While many people think General Tso's Chicken has its roots in the Chinese province of Hunan,
in fact, the dish is completely alien to that part of the world.
The dish was actually invented in the kitchens of Hunan-born chef Peng Chang-kue, who had
begun training as a chef when he was just 13 years old. It was during his time as an
apprentice chef for the family of a former prime minister that Peng learned to create
new ways of executing old family favorites.
Taiwan News says that, after the Second World War, Peng was put in charge of putting together
banquets for the Nationalist government. This experience put the chef in the perfect position
to prepare the meals for a senior US military official who was on a four-day visit to Taiwan in 1952.
There is only so much you can do, and Taiwan News says that, because chef Peng wanted to
try something new, he created a dish by deep-frying chicken chunks and ladling a sauce on top
of it. When the visiting US 7th Fleet Admiral asked what the dish was called, Peng drew
inspiration from the admiral's military rank and dubbed it General Tso's Chicken, after
a famous general from Peng's home province of Hunan.
In 2007, Peng admitted to New York Times Magazine that he couldn't remember how or why he came
up with the dish, but the flavors weren't what they are today. He told the magazine,
"Originally the flavors of the dish were typically Hunanese — heavy, sour, hot and salty."
The original recipe included red chilies, chopped ginger, and dark and light varieties
of soy sauce among its ingredients. That flavor profile changed when the dish was brought
to America by chefs who decided to adapt it to local tastes.
New York restaurateur Ed Schoenfeld told Salon that when he and his business partner went
to Taiwan, they liked Peng's menu and brought that back to New York, with a few added twists. Schoenfeld told Salon,
"[My business partner and I] didn't want to copy chef Peng exactly. We added our own spin
to dishes. And so our General Tso's chicken was cut differently, into small dice, and
we served it with water chestnuts, black mushrooms, hoisin sauce, and vinegar."
But even the version that Schoenfeld and his partner came up wasn't the one that captured
America's taste buds. The credit for that went to another chef and competitor, TT Wang,
who, as Schoenfeld recalled, made the chicken batter crispier and the sauce sweeter.
Peng claimed that, when he moved to the US, he further changed the recipe by making it
sweeter. Peng told New York Times Magazine,
"The original General Tso's chicken was Hunanese in taste and made without sugar. But when
I began cooking for non-Hunanese people in the United States, I altered the recipe."
The chef's iteration of his own dish is just one of several that have become entrenched
in Chinese-American cooking. But because he had set up shop later than the other chefs
had, his take on the popular dish was actually regarded as the copycat.
Still, Peng could name former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as a fan of his cooking,
and Schoenfeld said the combination managed to push General Tso's Chicken into America's collective food consciousness.
Chef Peng passed away in 2016, but not before he managed to give Jennifer 8. Lee, Chinese-American
author and producer of the documentary The Search for General Tso's Chicken, his verdict
on the way his dish looks today. When Chef Peng saw a picture of General Tso's Chicken
as it's served today, he looked horrified and said, quote, "This is all crazy nonsense."
Because General Tso's Chicken isn't a thing in authentic Chinese cooking, it's a dish
you're better off not ordering in an authentic Chinese restaurant. That said, registered
dietitian and author Lauren Harris-Pincus, had this to say:
"General Tso's Chicken is a very popular dish to order at a Chinese restaurant, but it's
far from healthy when talking about Chinese cuisine. This dish is breaded, fried, and
smothered in a sugary, salty sauce."
Harris-Pincus says the dish also provides nearly 2,400 milligrams of sodium, 88 grams
of fat, 62 grams of sugar, and 1578 calories. This makes us think that some dishes, like
this one, were probably best left to the imagination.
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