In cold weather, there's nothing like hot pot - nourishing, fun, convivial and imaginative. Almost no skill is required. Just dip the colorful array of meats, seafood, vegetables and bean curd into the boiling water. It smells delicious. Noodles are commonly cooked in the nutritious soup at the end of the meal.

Eating hot pot or huoguo (literally "fire pot") is convivial activity, enjoyed by friends and families drawn together by a delicious, healthful meal.

In a hot pot restaurant, gas-fueled or electric pots are provided, usually one per table, occasionally one small one per person.

Order your meats, seafood and vegetables raw. Dip them in the boiling soup to cook, then dip in various sauces. What's left is a nourishing soup. Drink that too.

Hot pot restaurants may offer special-tasting soup stock (tangdi) and sauces, but the main courses are nearly all the same - an assortment of raw food. So the secret is freshness.

It is said that hot pot originated in what is now the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (mutton, of course) and then became an integral part of north China cuisine.

Sichuan Province in the southwest is famous for its spicy chili hot pot. Cantonese light shacha hot pot is popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Beijing Hot Pot

Beijing hot pot, also known as mutton hot pot, features shuanyangrou (fast-boiled lamb). Lamb or mutton are the basics, as they are for nomadic peoples.

Today some Beijing hot pot eateries offer a sectioned cooker bowl with different soups in each section. More traditional establishments serve a mild, fragrant soup in the hot pot. The pot itself is a large brass ring-shaped vessel heated by charcoal in the central chimney. Thinly sliced mutton and other raw food is dipped into the soup.

Sichuan Hot Pot

Spicy Sichuan hot pot is famous for use of the traditional spice known as flower pepper or Sichuan pepper. It creates a spicy, burning and slight numbing sensation.

Sichuan hot pot is also different from the standard because it uses other meats, like beef, pork, chicken and fish, in addition to sliced mutton.

Cities of Chengdu and Chongqing offer their own hot pot styles.

DIY Hot Pot

A round table is best, but any table works.

Place the hot pot in the center and fill it with water or whatever soup you choose.

There will be a lot of food floating around, so don't overfill it.
Prepare sliced fresh ingredients. Most Chinese cook some kind of noodle in the hot pot; you can eat steamed rice on the side.

Each diner needs a bowl, chopsticks (or fork), and a spoon.