Taming the Wild Exotics

Given the propensity of the Chinese for adventurous eating, it is not at all strange that some of the world‛s oddest, most inaccessible foods are prized, and sought, by the Chinese, with little attention paid to expense or risk. Their sea hunters will sail the oceans, or subsidize others to do so, hunting for sharks, particular sharks with particularly desirable dorsal fins, destined for an extraordinary banquet, or simply a bowl of expensive soup. They will employ agile young men to scale steep cliffs in Malaysia and other lands of Southeast Asia to collect the small nests of tiny swifts. They will scour the sea bottoms for fat, gelatinous slugs that they believe enhance male virility. They will spend untold amounts of money for special abalone, which grow only in northern Japan, abalone the Chinese equate with “eating gold.”