Chinese Pot Soup

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I used to think every person on this planet started their dinner with soup. 

Traditionally, in Hong Kong soup is always an at-home dinner starter. If you dine out, Hong Kong-style restaurants or fast food shops often include soup in your dinner. In Western restaurants, they serve us with soup and bread first. You see, soup always come first.

It turned out I was wrong. My friends from other Chinese cultures don't start their dinner with soup. They might not even have soup as often as we do. What's more, none of my Canadian friends serve us with soup at dinner. It was when I realised this pot soup is a specialty in our culture. 

Pot soup culture has been developed mainly in the Guangdong (Canton) region of China. It is called "pot soup" because it is cooked in a pot, traditionally made of clay. Soups cooked in clay pots have better tastes than those cooked in metallic pots.

Clay pot can withstand high heat and is suitable for our long-hour cooking soup.

Pot soup is usually made up of natural ingredients like vegetables, meat and bones. Many of the recipes include herbs and help treat symptoms like dryness, insomnia, restlessness, etc. I don't understand the principles behind the soup therapy, but most of them (I haven't tried them all...) just work magically, and I would like to share with you all.

Here are my Chinese pot soup recipes:
- Chinese Celery and Carrot Soup


If you want to read more about making Chinese pot soup, go to these websites that I recommend:
* The Chinese Soup Lady & Chinese Soup Recipes
* Chinese Soup Pot