A Beastly Feast

A food show that began airing on local television channel TVB in late February has become the most recent talk of the town because of its “extravagant” content. The program, named “Admiral’s Feast,” created banquets with rare steak-like shark fins that came from vulnerable and threatened shark species, as well as a 20-year-old giant grouper captured in the wild. Anyone possessing the slightest environmental knowledge knows that these two items should absolutely be banned from dining tables.

But it’s also the message behind the program that draws concern: the more rare the food source, the better it is. In its début episode featuring shark fin, the main host “Chee Gor” (renowned chef Wong Wing-chee and the “admiral” of the show) said that to make a “decent” shark fin soup with the proper look and texture the fins need to be taken from larger, older animals.

When he and the guests were eating the steak-like shark fin, they mentioned how rare the fin is, how difficult it is to get a hold of such a big one, how its price compares to a luxury vehicle, and how it supposedly has therapeutic qualities. In the second episode, featuring the vulnerable giant grouper, Chee Gor requested the biggest wild-caught fish from his seafood dealer because his guest refused to eat from fish farms.

The fishermen captured a 180-catty (about 90 kilograms) grouper in the water near Sabah, Malaysia. The fish required six adults to carry it from its temporary-stay fish farm in Hong Kong, before it was sent to the restaurant to be eaten by the show’s opulent guest. The entire slaughtering process was shown. In general, when the guests were enjoying their feast, the most frequent line they uttered was, “it’s so rich in collagen and it must be good for the skin”—the other three co-hosts on “Admiral’s Feast” are former beauty pageant queens.

Some people find the show revolting. A Facebook group, called “Opposing TV show ‘Admiral’s Feast’ in endangering nature’s ecology by recklessly introducing rare food ingredients from endangered species, such as shark fin,” has already attracted more than 11,000 members. As for the TVB’s online forum on the show, frequent complaint messages are left online. “Shame on TVB,” one netizen wrote. “Those species end up in extinction because of you, because you are involved in encouraging people to eat them... This show is extremely outdated. This is not the trend, so why waste so much money on making such lousy show?”

According to the TVB external affairs division, they have received about 30 complaints in total about the program.

Green groups and marine experts are also condemning the TV channel as “irresponsible.” Silvy Pun, a WWF marketing officer for the shark fin issue, thinks TVB should take moral and social responsibility and not encourage people to consume products from endangered species.