Chengdu, a city of gastronomy

Hotpot is widely available across Chengdu. [Photo by Jiang Wanjuan/chinadaily.com.cn]

Visitors can watch the real thing being prepared - and in some cases cook it themselves - in a vast glass-walled kitchen.

Outside the building stand rows of large containers with shiny red covers that are used to make chili bean paste, often described as the soul of Sichuan cuisine. It can take as long as two years for the full flavor of this paste to emerge.

Families can rent plots in a nearby garden and harvest their own produce. Once they have planted- their vegetables the museum gives them regular bulletins on how they are developing and advises them when they should come back to collect their crop.

Sichuan cuisine is widely available across Chengdu, often served to groups on a glass turntable on a round table.

The feast, always accompanied by tea, may start with a few cold dishes, which are soon joined by hot meat courses, vegetables, soup, rice and a fish lying in a piquant sauce. A plate of cooling melon might round the meal off.

A variation is provided by the Sichuan hotpot, where diners cook pieces of raw meat and vegetables by dipping them into bubbling sauces at the table.

Some restaurants lay on another traditional expression of local culture, Sichuan opera. The highlight usually involves the technique known as face-changing, where a performer switches his mask several times, looking fierce one moment and smiling the next.

The colorful masks change seemingly by magic, and a guest may be shaking the hand of the entertainer when the transformation happens without having a clue as to how the trick is achieved.