英語口語學習:吃火鍋用英語怎麼說

編者按：在中國，冬天打火鍋是很正常的事情，如果有外國朋友來到你家，奶奶應該怎麼用英語介紹火鍋呢?

Chinese cuisine is full of comfort food, but when it comes to warming winter eats nothing beats hotpot(火鍋/huǒguō). In northern China, where the winters get bitterly cold, you see them everywhere on cold winter nights—hot pot restaurants, glowing in the darkness like real-life, happy friends and cozy couples, laughing around their hotpots as steam wreaths up and fogs up the windows like frost.

Hotpot(火鍋/huǒguō) is a Chinese soup containing a variety of foodstuffs and ingredients, prepared with a simmering pot of soup stock at the dining table. While the hot pot is kept simmering, ingredients are placed into the pot and are cooked at the table. Typical hot pot dishes include thinly sliced meat, leaf vegetables, mushrooms, wontons, egg dumplings, tofu, and seafood. The cooked food is usually eaten with a dipping sauce.

In mainland of China, perhaps you’ve heard that the city of Chongqing 重慶 is world renowned for its hotpot (or at least, you have now) . When you come to try it though, what’s best to put in it? Maybe you should refer to the classic travel mantra, ‘Do as the locals do’. So what do Chongqing locals like in their hotpot?

The first answer, according to a new survey by a Chongqing hotpot restaurant company, is ox stomach(牛肚;niúdǔ), Followed by duck intestine(鴨腸;yācháng), thenbeef(牛肉niúròu), then goose intestine(鵝腸écháng), then sliced duck stomach(鴨肚;yādǔ). Or if those choices don’t take your fancy, maybe a large pig artery or 'duck blood jelly'(豬血zhūxuě;鴨血yāxuě) might.

Survey from 'Hotpot Red Book' by Chongqing Hotpot Association. Photo courtesy of China Daily

These are all some of the favorite dishes of local diners. And they would seem to play to the Chinese stereotype of being fond of eating anything, including various organs of animals.

What would you dare eat?

公眾號：HanFan漢風