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How To Eat Chongqing Hotpot Without Burning Your Goodman Face Off

by kennyren on 2017年10月12日
How To Eat Chongqing Hotpot Without Burning Your Goodman Face Off

If you haven’t had hotpot, your China bucket list is incomplete and you should feel bad. You`ve probably at least heard about it. It’s a cultural staple, a communal ritual, the equivalent of bonding over coffee, or a socially-acceptable birthday alternative to getting plastered at a bar. And the OG hotpot, the real deal, the fountainhead from which all other hotpots flow, is Chongqing hotpot.

 

Actually it probably originated in Mongolia either 1,000 or 2,000 years ago, sources vary, but we’re not here for a history lesson. Northern hotpot may be the daddy of hotpot, but Sichuan hotpot is its populist, streetwise son. And Chongqing is the birthplace of that spicy, spicy tradition.

It’s straightforward, heavy on spice and fatty bits of meat like pork and beef, especially various bits of intestines, all thrown in together, in a delicious hodgepodge of flavors. The most important taste is from the pot itself; a lot of peppers, including the notorious huājiāo (花椒), which makes up the “” half of the málà (麻辣, “numb and spicy”) tag used for Chongqing hotpot. It’s called numbing pepper because it just sort of shuts down your face with a prickly, tingly burning sensation.

 

To find out how to stop our blubbering and runny noses, we spoke to Macy Lu, owner of authentic Chongqing hotpot joint Badaosifang, to find out exactly how to eat Chongqing hotpot without burning your goddamn face off.

Tip 1 – Less Oil Means Less Spicy

Macy starts with the basics.

“Chongqing spice doesn’t really come from the peppers, it goes into the oil. We throw lots of pepper into it and cook it for maybe 20 minutes. So when you dip into the pot, cook the food and pull it out, the oil is all around it. The oil is why it tastes so spicy.”

“And Chongqing hotpot has a heavy oil percentage, nearly 70% is oil,” Macy adds, with a kind of sadistic relish.

Tip 2 – Drink Soybean Milk, Not Soda

Anything lactose-y will do, whether it’s yoghurt or regular milk. But in Macy’s hometown, soybean milk or dòunǎi (豆奶) has quickly become the standard on offer at any hotpot place. “It’s better than coke or sprite,” she assures us, and we tend to agree. It coats the throat and helps soothe the screaming, ravaged nerve endings in your tongue.

Failing that, you could just fall back on cold water. Alternatively, a cold beer. Or any beer, just have a lot of it, it’ll help with the pain. Eventually.

Tip 3 – Don’t Stop. Don’t Think.

This one comes from Macy’s mother herself; Just don’t stop eating.

When she was young (and hadn’t developed her cast-iron taste buds yet), Macy loved eating spicy dòugān (豆干), which, incidentally, is part of the reason why we don’t believe her for a second when she says “hotpot isn’t even really that spicy”. In between mouthfuls of dried tofu doused in enough spice powder to kickstart a tractor engine, she asked her mom what to do. Her advice?

Tip 4 – Don’t Eat Alone

First, friends will keep you distracted from the incendiary sensation building up in the back of your mouth. You’ll also keep eating to make sure you get at least some of the good stuff before you’re fishing for the bits and leftovers.

Second is the Hawthorne effect, where you perform better when you’re being observed. Surrounded by friends, you’re more likely to suffer through the pain and down that last morsel dripping in hell-oil, beat your chest and roar your triumph to the far corners of the table.

 

-Source from Enjoyshanghai

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One thought on “How To Eat Chongqing Hotpot Without Burning Your Goodman Face Off

  • reachhome
    on 2017年10月23日

    i like it very much

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