The Rise of Malatang: From Sichuan Specialty to Northeast China Favorite

01 The Origin of Malatang

In Sichuan, Malatang is considered a magical thing.  

If you ask Sichuanese what Malatang tastes like, many will be stunned for a long time. They will go through the appearance of hot pot, marocain, hot pot skewers, cold pot skewers, Bobo chicken, and other "hot pot delicacies" in their heads, and then continue to be stunned for a long time and still can't say what Malatang tastes like. 

Why does this interesting phenomenon happen? We have to start with the birth of the hot pot.  

The birthplace of modern hot pots has always been a controversial topic.

The first appearance of hot pot as a form of food was in the Western Jin Dynasty, more than 1,700 years ago. Zuo Si, a famous writer in the Western Jin Dynasty, recorded it in his "Ode to the Capital of Shu." "Sitting in the golden fortress, with food and dishes laid out on four sides, with clear wine and fresh fish with purple scales," just a few sentences outlined the prototype of a hot pot.

It is suspected to be an ancient hot pot container

Modern hot pots officially appeared on people's tables during the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty (1821-1851). During this period, there was a disagreement about the birthplace of the modern hot pot, with some saying it was in Leshan, some saying it was in Luzhou, and some saying it was in Chongqing.

Let's first look at the theory that originated from Xiaomitan in Luzhou.

At that time, boatmen along the Yangtze River often stopped at Xiaomitan to rest. They cooked soup in a clay pot, adding chili peppers to enhance flavor and Sichuan peppercorns to remove dampness. They also cooked various vegetables. This convenient and delicious eating method quickly spread throughout the Sichuan and Chongqing regions along the Yangtze River.

Boatmen on the Yangtze River should have created the prototype of a modern hot pot during the Qing Dynasty.

This statement has three keywords: the Yangtze River waterway, boatmen, and earthenware jars.

These key points explain modern hot pots' spread, eating methods, and diners. The birthplace of modern hot pot is roughly a dock on the Yangtze River. As for who came first and who came later, it is just a matter of months. When food is the most important thing, it does not seem so important.

There is some controversy over the birthplace of modern hotpot, but the origin of "malatang" is relatively unified.

The origin of Malatang is generally recognized to be in Leshan, Sichuan, which was once one of the essential docks on the Yangtze River. There is an interesting phenomenon here. The same way of eating by boatmen, "stacking stones, setting up earthenware pots, and putting two peppers into the pot to cook," became the prototype of the Chongqing hotpot we are familiar with in Chongqing and became Malatang in Leshan.

At that time, some bangbang (a laborer who worked with a bamboo stick) in Chongqing saw the boatmen eating this way on the riverside, so they went to the slaughterhouse to pick up some discarded cattle offal and cooked it the same way. After a while, some intelligent people carried a load, put beef offal and side dishes on one end and a stove on the other, put a large iron basin with grids on the stove, and went from street to street to sell it daily.

At that time, a magazine in Chengdu called "Fengtu Shizhi" described a scene of a hot pot being eaten in Chongqing.

"The hot pot of eating buffalo tripe originated in Jiangbei, across from Chongqing. At first, the peddlers would buy the buffalo's internal organs, cut the liver and tripe into small pieces, and put a clay stove on the stall. A large iron basin with compartments was placed on the stove, and a spicy and salty marinade was boiling. So, the riverside and bridge laborers gathered around the carrying pole to enjoy it. Each person picked a compartment and ate it while it was hot. The amount of money was calculated according to the amount of pieces eaten... It was not until the 23rd year of the Republic of China that a small restaurant in Chongqing City made it noble and moved it from the stall to the table."

So, what did Leshan's Malatang look like back then?

The intelligent people in Leshan use bamboo sticks to string up all kinds of vegetables and offal and put them in a big bamboo basket. Their belongings include a tricycle, a small pot, and a coal stove are all their belongings. They ride tricycles and shout in the streets. Once the kerosene stove is lit, the pot is cooked, and the simple tables and benches are set out, diners will naturally come. When the diners finish eating, the vendors will charge according to the number of bamboo sticks.

Look familiar, right? That's right, the na. Outsiders gave "Malatang" the name of eating "Malatang." In Chengdu, strings of dishes have become "Chuan Chuan Xiang," leaving a fragrance in every mouthful.

In the early years of Chengdu, there were tricycles selling spicy hot pots in every street and alley.

So the question is, why does "Malatang" become "Chuan Chuan Xiang" when it arrives in Chengdu?

At the time, "malatang" was a fashionable new word in Chengdu explicitly used to describe hot pots. The word "Chuan Chuan Xiang" was born to distinguish it from hot pot.

To digress a little, the name "Chuan Chuan Xiang" is a typical Chengdu dialect. The dialect often uses duplicated characters and erhua sounds, such as "盖盖儿," "瓶瓶儿," etc. Chuanchuanxiang is pronounced "Chuanchuanerxiang."

At that time, Chengdu's "Chuan Chuan Xiang" was considered a national delicacy.

At that time, whether you were on the bustling Qingnian Road or the brand new Weicheng Road (now the First Ring Road), you could see young people sitting on the side of the road, surrounding a small stove, picking up skewers from the pot one by one.

In the past, eating Malatang was like this: pots and dishes were placed along the street, and you would sit down and start eating directly. 

At that time, the most popular skewers were at the shopping mall entrance. At first, the main meat dish was rabbit kidneys, two corners per skewer, three per skewer, and eaten with dried chili peppers, which was very delicious. Later, more and more skewers were sold, and you could see a lot of vendors setting up stalls everywhere in Chengdu, and some vendors also sold beer. The people who eat skewers are pleased with a sip of beer and a skewer of vegetables; the people who eat skewers are pleased.

Seeing this, the question arises: Why do Leshan's "Malatang" and Chengdu's "Chuan Chuan Xiang" appear in Northeast China, thousands of miles away, and become famous dishes in Northeast China?

02 History of Malatang Taste Changes

If a Sichuanese goes to the northern region for the first time, they will most likely have some doubts.

Why can you see shops that claim to sell "authentic Sichuan spicy hot pot" on every street corner in northern China? Please clarify if you go in to find out. You can pick up your favorite ingredients from the vegetable rack with a small bowl, pay the bill, and wait anxiously for your spicy hot pot to be served. When you see a bowl of milky white soup with a lot of red oil in it, you will exclaim.

“Isn’t this Chengdu’s maocai?”

Yes, in a sense, the "malatang" common in northern China can be understood as the "baiwei maocai" in Sichuan. It is from the same lineage as the "malatang" in Leshan and the "Chuan Chuan Xiang" in Chengdu, but they are entirely different.

The migration of humans and food is a long and tortuous journey. Various integrations and rejections will always occur when food from different regions collides. Perhaps it is total denial or integration and improvement.

When it arrived in Northeast China, "Sichuan Maocai" became "Sichuan Malatang." Although it was only a few words change, the process involved was a difficult adjustment and localized concession.

If we look into the origin of Sichuan Maocai, we find that it was born from the improvement of the hot pot, which can be roughly understood as a simplified version.

Sichuan Maocai was originally called hot pot dishes. You can think of it as hot pot dishes cooked and served in small bowls. The word "mao" in "maocai" is very vivid. The term "mao" means rising, such as sweating and smoking. The "mao" in "maocai" is an action. The bamboo basket on the mobile phone is filled with the dishes selected by the diners, and it is blanched and cooked on a boiling hot bottom. This is very similar to using chopsticks to pick up the ingredients and flip them up and down in the hot pot base.

In the Sichuan area, Moroccanain can be divided into three types: the standard hot pot Moroccanain, the brine Moroccanain, whose base is improved with brine, and the relatively rare plain water Moroccanain. This type of Moroccanain involves putting the dish into a bowl after it is cooked and then adding spices to season it before eating.

Maocai is one of the favorite lunch choices for young women in Sichuan nowadays.

The way to eat Chengdu Chuan Chuan Xiang has some limitations. For example, the straightforward Chongqing people prefer to avoid the troublesome way of putting the food on the skewer and then taking it off. However, Sichuan Mao Cai is much more flexible. Around 2000, the way to eat Sichuan Mao Cai became famous all over the country, and the shops were opened directly at the doorsteps of people in Northeast China.

What does it mean for a person from Northeast China to eat Sichuan maocai at home? Northeast Malatang was born in this context.

The story behind Sichuan Maocai is the rapid expansion of Sichuan restaurants. At that time, restaurants beyond Sichuan deliberately chose spicy and greasy dishes as their main dishes, which was very much in line with the Chinese people's demand for stimulating taste. Sichuan Maocai was no exception.

At that time, although Sichuan marocain had made many concessions and improvements in the Northeast region, such as reducing the spicy taste and weakening the greasiness of the soup base, it still took some time for the Northeastern people to accept it.

So, people from Northeast China began to think about improving Sichuan maocai.

Sichuan people do not accept the authentic northern flavor, so improvement is inevitable.

Sichuan cuisine is spicy and hot, which is acceptable in general Sichuan dishes. Still, in the spicy hot pot with more soup, mainly when the vegetables absorb a lot of water, this taste makes many Northeastern people unable to eat it. Therefore, the soup base is the first thing to be improved in Sichuan spicy hot pot is the soup base.

At that time, beef bone soup was a trendy dish in Northeast China. She drank beef bone soup, which was the most comfortable thing to do, and she ate bone spinal cord in the winter, which was the most comfortable thing to do.

After continuous trials, the original spicy soup was reduced, the proportion of red oil in the soup was reduced or eliminated, and rock sugar and whole milk powder were added to the beef bone soup as seasonings. Finally, the Northeast version of "Sichuan Spicy Spicy Hotpot" presented to diners became a milky white soup with a sweet and salty taste and a spicy soup base that can be drunk.

If we ask what the Northeastern version of Malatang and the Sichuan version of Malatang have in common, besides being hot, it's probably the numbness.

Adding a chili sauce is also an improvement, but the effect is a matter of opinion.

Peppercorns give Sichuan its "numbing" taste, while the mellow aroma of sesame paste in Northeast China gives it a different flavor.

If you look closely at malatang restaurants in Northeast China, you'll always see three things on the menu: chili oil, vinegar, and sugar.

So the question is, why is there no sesame paste?

No boss of a spicy hotpot restaurant in Northeast China dares put sesame paste on the table. People who love sesame paste will keep adding it whenever they get it, wishing that every meridian on every dish is covered with sesame paste. Sesame paste is to people in Northeast China what spicy food is to people in Sichuan.

What would two tablespoons of sesame paste taste like added to the white soup base? Northeastern people will enjoy it; this is the taste of Northeastern spicy hot pot. Sichuan people will sneer at it. What kind of spicy hot pot is this? This is an exciting change in food during migration.

03 Why Malatang can gain a foothold in Northeast China

A fundamental reason why Sichuan people like to eat Chuan Chuan Xiang, Mao Cai, and Bobo Chicken is that they are cheap.

Although modern hotpots were first created by boatmen who picked up refuse to satisfy their appetites, the Chengdu people, who loved to eat food, later made "eating hotpots" something highbrow. Ordinary people were not allowed to eat them.

For example, at that time, there was a restaurant called "Jingchengyuan" in Chengdu, which was very famous for its Chengdu hotpot. Invite three friends and order eight meat dishes and five vegetarian dishes. A small charcoal stove was placed on the table. There was no tripe, duck intestines, beef fat, clear oil in the pot, and sometimes no chili. Various vegetarian dishes were placed in exquisite small dustpans, and myriad beautifully presented meat dishes were placed on porcelain plates.

A small courtyard, a pot of wine, a small charcoal stove, three or five good friends, and seven or eight dishes: this is a Chengdu hotpot.

Later, hotpot restaurants in Chengdu became increasingly grand, with their halls often covering several hundred square meters and tables seating more than ten people. A casual meal there would cost an ordinary citizen nearly half a month's salary for an ordinary citizen.

Therefore, a simplified and cheap version of hot pot skewers was born in this environment. From the way bamboo sticks are, we know that this is a very affordable delicacy. You can satisfy your appetite with just one or two yuan. If you are still unsatisfied, you can ask the boss to make a bowl of sweet potato noodles as a staple food. This is also the origin of Chengdu's famous delicacy, "hot pot noodles."

Why is the Northeast version of "Sichuan Malatang" so prevalent in Northeast China? The answer is the exact two words: cheap.

Sichuan Malatang gained ground in other provinces in the late 1990s when layoffs hit Northeast China. Many Northeast workers who lost their jobs chose the catering industry, which had a lower threshold, to make a living. Many Northeast people also needed a new and cheap delicacy, so Malatang made its grand debut.

The Northeastern version of Sichuan Malatang is simple to make. Once you have mastered the soup base or purchased ready-made soup base packets, the rest of cooking the ingredients only requires accumulating experience through practice.

Malatang's incredibly inclusive nature gives it endless possibilities. You can add carrots, potatoes, and Chinese cabbage to the pot, fat beef balls and shrimp dumplings, and even instant noodles and dumplings. It can be eaten with white and red flavors for lunch or dinner, and older people and children can eat it. Malatang, a highly adaptable food suitable for many people, quickly became a "popular delicacy."

From another perspective, this way of putting various ingredients in a pot and cooking them is similar to the Northeastern hotpot.

If you have been to Northeast China, you will be surprised that Sichuan Malatang is not the only one with this "improvement" fate. Yunnan's cross-bridge rice noodles, Korean cold noodles, and Eastern European red sausages can't escape the fate of being localized and improved in Northeast China.

If you consider it carefully, this is a food integration and migration. This process not only brings the culture of the food's birthplace but also inherits the unique culture of where the food is received. At this time, the word "authentic" no longer matters.

There is no such thing as authentic food; as long as it tastes good, it's better.