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Land of Hot Pot
This dish is the one thing that makes Chongqing the most famous nationwide, a cauldron full of red peppers, Sichuanese peppercorns, ginger, and a variety of other spices that can be scintillating to the tongue to say the least. The word “ma” used to describe the effect of the peppercorns is best translated as “numbing”. I often joke that you could save yourself the cost of anaesthesia at the dentist’s office if you go to have your wisdom teeth removed after eating hot pot. One’s mouth can be numbed into submission early in the meal, making more pallatable perhaps some of the more exotic ingredients like phoenix claws (chicken feet), tripe (cow intestines) and coagulated blood chunks (either pork or duck).
Most expatriates in the area including me enjoy heaving the simpler offerings into the boiling vat and fishing out a decent meal of meat and vegetables. It also helps to have a “yin/yang” pot where half is sectioned off and reserved for a clear soup in which to cook the food. I find that not all hot pots are made the same, if there is too much alkali in the mix, I always get a stomach ache afterwords, and the degree of spiciness really affects my enjoyment of the meal. In winter it is really nice to dig in, and is an excellent way to warm up in a hurry and stay warm all night while the food digests. Eating too much spice often leads to Moctezuma’s revenge, even for the locals, so my advice to first time partakers, go easy! The Chinese expression for getting the runs translates to English as “pulling stomach”. That describes it well!
Overall however, hot pot is a very special and treasured meal here for good reason. For veterans, it is a frequent must and the mainstay of local cooking. For rookies, it may be an acquired taste at first, but can be positively addictive after a few dips in the bubbling red stew.
last modified Jun 19, 2004 at 20:24
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