From a really young age, 雪蛤 (xue ha; xue ge; which I recently found out that the English term is Hashima) has been like birds nest, shark fins kind of deli for me.
I used to hear people saying that its another kind of birds nest, just not from the saliva of a bird.
It was also explained to me that it has better health and complexion benefits than birds nest.
I never thought too much of it in detail, as in where it came from till sometime 3 years ago after conversion.
Being a Muslim, whatever gets into my mouth, if I am not sure of it, I will definitely check it out.
It was one fine day while I was pregnant with my son that my mum passed a bottle of Hashima to me.
I screened through the list of ingredients... seems fine to me...until I looked at the words "雪蛤“ again, that urged me to find out more.
The word "蛤" itself refers to frogs, and toads e.g. "蛤蟆" or "癞蛤蟆想吃天鹅肉".
Which, led me to thinking... "are these from frogs? toads? OMG!"
Here are findings I got from "Mr Google":
1. It was a famous dessert ingredient made from the dried fat tissue found near the fallopian tubes of true frogs.
2. Usually from Asiatic Grass frogs (Rana chensinensis).
3. These tissues are good for health and complexion.
4. Many more details which I didn't really want to look further.
According to my knowledge, frogs and toads are not to be consumed by Muslims.
Do let me know privately via emails if you happen to know otherwise.
I do want to find out more about things as a Muslim.
