The sallow cheeks and strikingly small stature of the Sichuanese do not betray the culinary peculiarity associated with the region an experience in which traveler's curiosity, coupled with ignoble hubris, led me to partake. It was by far the most unique dining experience I'd ever had.
BiXia, precisely eight years my senior (by curious coincedence we share a birthday) was seated across from me. Between us, straddling the diameter of the large hole cut into the table, was an igneous cauldron of mephestous, red oil and lard, bubbling and foaming like rapid, predatory jaws.
This was the infamous Sichuan hotpot. At the core of the metal basin rested 'the chaser', a cup of clear broth into which some sparse-looking herbs and a quarted cod carcass had been tossed for flavor. Flanking the viscious conconction wa a bowl of minced garlic and a dish of diced cilantro.
To the left of all that, we lined the three bottles of water we'd preemptively purchased across the street.
Our meal, bland and ecru-hued, soon arrived. Cabbage blooms, raw tofu, sprigs of mushrooms and bean sprouts, gluton cakes and heavy udon were ceremoniously sacrificed into the volcanic pit. Each morsel surfaced momentarily, bloodied, before going limp and falling back into the hot pot's molten depths. We waited for the food to cook, and following my companion's approval, began chop-sticking steaming, zombified food onto our plates.
Sichuanese fare is typically described as 'ma la' - 'la' being the obligatory 'spicy' and 'ma' indicating a hyperbolic (or so I thought) 'numbing'. After a few intensely spicy, but more or less manageable, bites, all oral sensations of taste and temperature had been replaced by an uncanny tingling sensation. It spread out across my lips, up through the cavity between my nose and mouth, and down into my throat, where it seemed to melt the flesh away, like carbonic acid.
Soon, eating was a solely purfunctory activity. We mechanically scooped floating bits of fibrous carrion into our mouths. We chewed, eyes, noses and brows running. We swallowed, paused to afford our ravaged pipes the courtesy of water. Rinsed; repeat.
"I don't reckon Sichuan men try to drink one another under the table," I remarked (gasped) to BiXia, an ecology professor from Fu Zhou. She pointed out that it wasn't tenacious dudes, drunk off cabbages that dined all around us that Mid-Autumn Fest eve, but families. Babies and geriatrics, I supposed, were all busily numbing out there digestive systems to simaltaneously facilitate the feeding. To my mind, it all required a certain degree of madness. By the time we settled our check, we looked as though we'd been sobbing for hours. I thought that we'd probably consummed a little less than a quarter of the veggies we'd ordered, leaving the rest to float and bloat.
I imagined my stomach to be a vat of hot oil and fire. I could feel it roar when I stood up. The lower half of my face had lost sensation altogether. BiXia cheerfully walked and steered us hostel-ward.
BiXia, precisely eight years my senior (by curious coincedence we share a birthday) was seated across from me. Between us, straddling the diameter of the large hole cut into the table, was an igneous cauldron of mephestous, red oil and lard, bubbling and foaming like rapid, predatory jaws.
This was the infamous Sichuan hotpot. At the core of the metal basin rested 'the chaser', a cup of clear broth into which some sparse-looking herbs and a quarted cod carcass had been tossed for flavor. Flanking the viscious conconction wa a bowl of minced garlic and a dish of diced cilantro.
To the left of all that, we lined the three bottles of water we'd preemptively purchased across the street.
Our meal, bland and ecru-hued, soon arrived. Cabbage blooms, raw tofu, sprigs of mushrooms and bean sprouts, gluton cakes and heavy udon were ceremoniously sacrificed into the volcanic pit. Each morsel surfaced momentarily, bloodied, before going limp and falling back into the hot pot's molten depths. We waited for the food to cook, and following my companion's approval, began chop-sticking steaming, zombified food onto our plates.
Sichuanese fare is typically described as 'ma la' - 'la' being the obligatory 'spicy' and 'ma' indicating a hyperbolic (or so I thought) 'numbing'. After a few intensely spicy, but more or less manageable, bites, all oral sensations of taste and temperature had been replaced by an uncanny tingling sensation. It spread out across my lips, up through the cavity between my nose and mouth, and down into my throat, where it seemed to melt the flesh away, like carbonic acid.
Soon, eating was a solely purfunctory activity. We mechanically scooped floating bits of fibrous carrion into our mouths. We chewed, eyes, noses and brows running. We swallowed, paused to afford our ravaged pipes the courtesy of water. Rinsed; repeat.
"I don't reckon Sichuan men try to drink one another under the table," I remarked (gasped) to BiXia, an ecology professor from Fu Zhou. She pointed out that it wasn't tenacious dudes, drunk off cabbages that dined all around us that Mid-Autumn Fest eve, but families. Babies and geriatrics, I supposed, were all busily numbing out there digestive systems to simaltaneously facilitate the feeding. To my mind, it all required a certain degree of madness. By the time we settled our check, we looked as though we'd been sobbing for hours. I thought that we'd probably consummed a little less than a quarter of the veggies we'd ordered, leaving the rest to float and bloat.
I imagined my stomach to be a vat of hot oil and fire. I could feel it roar when I stood up. The lower half of my face had lost sensation altogether. BiXia cheerfully walked and steered us hostel-ward.
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