Hot Pot
Henan Province, China
November 2015
Whenever I go out to dinner with my Chinese friends, we get hot pot. A huge vat of hot water comes to our table, along with some standard vegetables ( lettuce, carrots, leek, etc). We then order a variety of other foods to our liking.
Most restaurants have a large variety of foods to choose. Many of the foods are foods that I don't come across in my daily life. So I usually start out by asking, "What is this pink food?"
With that, my friend's electronic translator gets whipped out and she searches in frustration because she just can't make the translation. "What's the name of the food that grows nears trees and comes out right after the rainy season?" she will ask.
"Never mind", I respond. I know better. We don't have lots of these foods so stop asking.
We get a variety of things. I never remember the names of them so I can't order them again when we go out again. So Hot Pot is a new food every time I eat it.
