My culinary experiences of shark's fin soup have been resoundingly disappointing. Each spoonful has been fragrant with herbs, salty with ham and chicken broth and the texture of the fin chewy; but beyond that - nothing to write home about. The problem is that the shark fin fibres, known as needles, are tasteless. Excuse my not being a connoisseur, but to my ignorant mind, a synthetic material of the same texture and colour would do the job for a fraction of the price (and among unscrupulous restaurateurs, does).
With this in mind, why are scores of the world's shark species being driven to extinction because of the hunger of Chinese communities for this expensive delicacy? Yes, I know there are centuries of tradition and saving face at important occasions at play, but putting the balance of the ocean's ecosystems in limbo when there are alternatives seems, at best, reckless.
That said, I am not about to advocate banning shark's fin and using substitutes. Rather, I prefer the wisdom of shark experts Julia Baum, of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Shelley Clarke, of Imperial College London, who contend that the world needs better shark fishing management, and education.
Dr Baum, a member of the shark specialist group of the World Conservation Union, said at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston last weekend that sharks are top of the list of marine fish that could become extinct in our lifetimes. A total of 126 of the estimated 400 species are already on the union's red, or alert, list and at least nine more are to be added - the once-common scalloped hammerhead to the fourth-highest category, endangered.
For Dr Baum, the scalloped hammerhead's inclusion is shocking because it was once considered immune to the effects of overfishing as it was so widely distributed. Over the past 30 years, numbers in some parts of the world have fallen by 98 per cent.
The reason for the decline of the species and other shark populations is in that bowl of shark's fin soup I was so nonplussed about. Once reserved for the rich, the rise of a middle class in mainland China over the past two decades has led to exploding demand.
Fish stocks the world over are being strained, so the fact that sharks are also affected may not seem unusual. Dr Clarke said in Hong Kong on Tuesday that sharks were problematic because little was known about their numbers even though they are the top marine predator. Unlike for commercial fish, like tuna, there is no organisation that regulates shark fishing. This, in turn, means that no one really knows how many there are. Only when a species like the scalloped hammerhead is noticeably less prevalent do we get an idea.