When wine meets mala hot pot

There are many versions of hot pot in China but to me the ultimate expression is spicy hot pot, better know as mala hot pot. To many of my international friends in China eating mala hot pot qualifies as extreme eating but for me it's become a culinary essential.

Much more than a dish, mala hot pot is an exhilarating communal experience that uniquely challenges your senses. Mala hot pot is also a bonding experience and an essential rite of passage for lovers of spicy foods. While other styles of Chinese hot pots date back to the earliest Chinese civilization, mala is a more modern rendition of this eating tradition.

The first spicy hot pots started in and around the city of Chongqing at the end of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) nearly 400 years ago. When it was time to eat, traders and boatmen along the great Yangtze River would gather outside around large wood, charcoal or coal fired pots.

They would throw in liberal amounts of Sichuan peppercorns and chili peppers and add buffalo visceral or any other meat and innards they might come across.

By the early 20th century, this rather rough outside culinary experience moved indoors into restaurants and become more refined. Today, it's a treat that can be enjoyed all over China and in many parts of Asia.

A good mala hot pot starts with the soup. The finest mala restaurants boil beef bones and other parts of the cow in large caldrons for hours or even days until the right flavor intensity and consistency is achieved. Then liberal amounts of Sichuan peppercorns, red chilies and chili oil are added and the soup is ready for the table. Essential ingredients to the base soup include duck blood and tofu.

Personally, the highlight of the mala experience is the innards, most notably pig's intestines and beef tripe. Beef or other meat slices as well as beef or pork tendons are also popular. Dumplings, cabbage, noodles and a plethora of other additives are common in modern pots. But all this spicy deliciousness begs the important question of what to drink with mala?

Beer argument

There are some connoisseurs who believe wines don't pair well with spicy foods. Their easy yet unimaginative solution is beer. I disagree with these wine naysayers. Picking beer to accompany mala hot pots is a poor compromise as beer even at its very best is merely a neutral companion to spicy foods and never an embellisher as is the case with the appropriate wine. Essentially these beer advocates have a flawed argument.

Traditional propagators of the belief that spicy foods cannot be paired with wines were principally people from northern Europe who had little appreciation or knowledge of spicy foods. Likewise many of my friends in Guangzhou, Hong Kong and along the east coast of China don't favor highly spiced dishes as their delicate palates become easily overwhelmed when fire meets the tongue. However, food lovers more conditioned to spicy foods are still able to eat spicy food along with the proper wine. Science is also on their side.