Food & Cooking (Q&A)

Answer:

Shark-fin soup is considered as a symbol of wealth and prosperity, especially in China and is often served at weddings, banquets and feasts. These soups have very little flavour of their own and their appeal lies more in their texture and their ability to absorb flavours from other soup ingredients like chicken or some other stock, and also because their expense and supposed rarity. Sharks do not have skeleton of bone but of cartilage and the fins contain the most amount of cartilage. According to traditional Chinese, shark cartilage is said to be beneficial in the treatment of many conditions including arthritis, psoriasis (allied to arthritis), rheumatism, eczema, acne, allergies and the most controversial cancer. Shark Fin Soup is essentially a Chinese dish. But it is a very popular dish throughout Asia including countries like Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong and other countries. Because shark meat has a lesser value, the 'Finless' and often still-living sharks are thrown back into the sea to make room on board the ship for more of the valuable fins. When returned to the ocean, the finless sharks are unable to move and either die from suffocation or are consumed by other sharks or animals.

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