"General Tso and His Tasty Chicken"

After painting another apartment today -- like I do most Fridays -- my landlord treated me to lunch/dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. My entre of choice was the standard General Tso's Chicken (fried boneless dark-meat chicken, served with vegetables and whole dried red peppers in a sweet-spicy sauce.) It was quite tasty! I even have left-overs in the fridge right now!

Having said that, however, an interesting thought-provoking question comes to mind... Who was General Tso? And what does he have to do with chicken? This website will explain:

If you read the biography (written by a military historian who believes in very long sentences) you’ll notice that while Tso was a successful 19th C. Chinese general, chicken is not mentioned even once. It’s pretty clear that General Tso didn’t have the time to invent or even taste the dish named after him. So where did it come from?

My theory: It was invented in the mid-1970’s, in NYC, by one Chef Peng. Chinese food in New York was different in the early ’70s; while there were a quite a few Chinese restaurants around, they were all Cantonese. Bland food, served in a decor straight out of the 1950’s (think: Too much RED).

Around 1974, Hunan and Szechuan food were introduced to the city, and General Tso’s Chicken was an exemplar of the new style. Peng’s, on East 44th Street, was the first restaurant in NYC to serve it, and since the dish (and cuisine) were new, Chef Peng was able to make it a House Specialty, in spite of its commonplace ingredients."

Feel free to read The Definitive General Tso's Chicken Page for more! Enjoy!

-Jon
posted by Jon at 9:36 PM  I   I  0 comments