of the world trade, though most of the final consumers are from mainland China. It has been estimated that the products now account for 0.5% of the Indonesian GDP, equivalent to about a quarter of the country's fishing industry.

There are rumors of a rare type of Swallow's nest in Indonesia, only harvested on the island of Flores. It is blue as opposed to white, yellow or red, and sells for approximately five times the price of white nests