Winter treats

But when it comes to trendsetting hotpots, you have to hand it to the Hong Kong foodies.

It first started with humble steamboat stalls that popped up in the winter in back alleys. Each low wooden table had a charcoal burner with a pot of simmering stock, and a metal tray loaded with slices of meat, oysters, clams, chicken wings, vegetables, mushrooms, fresh tofu and dried tofu.

From these pop-up daipaidong, the Hong Kong hotpot went upmarket into restaurants offering top-grade well-marbled beef, feiniu huoguo.

Several reincarnations and many decades later, the current craze is for tonic soup hotpots that are full of natural collagen. The stock is usually made of pork hocks or shark cartilage and a secret blend of dried herbs.

The hotpot is now a sophisticated gourmet meal, but it started as a convenient way to use up meat and vegetables while eating around a warm fire in winter.

In almost every city in China, you can enjoy an excellent hotpot with regional characteristics, from chicken, beef and lamb to very special local ingredients.

In Sanya city in Hainan island, they use coconut water and chicken for a tasty hotpot.

Once, on a visit to Jingning county in Yunnan while visiting Admiral Zhenghe's hometown, we had a hotpot made with pigs' trotters flavored by an aromatic but extremely tart suanmugua, a local fruit known as "sour papaya".

This rustic hotpot was one of the most delicious I had ever eaten.