Executive Summary
Hotpot refers to a meal whose origin is in China, East Asia. This paper will introduce the food by providing its definition and later discussing its history.
The historical perspective covers the changes that occurred in the industry making hotpot reach the European markets in the past few years. Its role and value follows the discussion by mentioning the significance of the food in brand positioning various East Asian countries in the world. Another area of focus is the importance of hotpot supply chains in the world with a particular focus on legal, environmental, and physical issues.
In addition, the technological improvement over the years seems to have a direct impact on the food and the subsequent section provides an in-depth discussion of the same. Finally, the submission discusses gastronomic elements revolving around the issues. This explains the biological influences on the marketing strategy for hotpot across the world.
Introduction
Hotpot is a delicacy mostly enjoyed in parts of East Asia; the Thai people refer to it as Suki. Most Asian States known to enjoy the hotpot include the Chinese, Singapore residents, the Malaise, the residents of Brunei, and Philippines (Tan 1989). Besides the Thai, other communities equally refer to the hotpot as the steamboat.
This food consists of different types of stew options prepared in tradition metal pots explaining the different names it has across the Asian countries. The Vietnamese also prepare the hotpot from a variety of different ingredients used in making stew.
At the centre of a nearly ready meal is the hotpot that keeps simmering while waiting for the cook to add different meat, vegetable, or other food pieces to the arrangement in the dining table (Ehrlich 1997). Depending on the culture involved, the outcome of the entire set-up differs.
However, cross cultural integration in the 21st century leads to idea sharing enabling different communities to come up with an almost similar hotpot stew dish (Triggs 1986). This explains the rationale of this submission because it intends to provide socio-economic, political, environmental, technological, and gastronomic elements surrounding the culture of hotpot preparation.
Historical and Current Developments
The hotpot culture shows significant improvement since its inception creating a balance between its history, the present, and the future. Its role keeps changing through history making it possible for people to name food storage equipment after the delicacy and even eateries. The intention is to create a correlation between the stew mixture and the equipment or food outlet (Goodman 2008).
Hospitality industries across the world are the greatest embracers of the eatery art helping it improve tourism, retail, and event sectors in East Asia and across the world in general. Currently, East Asia enjoys an undisputable global presence because of such culinary habits and appreciation of unique eating cultures.
This makes it possible for people from different countries to relate with East Asia by adapting the cooking styles embraced by the communities.
Hotpot preparation cuts across cultures enabling people from Japan, China, Vietnam, and Thailand to engage in the culinary habit in attracting tourists from different countries (Tannahill 1973). The preparation style is almost the same, but the outcome slightly differs because of the ingredients used for the hotpot.
The history of the Chinese hotpot goes back to the past 1000 years even though the roots of the delicacy are in Mongolia. The principal component of the meal was meat, while different ingredients only helped in improving its taste. The taste of the hotpot varies depending on the meat used and this explains why hotpot made from beef, seafood, horse, pork, ham, or chicken would automatically differ in taste (Slack 2001).
The Chinese mostly used seafood during the Tang Dynasty because it was the most readily available main dish for the hotpot. Preparation improved under different leadership structures and it was until the 16th to 18th century that China incorporated other meat samples into the hotpot (Newman 2004).
This happened under the Qing Dynasty in which the Chinese became one of the most popular countries in the world before the Japanese attacked the Manchuria (Francis 1880).
In the 21st century, there is a slight difference in preparation considering that few people use fresh herbs due to a high demand for products, which have a long shelf life in the market. As such, the spices are in packed portions and preserved in order to enable easy export of the same to other countries.
In addition, most East Asian States no longer used the coal heated metallic coal because induction or infrared cookers exist for a similar purpose. The Chinese and people can also gas cookers as a replacement for the traditional hotpot (Needham and Wang 2008).
The hotpot cooking technique accords its name to the pot used in preparation, the style incorporated, and the cultural influences to the same. As such, the cultures are bound to change in order to satisfy the demands of emerging markets and to make the culture sustainable over time.
Role and Value of Hotpot
The role of hotpot varies across cultures even though intercultural interaction is an ambassador of change to the involved communities. Today, it is normal for communities to combine hotpot and barbecue even though the two have different origins (Feldner 2012). In China alone, different cities and communities have diverse varieties of hotpot. In Beijing, many Chinese cultures meet enabling them create a cocktail of the hotpot.
In modern food outlets, the hotpot cooks incorporate diverse flavours in order to meet the demands of consumers.
However, there are a section of the same population that require traditionally prepared hotpot in the coal pots because in the 21st century, people display more concerns for health as opposed to taste and preference (Hulin 2006). They believe that traditionally prepared hotpot has no processed spices, cooks prepare it under low heat, and its mildness restores its value content.
In China, the most preferred hotpot variety is the spicy chili with beef instead of seafood. This happens in China because the country has a history of integration with different countries over the past few years enabling it to learn many things from Western, Arabic, and African States. In Manchuria, China, people prefer the sour version of the hotpot, but in the Hainan Island, beef is the main ingredient.
Notably, Hainan hosts the Chinese Hawaii (Sanya). This represents the most visited part of China because of the beautiful islands existing in the part of the land explaining why meat hotpot gains popularity in the region occasioned by tourists from different parts of the world.
Restricting them to vegetable or seafood hotpot would reduce consumer attention in the cuisine. The Japanese and the Tai mostly prefer egg hotpot even though they incorporate different spices and flavours to improve the taste of each hotpot variety (Buck, Dawson, and Wu 1966). The inclusion of different tastes is to attract the consumer base while taking into consideration the fact that visitors would want something new and edible.
This explains the incorporation of different cultures in the preparation and presentation of the hotpot across different cultures in East Asia and beyond. In Thailand, the cooks are likely to use seafood or beef while incorporating lime, chili, or coriander (Terrific teaching: a hotpot of tried and tested classroom activities 1990). On the other hand, Vietnamese are likely to use seafood and pickled vegetables as the main ingredients.
Importance of Hotpot Supply Chains
Fish markets including Tsukiji in Japan enjoy a global presence because of its supply of fresh fish used for different purposes. Hotpot supply chains have great socio-economic importance to East Asia and other parts of the world that adopted the same culinary culture.
Legal
Eateries are overly careful about the foods they supply to the target populations because failure to observe ethics might cause lawsuits and the legal measures faced for food poisoning might be detrimental to the survival of such food outlets. Safety is very important even before considering other things.
Safety in terms of using the best meat or seafood pieces is paramount and the same applies to the spices and vegetables because they should not contain toxins. In East Asia, there are also legal concerns about extinction, which also takes an environmental perspective.
Japan takes centre stage for such discussions because of the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo that is the avenue of purchasing both mature and immature fish for the preparation of different delicacies. The Japanese government intervened in the case of the endangered Bluefin Tuna by imposing stringent legal measures on fish vendors that violate the principle of not selling immature fish (Allen, Joseph, and Squires 2010).
Such restrictions often limit supply chains from providing the main ingredient for the Japanese and Vietnamese hotpot, but the intention is to create a sustainable culture for the future of the community. Clearly, legal supply chains are important for environmental and ethical conservation.
Environmental
Supply chains equally show concerns for environmental issues revolving around this subject. There is an extensive use of spices even though the production levels of the same are low. Most consumers complain that hotpot varieties are less spicy lately because of the diminishing levels of the supplies over the past few years.
There are replacements for spices that initially helped in the preparation of excellent hotpot varieties including chili that most eateries replace with processed black pepper. In addition, extinction is a major concern for hotpot producers who use fish and mutton products (Young 2011).
The vegan community uses such avenues to blame meat consumers of degradation of the ecosystem. This explains why suppliers of the food prefer using vegetables lately because of growing cultural, religious, and culinary concerns for such diets.
Physical Influences
The West is a likely consumer of beef, pork, vegetables, and less spicy hotpot, thus explaining why it contributes towards such discussions at a global platform. Through such supply chains, it becomes easy to market the hotpot at a global level. Many eateries advertise products through social media and hotpot companies equally achieve their objectives through such socialisation avenues.
Like other avenues of income generation, such culinary habits earn East Asia the greatest number of tourists across the world, hence enabling the countries to develop mutually beneficial relationships with the west and other continents (Prittie 1949).
At the global level, there is an opportunity for different countries to identify mistakes in East Asia and to correct the involved countries, especially when such issues revolve around environmental conservation (Shibuya and Rolfe 2003).
Technological Appraisal
Technology is the core aspect of improvement in various industries, including tourism and hospitality among others. Technological appraisal plays significant roles in improving preparation and consumption of the hotpot. At the Hainan Island in China, many people use chopsticks because the country adores its culture. However, in terms of preparation of hotpot, there are many changes.
For instance, instead of using coal in heating the metal pot, the Chinese and the Japanese use solar-powered infrared cookers, gas cookers, and electric cookers; this helps in reducing energy consumption. In addition, it reduces environment degradation because many people cut down trees in order to make charcoal to act as a source of fire.
Outside East Asia, there are communities that equally enjoy hotpot, but they cannot use chopsticks and traditional techniques of consumption; they use forks. Another improvement is in terms of packaging. The spices were initially very fresh, tasty, and were in abundance. Through technological appraisal, it became important to increase their lives by drying most of them through different preservation techniques.
Spices might retain the flavours for a limited period and later lose the taste after a long time (Taylor 2012). There are even companies that package cooked hotpot and preserve the same for export purposes.
Therefore, technology is responsible for the improvement in storage, eating techniques, preparation, and marketing of hotpot and the scenario is likely to change in the future. In essence, the world is volatile and technology keeps improving daily.
Gastronomic Knowledge
Gastronomy concentrates on linking different fields of science. In biological studies, it provides an avenue through which people can understand the way the human brain makes different choices within the controlled and natural environments. In the food industry, gastronomy mostly creates a connection between psychology, biology, and chemistry.
There is an ardent need to provide consumers with edible products that have not biological effects on their bodies. In order to achieve the same, manufacturers influence consumer decisions by convincing them that the products under discussion have various health benefits (Hunt and Ruttle 2011). In Sichuan, China, the Chongqing hotpot is famous for various health benefits.
It has the ability to treat cold because of the fresh herbs used in its preparation. In addition, it controls human weight by increasing metabolism. This reduces the chances of getting high blood pressure and ailments related to obesity and lifestyle change.
The Chongqing hotpot is just one variety that marketers have in store. For packaged hotpot dishes, the health benefits follow the inscription of ingredients indicated behind the package (Brereton 1993). Different hotpot varieties target diverse consumers and this explains the different biological appeals used to convince the markets (Klever and Klever 1984).
Conclusion
In summary, hotpot keeps improving over the centuries because of the cross-cultural integration. However, it maintains originality since many East Asian communities have eateries that use fresh spices for the food. Prices of dishes differ depending on cooking techniques incorporated, the health benefits of the hotpot, and the ingredients used in the cooking process.
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