What is shark fin soup?
Shark fin soup is little more than glorified chicken (or other flavoured) soup. The fins themselves have little or no flavour and are used to give texture to the soup. Arguably, it isn’t even the texture that is the main reason for the popularity of the soup. Rather, it is the rarity value and expense attached to shark fin that feeds the dish’s popularity much in the same way as people are willing to pay huge amounts for rhino horns or tiger skins.
