2024年3月6日，美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）刊发了一则深度报道，主标题是“全球辣菜20佳”（World’s best spicy foods: 20 dishes to try），副标题“从四川火锅到牙买加烤鸡，全球最辣的美食清单在此，这辣你扛得住吗？”（From Sichuan hot pot to jerk chicken, here’s a list of the spiciest foods in the world. Can you take the heat?）。 副标题开门见山，直接点名了四川火锅（内文又称重庆火锅Chongqing hot pot），把它置于舞台正中的聚光灯下。 在全球的美食版图里，川渝火锅以其独特的麻辣，获评为最佳的辣菜之一，当之无愧。
The English CNN for hot pot uses hot pot (literally, "hot pot"), which is now the standard. Earlier, when I was in high school, the hot pot in my English textbook was chafing dish (literally, "hot plate"), and I still remember it to this day. Years later, I went to the United States to study for a Ph.D. in linguistics, studied English dictionaries, and explored the mysteries of words.
Although chafing dish and hot pot are similar in appearance, the food culture is different and the connotation is obviously different, so it is not easy to draw the same sign. According to various dictionaries and encyclopedias, a chafing dish is a portable cookware with a metal pot and pan for food, and an alcohol lamp or other incendiary agent as a heat source, which is placed on the table for simple cooking or on the buffet table to keep food warm. Chafing dish is not a dish, but a cooking utensil.
The language dictionary of a well-known brand is a reliable tool for us to recognize words. Based on professional instinct, I couldn't help but consult several large authoritative Chinese-English dictionaries to see what they say in hot pot English:
(1) hotpot; Fondue, English-Chinese-English, Oxford Foreign Language Research Press, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press
(2) the changing direction; Fondua; Hotpop 《新世纪汉英大词典》第二版,外语教学与研究出版社
(3) chafing dish; hotpot 《汉英词典》第三版，外语教学与研究出版社
(4) hotpot; chafing dish; instant-boiled dish 《新时代汉英大词典》第二版，商务印书馆
(5) huoguo dish; chafing dish; hot pot; fondue; instant boiled dish 《世纪汉英大辞典》，上海译文出版社
(6) chafing dish; hotpot 《中华汉英大词典（上）》，复旦大学出版社
These Chinese-English dictionaries all include today's standard answer hot pot, but most of them write it as hotpot, and there is a space difference between the two spellings, which is a subtle difference worth noting. Traditionally, the Ligany hotpot is a well-known British hot dish in which meat, onions, potatoes and other ingredients are added to the soup, the lid is sealed, and the oven is placed in the oven for a long time, and the Lancashire hotpot is best known as the Lancashire hotpot.
英文词语的圣经《牛津英语词典》（Oxford English Dictionary，简称OED）收录了中国特色饮食的hot pot（火锅），并在词条里明载，hot pot仿造自中文的“火锅”（after Chinese huǒguō），分写的hot pot是现在常用的拼法（Now usually in form hot pot）。 OED给火锅下的定义是：东亚烹饪的一道菜，就餐者在餐桌上把薄切的肉片和蔬菜等食材放到沸腾的汤底涮一下；也指吃火锅用的金属锅（In East Asian cookery: a dish consisting of thinly sliced meat, vegetables, etc., dipped in boiling stock by the diner at the table; a metal pot used for cooking or serving such a dish.）。
OED has done a summary analysis of English vocabulary, which helps us to understand the current situation of language situation in a macro way. However, the language is alive, and the difference between a hyphenated hotpot and a split hot pot is not so absolute, and the mixing is common, and even the hyphenated hot-pot is occasionally seen, which can refer to both the British hot pot and the Chinese hot pot. There is ample evidence for the flow of these spellings, and many corresponding representations can be found in various authoritative corpora.
根据OED的书证，1921年迎来了中国火锅在英文里的首秀，主角是东北酸菜火锅（Manchurian hot-pot），刊载于英国老牌的《潘趣》杂志（Punch），文中的火锅拼成带连字符的hot-pot：在这场中国宴席上，他连吃了40道菜，包括知名的东北酸菜火锅（At the Chinese banquet, he went through the forty courses—including the famous Manchurian hot-pot.）。
美籍华裔厨师作家黄颐铭（Eddie Huang）的成名作《初来乍到》（Fresh Off the Boat，或译《菜鸟新移民》）也给OED贡献了一条hot pot的书证：我吃火锅的时候，总要把沙茶酱和芝麻酱、大蒜油、一颗生鸡蛋和一茶匙的酱油拌在一起（When I ate hot pot, I always mixed sa cha sauce with sesame paste, garlic oil, a raw egg, and a teaspoon of soy.）。 沙茶酱是大陆台湾、福建、广东常见的调味品，源自南洋的沙爹酱（satay sauce），这个火锅蘸酱是典型的台湾配方，对照他台湾移民第二代的背景，一切就顺理成章了。
I have been paying attention to the English word "Chinese source" (a word derived from Chinese and borrowed directly) for many years, especially the English dictionary in this regard. At the end of 2018, I did a rigorous survey of OED and found that OED included about 500 Chinese source words, some of which were borrowed (i.e., transliterated words), such as baozi (bun) in Chinese pinyin, and some borrowed (i.e., transliterated words), such as the literal translation of tea egg (tea egg). In addition to the hot pot, there is a similar but more direct firepot in the data I collected.
一开始我以为firepot是中式英语，但进入词条细读才发现不是，OED并没有把它标注为洋泾浜英语（Chinese Pidgin English）。 OED的词源解释道，firepot仿造自中文的“火锅”，可兼指炊具和菜肴（after Chinese huǒguō, denoting both the utensil and the dish cooked in it）。
那么hot pot和firepot有何不同？OED是如此定义firepot的：用于东亚烹饪，是个金属锅具，碗形，中央有烟囱，下置热源，在餐桌上用来烹煮汤菜或加热保温。 也指用火锅烹煮的菜肴。 常用于“蒙古火锅”（In East Asian cookery: a metal cooking pot consisting of a bowl surrounding a central chimney beneath which a source of heat is placed, used for cooking or warming broth-based dishes at the table; a dish cooked or served in such a pot. Frequently in Mongolian firepot.）。
Obviously, this firepot refers to the copper pot used to shabu mutton, and also refers to the dishes that are eaten in a copper pot, which is commonly found in northern China. It is said that this method of eating was originally popular among the Mongolian people, which is why it is said to be a Mongolian firepot.
According to the OED, the use of firepot to refer to the use of mutton shabu in a copper pot is a relatively recent one, and the first relevant literature did not appear until the 50s of the last century. In fact, firepots have a history of 500 years in English, such as the ancient fire pot for throwing weapons, the crucible or still used for chemical experiments, and the fuel used for stoves or stoves.
Let's go back and continue to look at the English translations of "hot pot" in various Chinese-English dictionaries.
Half of the Chinese-English dictionaries also include fondue, but Swiss hotpot is very different from Chinese hotpot. The word fondue (literally, "melted") is derived from the French word for the base of a pot made with melted liquid cheese. The traditional practice of Swiss fondue is to boil cheese and white wine in a pot, and then use a fondue fork to fork bread and dip it in cheese sauce. Swiss fondue is becoming more and more diverse, so the basic cheese fondue can only be clearly referred, with the addition of a definite phrase and an emphasis on cheese fondue (linguistically called a back-to-back word). Chocolate fondue is also common, and in English it is chocolate fondue. The cooking utensils of Swiss fondue are called fondue pots.
两本汉英词典也收了instant-boiled dish（字面义“速烫菜”），也就是涮菜，把食材放到沸腾的汤水里烫一下就取出来食用。 单词instant-boiled（速烫的）常用于instant-boiled mutton（涮羊肉，指食物），但英语词典均未收录instant-boiled或其原形动词instant-boil，若要表达“速烫”或“涮”，英语里有个现成的动词blanch（过去分词blanched做形容词）或可考虑使用。
The Chinese-English dictionary includes "hot pot" and the transliterated huoguo, which is the only example that makes my eyes light up. Hot pot is one of the characteristics of Chinese food culture, and the English translation of cultural characteristic words is expressed through phonetics, which is the norm of language and is common all over the world.
Encyclopaedia Britannica (also known as Encyclopaedia Britannica, also known as Encyclopaedia Britannica) has a history of more than 200 years and is a treasure trove of traditional knowledge in the English-speaking world.
The example of Japanese hot pot is thought-provoking. The Japanese hot pot "shabu-shabu" is popular all over the world, and the English translation directly appropriates the Japanese romaji shabu-shabu, which is accepted by large authoritative English dictionaries. In recent years, shabu-shabu has also become quite popular in China, and the chain brand "Xiabu Xiabu" (pronounced as "shrimp supplement shrimp supplement") has sprung up, and Xiabu Xiabu is transliterated from the Japanese しゃぶしゃぶ (simulating the sound of boiling soup).
Research by Japanese scholar Naomichi Ishimo shows that Japanese shabu-shabu was born from Chinese hot pot, that is, Beijing shabu-shabu mutton. When Japan invaded China in the last century, the Japanese brought the cooking method of shabu mutton back to Japan, simplifying it to get today's shabu-shabu.
The Japanese shabu-shabu of the children and grandchildren is transliterated in English as shabu-shabu, and the Chinese hot pot of the ancestors, in addition to the imitation and literal translation of hot pot and firepot, can it also be transliterated as clean and original huoguo?