A short (ancient) history on Shabu Shabu:
During the Meiji-jidai (Meiji period, 1868-1912), Japan moved from isolationism to industrialization, modernization, and international trade. Consumption of beef was legalized and many foreign foods, spices, and new cooking methods were introduced. Port cities like Yokohama and Osaka had many foreign traders and influences on local cuisine.
In late Meiji-period year 43 (1910), a Japanese restaurateur opened ?Suehiro? in Osaka, serving both local and foreign cuisine. After WW2, during mid-Sh?wa era Year 27 (1952), it?s said that a chef at this restaurant started serving ?Shabu-shabu? hot pot, based on a thinly sliced lamb hot pot from China. In 1955 the dish was popular enough that the owner of the restaurant decided to trademark it.
Japanese style Shabu-shabu tend to use simple soup base of boiling water with kombu or light broth, versus Nabemono tend to have more complex soup base. Some say that Suehiro?s secret recipe is the goma (sesame) dipping sauce, which gives flavor to the meat. Chinese style hot pot tends to have more complex and heavy soup base, but the dipping sauce (if any) tends to be simple. However, tastes do change and you may find more spicy foods and complex shabu shabu soup base at Japanese restaurants today.
Our ancestors have cooked food in boiling water or soup for many thousands of years. But the shabu shabu, or ?swish swish? style requires the meat to be thinly sliced, so it can be cooked quickly as you swish the meat in the hot pot. The earliest known record of this style of hot pot dates back to Qin and Han dynasty approx. 2200 years ago. Back then they used the Chinese character ??? (zhu? / ????), which means ?wash out? or ?rinse?. Obviously, the meat has to be sliced thin to be cooked in this style, where you ?wash and rinse? the meat in the boiling soup before consumption.
Since moo moo?s were used for farming, the Chinese hot pot of 200 BCE did not usually use sliced beef. In 1971, diggers found very well preserved Han Dynasty burial sites called Mawangdui (???) in Hunan. The people buried in the tombs were from local nobility/feudal lords, who were well fed and were buried with a variety of goods and food stuffs. They found written catalogue of burial goods in the tomb detailing everything that was put in, including food stuffs that have long since expired. On the catalogue they found ???? and ????, zhu? style chicken hot pot and pork hot pot.
The tombs were dated to Western Han (206 BCE ? 9 BCE) and the women in tomb no. 1 was so well preserved, doctors were able to perform an autopsy. She was the wife of a local feudal lord and ate very well. Doctors concluded that she died in her 50?s from heart attack due to clogged arteries and eating too much sugar and fatty meats. She was ?obese? and buried with a large collection of food stuffs. In her stomach the doctors found over 100 melon seeds from her last meal (guess they didn?t spit the seeds back then).
http://www.historywiz.com/didyouknow/ladydai.html
