Chongqing hot pot stands out for its distinctive features—numbing, spicy, fresh, and fragrant—embracing a wide variety of ingredients with unique seasonings, bold flavors, and unrestrained dining styles, which allow it to become an absolute must-try food when visiting Chongqing.
Rooted in the city's dockworker culture, Chongqing hot pot traces its origins back to the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Laborers and boat trackers along the Yangtze and Jialing Rivers gathered cheap beef offal (such as tripe and pork aorta) from the riverbanks, cleaning and tossing it into a pot with fiery seasonings like chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, ginger, garlic, and salt. Then they boiled these together. This hearty dish not only filled their stomachs but also helped ward off the cold and dampness. Over time, it evolved into Chongqing's earliest and most iconic spicy tripe hot pot.
When it comes to making toppings, authentic tripe hot pot is known for its intense flavors and heavy use of oil. The traditional broth is prepared with Sichuan Pixian bean paste, fermented black beans, beef tallow, and Sichuan peppercorns. The process begins by melting beef tallow in the pot over high heat, then adding finely chopped Pixian bean paste until it simmers in a rich red oil. Next, add the peppercorns, sautéing them quickly until they smell fragrant. Then put beef stock in it, along with mashed fermented black beans, crushed rock sugar, aged ginger, salt, cooking wine, fermented glutinous rice, dried chilies, and over a dozen spices for a slow simmer.
A traditional Chongqing hot pot is typically paired with either a "sesame oil dip" or a "dry spice mix." The sesame oil dip blends sesame oil, minced garlic, scallions, and oyster sauce, which can be customized according to personal taste. Dipping ingredients into it helps cool them down, balance the spiciness, and enhance the aroma. The dry mix, on the other hand, combines chili powder, crushed peanuts, sesame seeds, and other spices.
Hot pot ingredients usually include offal, meats, and vegetables, cooked in order of required boiling time. Offal like tripe, pork aorta, duck intestines, and duck blood are typically cooked first, followed by meats such as spicy beef marinated with egg whites and chili powder, tender beef slices, and thick-cut pork. Vegetables like preserved mustard stems, pea shoots, wide sweet potato noodles, and potato slices are added last.
By the end of 2024, Chongqing was home to 17,700 hot pot businesses and 37,000 restaurants, with the total value of the industrial chain reaching 300 billion yuan. From hillside stalls to alleyway eateries, roadside setups to stairway joints—hot pot is everywhere in Chongqing. Among them, the "Pipa Yuan Shi Wei Xian" Hot Pot in Jinshu Village, Nan'an District, spans 50 acres, featuring over 800 tables that can seat nearly 6,000 diners. In July 2022, it earned the Guinness World Record for the "World's Largest Hot Pot Restaurant (by seating capacity)."
Gathered around a bubbling pot, laughing and chatting loudly, the Chongqing hot pot embodies the city's bold, unbridled spirit, mirrored by the straightforward, resilient nature of its people. More than just a dish, it's a bond of shared joy, a simmering passion that flows through every street and alley of this mountain city.
(Reporters & Camerapeople: Qian, Sammi; Editor: Yi; Translator: Zeng Shiwei; English Editor: Darius)
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