[Lee Stewart]

Forget caviar and expensive truffles, bird’s saliva is the food of the well-heeled, at least in China anyway. Bird’s nest soup, is an expensive delicacy made from rare bird’s nests created from the saliva of small swiftlets. The nests, which have been used in Chinese cooking for over four centuries, are dissolved in water to make a soup which is believed to have exquisite flavour and be of benefit to health. These bird nests are considered to be one of the most expensive animal food products consumed by humans.