Hot pot: Not your traditional Christmas dinner

Note: I suggest listening to “火锅底料” (“Hot Pot Soup Base”), an upbeat Sichuanese rap song, as you read the story.

The classic roast turkey with a side of cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes with mouthwatering gravy and apple pie are dishes that have never appeared on my family’s dining table during the holidays. Instead, we serve a traditional Chinese dish when celebrating Christmas: hot pot.

Hot pot, or 火锅 (huo guo), is eaten by dipping raw vegetables and meat into flavorful soup bases, which come in a variety of styles like Sichuan Mala, a spicy and tangy soup (or painful one, if your spice tolerance is low like me), San Xian, a creamy mix of seafoods with an umami taste that explodes on the palate and many more.

The abundance of hot pot restaurants in the Bay Area and their bustling crowds speaks to the popularity of hot pots in celebrating special occasions. Though restaurant-made hot pots are often delicious, they are nothing like the special kind my mom makes: the wild mushroom hot pot, a food native to my mom’s hometown of Kunming, made with her own unique flair.

We don’t have access many of the ingredients for wild mushroom hot pot, like boletus edulis (牛肝菌), collybia albuminosa (鸡纵菌) or others types of mushroom, so my mom uses easy-to-find oyster or king trumpet mushrooms to replicate and capture the freshness of the original soup base. 

On the day of Christmas Eve, my mom prepares her soup base by boiling chicken broth with the mushrooms. Each member of my family has their own soup base preference, so we combat our diversifying opinions in taste by using one special type of pot: the Yuanyang pot.

 The Yuanyang pot is an aluminum pot split down the middle with a curved separator. My mom puts the mushroom base on the side, and based on the majority vote, adds either the Mala or San Xian flavors in the other.

Wild mushroom hot pots are usually eaten with wild mushrooms only, while traditional hot pots include a variety of meats, vegetables, seafoods and soy products. Due to the lack of species of mushrooms here, my mom innovates by mixing in the traditional hot pot ingredients in order to enrich the flavor.

After the preparation comes the best part: gathering around our round dinner table and devouring the feast.  

Lettuce and raw meat line the Yuanyang pot, which is placed on top of a portable stove in the middle of the table, as well as live shrimps, thinly sliced ​​rice cakes, tender tofu pieces, dried mushrooms and fresh fathead fish. 

Wisps of white smoke curl on top of the Yuanyang pot, and the mushroom soup base looks as if it is covered by a thin layer of golden gauze. With a slight stir, mushrooms, ginger, garlic and scallions float to the top, embellishing the soup. 

My chopsticks instinctively reached toward the center of the table, filling in my bowl with soy sauce and peanut butter (a typical dipping sauce for hot pots), as well as the mushroom-infused ingredients. 

The feast begins as we update each other on our lives and play dinner table games like Mafia or Spot the Spy. The lusciousness of the soup base and the variety of raw ingredients mixed with the never-ending laughter-inducing conversations is the essence of Christmas for me. 

Hot pot, aside from the delectable taste, signifies family. The reunion with my uncles, aunts, grandparents and cousins during Christmas is always the most delightful part of my year. For them, it’s the memory of their childhood in Kunming; for me, it’s the comforting and warm atmosphere of a family gathering.