Spicy secrets from the queen of the hot pots
Two things rank highly with visitors among reasons for coming to Chongqing: hot girls and hot pot. And both of these are spicy indeed.
Chongqing's hot pot hotshot, He Yongzhi, does not hesitate when asked what makes her home city's signature dish so special.
"Hahah, Chongqing hot pot is all about pretty Chongqing women," said the successful 54-year-old restaurateur and director of Chongqing Hot Pot Association.
Like other local women, He is proud of her delicate skin and slim figure, which she attributes to a lifelong diet of the spicy steamboat stew.
"I have eaten hot pot about three times a week since I was a little girl," she said. "We Chongqing girls just love spicy food and we are never afraid of any skin problems. On the contrary, our skin is very healthy and smooth."
And while the preference here leans towards meat and greasy food, there seems to be few overweight people about. Instead, girls are keen to show off their slender figures in summer.
Science could help explain their spicy good looks. Red chili, hot pot's main ingredient, is rich in vitamin C and provitamin A, which is believed to benefit the skin. Research has shown ingesting capsaicinoids, a phytochemical contained in all chili peppers, has positive health results. Meanwhile, capsaicinoids have become a popular component of weight-loss diets, due to theories they inhibit the growth of fat cells.
Especially in the sweltering summer, eating spicy hot pot has been credited with sweating away the pounds and cooling the body's temperature.
"Chongqing hot pot makes Chongqing women more and more beautiful, but there are some deeper connections between them," He said.
"Chongqing hot pot is just like Chongqing women, spicy, smart and open-minded."
Hot pot cooking is believed to have spread through northern China during the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907). By the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the hot pot was popular throughout China. There are many regional variations, and Chongqing hot pot differs from other styles with its unique numb and spicy soup base, special meats and sauces.
A spice known as Chinese prickly ash, or huajiao, is added to the soup to create a sensation on the tongue that slightly burns and numbs the taste buds. Chinese medicine experts believe that huajiao can alleviate joint and muscle pain, including arthritis, a common illness in humid places like Chongqing.
But in the past, hot pots were a nightmare for most visitors. The fire scared many, while others would wash the food in water before eating it, which destroyed the flavor.
In 1984, He devised the split hot pot - half spicy, half mild. "I was thinking of how to invent a new Chongqing hot pot that could please all the people," she said.
"The double-flavor idea hit me when I saw the two colors of water from Yangtze River and Jialing River at the confluence near Chaotianmen pier." He's innovation soon spread to all the local hot pot restaurants, bringing more and more visitors from other areas.
Traditional Chongqing hot pot uses offal, especially ox stomach and duck intestines, and simple sauce with sesame oil and crushed garlic.
While some of the thousands of local shops stick to the old way of making the soup base, perhaps boasting the freshest and crispiest ox stomach in town, fierce competition among has sparked many recipes.
Today, there are some 15,000 Chongqing hot pot shops around China, and in March, the city made a Guinness World Record, for more than 100,000 people simultaneously eating hot pot.
(China Daily 06/21/2007 page22)
