Quite often I receive requests from random visitors to provide ideas for recipes – sometimes those requests border on the extreme. One such request landed in my inbox a few days ago. They asked if I knew of any recipes for Shark Fin Soup which, apparently, they were planning to serve at a special gathering on New Years Eve.
The short answer is “No, I don´t”.
The longer answer is I would not, ever, contemplate eating Shark Fin Soup and nor would I ever encourage others to do so because the price is literally too high – it is often associated with extreme cruelty and represents a serious threat of extinction to several species of shark.
The Cost of your Fin
The highest penalty of all comes from the fact that, quite often, these fins are harvested from live sharks – a truly horrendous process which causes extreme pain and stress. After which the shark is often thrown back into the sea because there is little demand for the rest of its flesh. Delightful? I would advise you do not view the following video if you have a sensitive disposition.
If you want to know more about the facts and figures related to the ingredients of your soup then please do refer to Shark Fin Soup: A recipe for extinction.
Here is a short extract:-
A two-metre shark is hauled on board a wooden boat. She lashes about in fear as two sets of human hands attempt to steady her. A third pair of hands, wielding a knife, moves in toward the panicking shark.
As the long blade severs the dorsal fin from her writhing body, pure terror inhabits her dark eyes. Within seconds, the same menacing hands dismember her tail and pectoral fins. The group then rolls the terrified and bleeding shark back into the ocean, where she sinks to an unknown fate.This grisly technique of removing a shark’s fins places prime value on retention of the fins, while the remainder of the shark is generally dismissed as surplus. Shark meat doesn’t generate returns in the same realm as fins, so after enduring the violent removal of their fins, the disabled sharks are typically tossed back into the sea to suffer an excruciating death. (The Scavenger)
The key point of this post is to inform you that The Recipe Blog will never feature a recipe which is the cause of such blatant cruelty to a species already on the point of extinction.
If indeed you did serve the Shark Fin Soup I hope it enjoyable enough to warrant its cost – monetary, ethically and environmentally.
For more information check Stop Shark Finning.