The Strange Tale of General Tso's Chicken - most famous restaurant dishes

General Tso's (or Zuo's)
Chicken is the most famous Hunan dish in the world.
A delicious mixture of chili chickenlaced, sweet-
Hot and sour sauce appears on restaurant menus around the world, especially in the eastern United States, and it seems to have become a microcosm of Hunan cuisine.
However, despite the international reputation of the dish, it is little known in Hunan itself.
When I went there to stay in 2003, I searched the restaurant's menu in vain and no one had ever heard of it.
As I deepened my understanding of Hunan cuisine, I began to realize that General Tso's chicken was somewhat different from the local taste, as Hunan people were not interested in combining sweet and salty dishes.
So, how is this strange, foreign mixture recognized as a culinary classic in Hunan province?
General Zuo Zongtang's chicken is named after Zuo Zongtang-t'ang (
Now it's usually called Zuo Zongtang)
A powerful 19
It is said that the century general who likes to eat it very much.
He was born in Xiangyin county, Hunan province in 1812 and died in 1885 after a brilliant career in military and civilian administration in the Qing Dynasty.
He led a successful military campaign against various rebel groups, but most notably recaptured the western desert region of Xinjiang from rebel Uighur Muslims.
The Huns have a strong military tradition, and general Zuo Zongtang is one of their best troops.
Historical celebrities.
But although many Chinese dishes are named after celebrities.
For example, kung pao chicken of Sichuan cuisine)
, In the classic text about Hunan food and cooking, there is no record of any dishes named after General Tso.
The real root of the dish was the chaos after China's civil war, when defeated Kuomintang leaders fled to the island of Taiwan.
They took away many talents from the mainland, including some famous chefs, the most important of which was Peng Chang. kuei.
Peng Liyuan was born into a poor family in 1919.
Families affected in Changsha, capital of Hunan province.
When he was a teenager, he became an apprentice to Cao Jingchen, a famous chef who had just opened his restaurant.
Cao has served as a nationalist official and a private chef of Tan Yangkai, a great Hunan gourmet, and is one of the most outstanding chefs of his generation.
He worked in the Golden Age of cooking in Hunan, when the capital Changsha was the center of the culinary boom.
After years of apprenticeship, Peng Chang
As a chef, kuei has won praise for his ability.
By the end of World War II, he was in charge of the nationalist government banquet, and when the Nationalists suffered a humiliating defeat in Mao Zedong's Communist Party in 1949, he fled with them to Taiwan.
There, he continued to serve his official duties, designed menus for presidential banquets and visiting VIPs, and invented many new dishes.
When I met Peng Chang
Kuei, a tall and dignified man in his 80 s, when he visited Taipei in 2004, he could not remember when the first time General Zuo Zongtang's chicken was cooked, although he said it was sometime in the 1950 s
He said: "General Zuo Zongtang's chicken does not exist in Hunan cuisine, but the original taste is usually Hunan cuisine --
Heavy, sour, spicy and salty.
"In 1973, Mr. Peng went to New York and opened his first restaurant on 44 th Street.
At that time, Hunan's food was unknown in the United States until his cooking caught the attention of officials at nearby UN headquarters, especially Secretary of State Henry? Henry Kissinger, he began to build his reputation.
"Kissinger visits us every time he comes to New York," Peng Chang said . "
We have become good friends.
He made the Hunan food public.
In the office in Taipei, Peng Liyuan still displays a huge black box --and-
Kissinger and himself raise the white picture of the glass at his restaurant, Peng. Peng Chang-
Kuei is not a traditional man who works creatively in the face of new circumstances and new customers, inventing new dishes and adapting to old dishes.
He said: "It turned out that General Tso's chicken tastes Hunan and has no sugar, but when I started cooking for non-Hunan people
Hunan people in the United States, I changed the recipe.
"In the 1980 s, he made a lot of money, sold his house and returned to Taipei.
His adventures in New York will have a huge impact on the cooking of overseas Chinese.
Not only did General Tso's chicken, but other dishes he invented were also widely imitated and his apprentices helped spread his culinary style.
The last twist of the story is that General Tso's chicken is now adopted as a "traditional" dish by some influential chefs and food writers in Hunan.
In 1990, Mr. Peng returned to his hometown of Changsha, where he opened a family.
First class restaurant including General Tso's chicken.
The restaurant itself did not last for a long time and the dish was never popular (
A local chef told me, "it's too sweet"
But some of the leading figures in the culinary establishment did learn how to make it.
When they started traveling abroad for a cooking demonstration in the 1990 s, their overseas audience seemed to expect them to make the famous "Hunan dish" of that dish, General tso's chicken
Perhaps refusing to admit a dish seems pointless, and the international reputation of the dish is largely based on the dish-especially when little is known about Hunan cuisine.
Perhaps it would be embarrassing to recognize that the world's most famous "Hunan cuisine" is the product of Taiwan's exiled nationalist society, not the product of Hunan itself, all the impacts of Taiwan's relatively successful development in the 20 th century.
Regardless of their motivation, they began to include the dish in publications on Hunan cuisine, especially for Taiwanese readers.
The vast majority of Hunan people have not heard of General Zuo Zongtang's chicken, and I have never seen it on the menu of Hunan People's restaurant, but now some international culinary elites claim it is a famous dish in history.
Only the old generation, including Peng Chang
Kuei and the senior chef he met during his stay in Changsha, remembered how the dishes were made and smiled to acknowledge that it was a tradition of invention.
But even if General Tso's chicken is not "authentic" Hunan cuisine, it must be seen as part of the story of Hunan cuisine.
The story it tells is not the same as the dishes eaten in remote Hunan villages, where some cooking methods have not changed for thousands of years, but it is a key part of the recent culinary history.
After all, it embodies the narrative story of an ancient Chinese apprenticeship system and the Golden Age of Hunan cuisine;
Tragedy of civil war and exile;
The struggle of overseas Chinese to adapt to American society
Finally, China's opening up to the outside world and reform and opening up,
Taiwan has established ties with the mainland.
Because through the vagaries of history, this dish has been called Hunan cuisine, how can I think of omitting it from this book?
So, please cook it, taste it, and when you do, imagine the past of Hunan, and the invention of the new myths in the melting pot of modern world culture.
The above comments appear in the Chinese revolutionary recipe of the purple-red Dunlop.
Re-printing with the permission of the publisher, W. W.
Norton Company Limited