Hot pot is a meal usually eaten in the winter season in the past. When chilly temperatures and frigid winds prevail over the land, people like to eat food that instantly warms their bodies and lifts their spirits. For that, the hot pot is a delicious and hearty choice. With air-conditioning in the house, hot pot is now an all-season meal. Families or groups of friends sit around a table and eat from a steaming pot in the middle, cooking and drinking and chatting. Eating hot pot is a shared cooking activity. Each diner selects his or her choices of prepared raw food from plates scattered around the table, places them in a small strainer, puts them in the pot, waits for them to cook, moves them out of the broth, dips them in the preferred sauce, and then eats them hot, fresh, and tender.

Wei_Lo - "to 'circle' a hot pot " in Chinese - has a deep and profound meaning to the Chinese, who strongly emphasize family and clan. It is cozy, yet informal. It's not a banquet, yet it can take as much time as one. It uses a single pot, yet is varied in ingredients, sauces, and cooking styles. The sense of togetherness soothes their hearts.

The hot pot (For_Wor) has a long history in China. It originated in the north, where people have to fend off the chill early in the year. It spread to the south during the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-906). Later, northern nomads who settled in China enhanced the pot with beef and mutton, and southerners did the same with seafood. In the Ching dynasty, the hot pot became popular throughout the whole area of China.

The pot itself is usually ceramic or metal. In the past, charcoal was the fuel of choice. Nowadays people use mostly gas or electricity for this purpose; only the most nostalgic use charcoal. Some of the pots using charcoal are equipped with a chimney in the middle along with a valve for controlling the size of the flame.

The broth is prepared well beforehand and is made by boiling beef, pork, or chicken bones. More and more people are now using canned broth or ready-to-use broth mix. Meat, seafood, vegetables, tofu, and noodles are the most popular ingredients. Freshness commands although precooked meat and seafood -often in the form of balls - are also served. Pork, beef, and chicken are often presented side by side. Meat should not be cooked too long; otherwise it will lose its tenderness. It's best for the meat to be cut as thin as possible, and that's why a sizable piece of meat often shrinks to a small bite after being boiled.

Seafood usually includes shrimp, crab, oysters, clams, squid, cuttlefish, and fish fillet. To make sure the morsels do not drift away or sink to the bottom or hide somewhere, a small strainer in which each diner can hold onto his or her delicacies is used.

Popularly used vegetables are suey choy, bok choy, spinach, turnip, green onions, and lettuce. Lettuce is a special favorite among diners for its tender, crispy, and sweet nature. Fresh vegetables should be boiled only lightly. Mushrooms of various kinds, dried or fresh, are widely used. Bean curd and noodles serve as more than just fillers. They do not have much taste themselves, but they absorb the richness of the other ingredients. Noodles are usually cooked later to help finish up the soup. Consistent with Chinese culinary thrift, nothing is wasted.

The sauces are prepared before the meal. Most consists of oil, soy sauce, vinegar, chili and pepper. Some people like to beat a fresh egg, or just the white of it, into the sauce. Like other Chinese cuisine, people in different provinces of China consume their indigenous kinds of hot pot. Individuals have also developed their own styles combining specialties of several provinces and foreign varieties of Korean, Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese hot pots.