A hand lifts tripe and duck intestine from bubbling red broth dotted with dried chilies and Sichuan pepper, plates of tripe, duck intestine and sliced meat lie beside the pot, and a bowl holds sesame oil with crushed garlic.
Numbing and hot
Introduction
The Sichuan-Chongqing hotpot: a numbing, hot beef-tallow broth in which tripe, duck intestine and other foods are cooked.
Sichuan-Chongqing hotpot is the spicy hotpot of Sichuan and Chongqing: the base is made with beef tallow, the taste is numbing, hot and savoury, and tripe, duck intestine, sliced meat and many vegetables are cooked in it. Diners commonly make an oil dip of sesame oil and mashed garlic, called the soulmate of hotpot. One account puts the origin of Chongqing hotpot in the late Ming and early Qing, though accounts of the date differ. The northern clear-broth copper-pot hotpot belongs to Northern Chinese Hotpot, and the hotpot of Guangdong belongs to Cantonese Hotpot.