When I lived in Jingzhou, we got very attached to our local
Hot Pot restaurant. I’d never heard of
hot pot before Janice, one of our waiban (Foreign Affairs Office employee whose
job it is to deal with foreign teachers), took us there, but after that we
hardly went a week without going back.
I’ve talked about hot pot in this post.
Just before I left China, Jordan, one of my Chinese friends,
helped me find some packages mix to make the boiling spicy soup to do hot pot
at home; I intended to have a party once I got back to the states for my family
and friends to try it. However, I
couldn’t find lotus root, bean sprouts, mahua, rice cakes, or the right kind of
mushrooms in my home town (not exactly a world-culture sort of place); I’d have
to go to one of the international stores in Nashville. Every time I was in Nashville, it was too
late at night, or I was too busy, and I didn’t want to spend the gas just for
that, and you know how it goes…a year and a half later, the mix is still in a
bag in my closet, and I’m a week away from going back to China. It was now or never.
Mom and I made a trip up to Nashville to a place on
Charlotte Pike after work one day; we picked Hayden up on the way. I figured I might find one or two of the
things I wanted, but to my surprise I found all of them quickly. Saturday night, Doug and Sue came over, and I
tried my best to recreate the hot pot restaurant experience.
We used a fry cooker and an electric skillet to get the soup
boiling on the table; Mom and I spent half the morning chopping things to go in
it. We fixed everything I could remember
liking in it, just to try it all: potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes,
cauliflower, lotus root, bean sprouts, mushrooms, rice cakes (not the crunchy
kind health nuts like; these are more like little round rubbery pasta),
chicken, beef, shrimp, and mahua (twisted crackers). We completely covered the table, even though
it was extended with a leaf.
I was so afraid that it wouldn’t taste the same, and that we
would waste all that food, and that no one would like it even if it did taste
right. I’d waited a year and a half for
this, and talked it up for so long—I didn’t want to be disappointed. Fortunately, the Chinese seem to be quite
adept as packaging food in plastic—it was just as I’d remembered it. Hot enough that I drank two cans of Pepsi
during the meal, and with that unique flavor I’ve never found anywhere
else. Mom and Dad and Doug and Sue got
into it, and learned quickly to just keep dumping things in. While I don’t believe it will become their
new favorite meal out as it was for me, as Sue said, it was “a meal I won’t
forget.” I’m glad I got to share a little bit of my China experience with
them.
For a full slideshow of the pictures, go to my photo blog, Foreverfreebird Fotografia.
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