Zen in a Hot Pot

Part of TS's job involves traveling to different parts of China two or three times a year, and his company maintains an office in Shanghai. He has visited Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and other smaller (by Chinese standards) cities in South China. Occasionally the process works in reverse, and one of his company's Shanghai employees travels here. That is what happened this week.

O works closely with TS, from across the world, on a near-daily basis. He arrived from Shanghai early last week for a brief stay. We were fortunate enough to get to squire O about for dinner several times this week, and we thoroughly enjoyed his company. He took an immediate liking to TK, having left his two-year old son with his wife in Shanghai. Upon entering our dwelling, O instantly pronounced it much too large for three people, and if you think about it, he probably has a point.

D, another of TS’s co-workers, is a native of Taiwan. We were invited to her house last night, along with O, for dinner. It was wonderful.

We arrived at her house after getting almost hopelessly lost (she lives across town in an area we are not yet familiar with). I’m certain at some point O was wondering whether all Americans drive in this same directionless manner, making turns willy nilly and often reversing course altogether for no sufficient reason. At length, though, we arrived, and after the obligatory observation that D’s house was far too large for D, her husband and her three-year old daughter, we sat down to eat.

D and her husband (who owns a Chinese restaurant in town) had prepared something called a “hot pot,” which is something akin to fondue, only Asian style and without the cheese. In the middle of the table was a heating element not unlike a hot plate, except with many more sophisticated buttons and switches. On top sat a large, shallow stainless steel pot, divided in the middle. On each side of the pot simmered a broth of some kind. One was very spicy, and the other was just delicious, and each contained a number of items including shiitake and enoki mushrooms, fish cakes, and various other types of seafood.

D had set out next to the pot a vast array of dishes containing yet more mushrooms and seafood, scallops, calamari, shrimp, crab legs, long strips of beef and sushi-like rolls. We were to take the items we wanted, place them in a metal utensil with a mesh basket on the end, and lower them into the cooking medium until cooked to our satisfaction. Then bowls were passed around into which we could mix the sauce that we wanted to dredge our food in after it was cooked. We were offered soy sauce, minced garlic, fresh herbs, sesame oil, rice vinegar and a sort of hot pepper sauce. I used everything but the hot pepper sauce.

Then D’s husband brought out an enormous bottle of sake, and the meal began in earnest. I haven’t enjoyed a meal this much in a long time. Aside from the food, which was marvelous, the thing I enjoyed most about this manner of eating is that it demands a slowness and deliberation that immeasurably deepens the experience. In this way, it is a decidedly un-American way to eat.

We lingered over the meal for two hours, alternately dipping, dredging and savoring amid bits of conversation and laughter.

We asked D whether she eats like this all the time, or only for special occasions. “Oh, all the time,” she said, “whenever I don’t really feel like cooking.”