Eating the King of Reptiles

Somewhere in my consciousness, I remember eating crocodile meat when I was a little kid. The great chef of our house, my mom, made this dark colored soup and served it to us one night. Of course, we didn't know it was crocodile meat until after the dinner (she somehow fooled us into believing that it was chicken, what a smart trick!) I asked my mom about it recently, and she said the recipe came from my grandmother, a mother to five children and a grandmother to ten grand kids.

Crocodile meat is rare to find in Hong Kong, though I've heard some really traditional Chinese grocery stores still carry them. My mom said she got her crocodile meat from Thailand. Apparently, some relatives of ours bought us little purses made of crocodile skin, and shipped the rest of the crocodile to us for dinner.

My grandmother told my mom to make us crocodile meat soup because this "hot meat" (as supposed to chicken, which is a kind of "cold meat") is a traditional remedies for treating childhood asthma, which my brother had when he was younger. Try searching "crocodile meat + asthma" on google, you will not be surprised to see many successful cases in which crocodile meat really cured asthma. I don't know if this is scientifically proved, but it is believed that crocodile meat also helps strengthen immunity and delay aging.

I forgot how crocodile meat tastes like, except the fact that it wasn't very tender. The soup tasted good, nothing special, but my little brother ends up having his asthma cured. There's something about crocodile meat then...