I had
alligator soup for the first time the other day, because almost my whole family is sick (except me) and alligator soup is good for
coughs in
traditional Chinese medicine. It's actually alligator meat soup. The meat is dried and you make soup out of it. There are some other
herbs and
berries that my mom added that are equally good for the lungs and throat. The scent is familiar, but
exotic. The alligator meat resembles a lot like dried
squid, but it has a strong scent which I don't know how to describe. It smells good though. There are many types of soups that are good for coughs and oddly, they seem to be all reptile skin/meat soups. If you read the
Dragonlance books, you'll remember that
Bupu (a
Gully Dwarf) gave
Raistlin a dead lizard to put under his throat to stop his coughing.
Alligator soup is sort of a delicacy, it's quite expensive and I don't think we'll be having some any time soon until probably next winter when everybody gets sick again. It tastes quite good compared to a lot of soups that I've had that are supposedly good for you (like ginseng). Well at least some of the family have stopped coughing...