A melting pot of fiery flavors

One of the museum's most striking installations is a towering apothecary-style cabinet, neatly sorting more than 50 spices and ingredients into labeled drawers and viewing windows.

Chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorns, the two most beloved spices in the region, known for their signature spicy and numbing tastes, take center stage in the exhibition. In the numbing spice section, six out of 10 exhibited varieties of peppercorns hail from Sichuan and Chongqing.

Another section is alive with the rustic charm of local life. A traditional kitchen setup features two stone mills at the entrance, with the smaller one dedicated to grinding dried chilies. Tools for processing chilies and large bamboo trays for sun-drying them vividly recreate the entire chili preparation process. Meanwhile, four massive jars seem to hold the very essence of fermented spices.

As visitors move into the Modern Hotpot Culture Exhibition, they enter a scene modeled after Chongqing's iconic "dockside food" culture, with the origin story of the city's signature tripe hotpot and various partitioned pots on display.