Chongqing- Jianghucai, or non-descript cuisine, is a specialty of Chongqing with numbingly delicious spices and tantalizingly refreshing flavors. Hotpot, blood curd soup, chili chicken and mouth-watering chicken are all delicacies that belong to this category known as jianghucai.

These dishes have folk roots that are loosely based on Sichuanese cuisine and embody the unique characteristics of urban Chongqing.

Jianghu cuisine in Chongqing is rich in country flavor. For example, Chongqing hotpot originates from the city’s historical wharf culture, a time when the earliest dock laborers saved money without compromising on taste by stewing innards and vegetables together, adding large amounts of chili, prickly ash and salt. This was the predecessor to the Chongqing hotpot.

(Tu Yuting, an intern, also contributed to this report)