The boiling
soup, raw meat, fresh seafood and season’s vegetables lay out on the table. Six
of Jody Lin’s friends get together around a big pot and dip the food into soy
sauce, chili oil and vinegar. People try to warm their bodies with hot food on
a cold day. The hotpot season is here.
The University
of Kansas Data Analyst, Jody Lin who start cooking on a daily basis about eight
years now. Jody and her friends often get together for hotpot in the
wintertime.
Although some
eat hotpots year-round, fall and winter are the biggest season for people to
eat hotpots.
“Winter is the
best time for us to sell hotpots,” the manager of the Panda & Plum Garden, Raymond Peng
said. “We sell about 30 more hotpots
than the summer time last year.”
History
The hotpots exist
since 16 century
B.C. According to the chinahighlights.com
it was invented for people who live in the north part of China to defend against
cold weather. It spread out to the south during the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-906).
People who live in northern China started to put beef and mutton in the soup,
and southerners did the same with seafood. Then hotpots become one of the popular
dishes throughout the whole area of China.
“I’d like to
have it when the weather is cooler in fall and winter,” Lin said. “I rarely
have hotpots during the summer.”
Hotpots
There are many
kinds of hotpots: Mongolian style, spicy, seafood, and ginger duck, etc. The
most common one in United States is that people use a pot that has a divider in
the middle, so people can have spicy soup in one side and non-spicy soup on the
other side. Then people usually put sliced beef, pork, lamb, meatballs, tofu, and
daikon. Other popular food to put in the hotpot is mushrooms, dumplings,
shrimp, squid, sliced fish and vegetables.
“People can just
put about anything they like into the hotpot,” Lin said. “Just throw the food
in the pot and let it boil.”
 |
| The food are led on the table ready for cooking-By Johnny Chen, 2012 |
Start to eat
One of the
places people in Lawrence can get the hotpots is Panda & Plum Garden. It is
$18 per person and the restaurant requires at least two people per hotpot.
Customers must make a reservation.
“We prefer that
people make a 24-hour reservation, so it gives us time to prepare the food and
vegetable,” Peng said.
There are other places surve hot pot: Hibachi Grill SupremeBuffet, 8 Flavors, and King Buffet. Also, people who
would rather cook their own hotpots at home can find the materials and
ingredients at Oriental Market or 888 International Market in Overland Park, Kan.
“It’s super
easy to make it,” Lin said. “When the weather is cold, the hot soup keeps you
warm.”
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| Sliced beef, vegetables, and golden mushrooms in hotpot-By Johnny Chen, 2012 |
Reported by Hao Hsuan Niu in Lawrence Kansas.
