Some like it hot: Eating spicy in China’s WWII shelters

CHONGQING, China (AP) — The city of Chongqing is known for both soaring temperatures and spicy cuisine, notably its hotpot: a peppery bubbling tabletop broth into which diners dunk bite-size pieces of food to cook and eat. The inland metropolis on the Yangtze River has the perfect escape to enjoy hotpot, even in what has been a summer of unusually stifling heat: World War II-era air raid shelters, converted into restaurants, where the temperature is naturally cooler. The dish moved into abandoned air raid shelters in the 1970s, giving birth to a new tradition that locals have dubbed “cave hotpot.”