Conquering my fears one hot pot at a time

It's sort of hard to be afraid of meat and live in China. There are just way too many times when you have no idea what it really is you're eating and no choice other than to eat it (read: our school's cafeteria). However, despite guessing at this fact prior to my ex-pat days, I came to China deathly afraid of meat. Similarly, my mom successfully nailed the mantra into me: "if it's pink in the middle, it's done too little," and while I still live by these words, the interpretation has changed. Rather than fearing the unknown or seemingly underdone, I've learned to dive headfirst into that great mystery called meat. Two ways I've done this most successfully are two of my favorite types of meals here in China: hot pot and Korean barbeque. Both involve uncooked meat and lots of things I probably never would've done in the States.

Hot pot is what it sounds like. (The picture above is me enjoying hot pot Saturday night.) It's a big boiling pot of spicy soup into which you add vegetables, meat and noodles and cook them up yourself in the company of friends. My favorite hot pot items are potatoes, lotus root, and any meat I can get my chopsticks on. Plates of strips of uncooked lamb and beef are brought to the table where you toss 'em into the pot to let them cook up for a couple minutes, then take them out and eat them up. Some people rave about the peanut sauce for dipping, I prefer the taste of the hot pot alone.

The second is Korean barbeque, which I think you can find in the States. Actually, I think Matt Dodd in his Cabinet food column days reported on a Korean BBQ place in Beaver Falls. Like with hot pot, again, strips of meat (add chicken and pork) are brought to the table, all spiced up, and you throw it over a flame (hence the name barbeque) and let it cook up. We order veggies and it comes with a great Asian sauce of some sort. Delicious.

Though these meals may sound great to you, to me in my pre-China days I would've been petrified of the rawness, possibility of under-cookage and just well, of the meat. Fortunately my taste buds and my stomach have changed a lot since then and me and meat are a lot friendlier than we used to be.