General Tso Never Ate His Own Chicken
Daniel Gross has a new business article up at Slate discussing the rise of KFC, Pizza Hut, and other Yum! Food brands in China. The article is OK on its merits- nothing really new to report- but what interests me is the article title: 'General Tso, Meet Colonel Sanders'.
Quite clearly, the author of the article heading- presumably not Gross himself- is making a reference to the martial nature of the two items. However, he has made one mistake: there is no General Tso's Chicken in China, as any American who has searched in vain for it here well knows.
Like chop suey, General Tso's Chicken (called General's Chicken elsewhere) is a purely laowai invention. While General Tso was a real person- according to the amusing Tso What?- his eponymous dish is about as Chinese as lutefisk.
May 16th, 2009 - 23:04
Oooh ooh ooh. I want to know what you think of the Utah gov.
May 17th, 2009 - 08:15
Actually, my university’s muslim restaurant does serve the General’s chicken, and translated the dish’s name as å·¦å®—æ£ é¸¡- which would be the real general’s real name. I don’t know how they got to serve that dish, presumably an american student taught them how to make it.