Saturday, October 8, 2011

HOTPOTS



Mom and Dad on our way to dinner out the Little North Gate
On October 1, China celebrated the 62nd anniversary of the founding of Communism.  This holiday is called Golden Week for instead of taking a day off, we had a 7 day holiday.  (Classes that were scheduled for Thursday were made up today and Friday classes will be made up tomorrow).  Lucky for me, my parents visited last week so we spent a week of whirlwind touring around Chengdu and the surrounding area.

Lynn and Mia at our table.  Tons of students were at this campus hotspot for hotpot.

 

Ma and Pa arrived on Friday night and were immediately taken to a hotpot dinner by two of my lovely post graduate students, named Lynn and Mia.   A “hotpot” is a boiling pan of spicy chili oil and broth that is flush with the table.  The gas canister is hidden from view under the table.  You can get the spicy broth which is traditional in Sichuan as well as a mild broth mixture. The round pan resembles a yin and yan symbol with red on one side and white on the other. 

The oil mixture had mushrooms, peppers, and tomatoes as well as unidentified spices in it.


Sichuan is famous for a special peppercorn that I’ve never had in the U.S.  It’s called a huajiao pepper that effectively numbs your mouth.  The food here is not as fiery spicy as New Mexican jalapeno dishes.  What makes the food unique is the use of this huajiao pepper that makes you feel like you are recovering from a dental filling.  It’s an odd yet pleasant culinary sensation to have a spicy bite of food that turns your mouth momentarily numb after you’ve swallowed it.

After the pot of oil is brought to your table to start heating, you are given a long list of ingredients from which to order.  Then, the selections are artfully arranged on a rolling vertical tray contraption.  We nixed the bullfrog, special duck intestine, and duck blood curds and settled instead on sliced lotus roots, tapioca noodles, shrimp dumplings, Chinese cabbage, tender beef, bamboo shoots, and 4 different kinds of mushrooms that were heavenly.  One by one you drop the various ingredients into either side of the boiling oil mixture  So, basically it is fondue Chinese style.  (No chocolate, though!) 
 
After you pull out the ingredient from the oil, you drop it into your own little bowl of oil, vinegar, fish paste, cilantro, and garlic.  Each person decides how much or if any of each of these ingredients he/she wants.  

My parents did a fine job of navigating solely with chopsticks.  I think beer helps!  I’m sure there is a scholarly paper in the making here of studying the relationship between chopsticks dexterity and beer consumption.  The food is so just so fresh and complex that the incentive to use the chopsticks is another factor to mention in this research.   
I must say as a food inhaler that using chopsticks has slowed down my rate of consumption which is certainly another positive quality in a country in which meals are enjoyed and not rushed.  

We spent the rest of the week visiting temples, parks, giant buddhas, sacred mountains, monasteries, and pandas.  More to come!   

Credit to papa for several of the photos in the next few entries.

3 comments:

  1. I think you goofed when you passed up the duck intestines and blood curds, but that's just me. It's good to see your picture with your folks and to hear of your adventures here on your blog. The campus looks gorgeous. Un abrazo fuerte! Nancy

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  2. Glad that you got to try the numbing peppers! That is exactly how I described it - a trip to the dentist's office...it's definitely a different kind of spicy. Thanks for the great blog entries, and have fun with your parents! :)

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  3. So fun for me to see pics of Carl and Terry! And how lucky for you to have them visit. Looks like you had a fabulous time.

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