Comments on: General Gau meet Chairman Mao

General Gau meet Chairman Mao

blahblahblah — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 23:21:14 -0800

The true history of General Tso/Gau/Zuo's Chicken involves Henry Kissinger and the food of Hunan province, which was the home of two opposing eaters: Chairman Mao and the nationalist Chef Peng who invented the dish, along with other now-classics of Hunanese cuisine, after fleeing the Revolution. Thus ends a long search for the origins of the dish, as covered previously.

By: milnak

milnak — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 23:34:41 -0800

Is this a related to / a dupe of this?

By: kisch mokusch

kisch mokusch — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 23:46:42 -0800

What a fascinating little story. And milnak... yes (see the "covered previously" bit?).

By: Lord Chancellor

Lord Chancellor — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 00:21:05 -0800

Here at the Naval Academy, we call it Admiral Tso's Chicken. It's still pretty much the same. Except kinda suck because it's cooked for 4000 midhshipmen by people that don't really care about said 4000 midshipmen.

By: RavinDave

RavinDave — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 00:39:27 -0800

This is great! Even got a recipe at the end of the article. I recall being told by several native Chinese that they had never heard of the dish and it wasn't authentic, so I pretty much assumed it was a Westernized thing -- at best, something from an immigrant community. They'll be fascinated to read this.

By: octothorpe

octothorpe — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 06:12:24 -0800

By: caddis

caddis — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 07:28:23 -0800

Is this a related to / a dupe of this? Yes, but updated with more info. Thank you Henry.

By: etc.

etc. — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 08:07:38 -0800

I can't tell you how many times this has been the subject of conversation. Who was General Tso? I've always been afraid he was maybe some horrible person and eating a dish named after him was the equivalent of eating a dish called Hitler's Meatballs, or Mussolini-Os, or Pol Pot Pie.

By: notmtwain

notmtwain — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 08:36:45 -0800

Who was General Tso and why are we eating his chicken? This offers a more in depth discussion of General Tso's career and the more traditional sweeter version of the dish.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 08:40:00 -0800

It's interesting too that it seems to be only an east coast thing here in the US. People I know from California have never heard of it but it's served in every single Chinese restaurant in the eastern US. Really? Every chinese restaurant here in SF (well, the ones outside of Chinatown) serves it.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 08:57:47 -0800

a dish called Hitler's Meatballs, I hear the portions are small.

By: notmtwain

notmtwain — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:07:02 -0800

a dish called Hitler's Meatballs, I always heard that there was only one, so it would have to be Hitler's Meatball. (Not to mention that he was a vegetarian... So maybe you'd have to have a tofu ball...)

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 13:13:04 -0800

Well, I read this a long time ago, so the NYT article isn't too much of a surprise.

By: caddis

caddis — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 13:46:59 -0800

except that the wikipedia has nothing about how Hunan food became popular here in the States; it's more like that old WaPo article.

By: EiderDuck

EiderDuck — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:11:13 -0800

I made the NY Times recipe last night and it was way better than any other version of the dish I've ever had.