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I'm going to use the word literally here and actually mean literally. I have literally never ordered any other combo meal at a Chinese restaurant than General T

I'm going to use the word literally here and actually mean literally. I have literally never ordered any other combo meal at a Chinese restaurant than General Tso's chicken. I had it once when I was a kid and never yearned to try anything else. I love that damn dish and I will eat some tonight in honor of this great, great man. On a related noted: I once watched a TED talk given by a woman whose name I cannot recall that was about how all Chinese restaurants in the US serve basically the exact same menus. She pointed out that General Tso's chicken is funny because General Tso, a real person, lived in a time where it was highly unlikely that he ever saw broccoli let alone had it cooked in a dish. And now today a dish that prominently features broccoli is named after him.

dylz 10y ago
It's likely this one https://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_8_lee_looks_for_general_tso https://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_8_lee_looks_for_general_t... If you are interested, this was a very good read (by same person): https://www.amazon.com/Fortune-Cookie-Chronicles-Adventures-Chinese/dp/0446698970 https://www.amazon.com/Fortune-Cookie-Chronicles-Adventures-...
- jenny8lee 10y ago
  Yes. Doc, TED talk, book are all from my research. Thanks for the plug! I've been waiting for this day for a while. Last time we saw him, he was 92, in December 2010, for the documentary. We suit him first since his age made us very nervous how much longer he was going to be around. But he lasted for another 6 years. Even attended a documentary showing in Taiwan.
  - rmason 10y ago
    Boy the people that you meet on HN;<)! Saw your documentary, General Tso's has always been my favorite Chinese dish. I've been told by a great many people that it was invented in America and wasn't a Chinese dish at all! My sister who traveled several times to the mainland said she has never seen it on a menu there. You think that is possibly a slight against Taiwan?
    - rangibaby 10y ago
      > My sister who traveled several times to the mainland said she has never seen it on a menu there. You think that is possibly a slight against Taiwan? I have never seen it in my life and Japanese Wikipedia says that like Chop Suey it is an Americanized dish. In general Chinese food is wildly different depending on where you eat it; there was not much in common between local Chinese food I ate in Beijing, Sichuan, or Kuala Lumpur.
      - wahern 10y ago
        Like most Chinese diaspora communities, ethnic Chinese in Malaysia mostly emigrated from southeast China. Many Chinese dishes in Malaysia are quite similar to dishes in the those regions. Look at Hainanese chicken rice. It was invented by Hainanese immigrants in Singapore, and the only place you'd ever find it in Beijing would be at a Singaporean restaurant. But it's basically an unmistakable evolution of a classic dish from Hainan province. A lot of Chinese cuisine in SE Asia is like that. Regarding chop suey, in San Francisco Chinatown there's a Chinese restaurant, New Lun Ting, popular with older Chinese-Americans that sells a version of chop suey that is arguably an authentic Chinese-American dish. Some other restaurants in Chinatown also sell chop suey or something like that, but it was always easy to dismiss as something sold to attract tourists--originally in earnest to meet their tastes, now more as an ironic thing. But now I'm fairly confident it has deeper Chinese roots, and is less adulterated, than is commonly assumed. The longer I live in San Francisco, and the more I eat in Asia (Mongolia, South Korea, Taipei, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and all over Malaysia and Singapore), the more I realize how nuanced, complex, and interrelated the origins and evolution of Asian food can be. And the more I understand my own subtle prejudice--white Americans, at least the more cosmopolitan ones, instinctively understand that nuance and complexity when it comes to European cuisine. And like with European fare, not all Asian fare is bold and exotic. It's easy to dismiss chop suey as something invented for the palates of Americans because it seems so plain and cheap; and because it seems so undesirable compared to common "authentic" Chinese dishes. But that's a subtle form of bias. There are plenty of boring American dishes, for example, that are completely unlike hamburgers, hot dogs, or BBQ and that foreigner would think couldn't possibly be "authentic" American.
    - 10y ago
  - schoen 10y ago
    Hi Jenny, I used to know you from DEF CON over a decade ago. Congratulations on all of the varied things you've been able to track down in your journalistic research!
- deleted 10y ago
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- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
zzalpha 10y ago
There's also a great documentary that (around here) is on Netflix called The Search for General Tso that's quite fascinating. In addition to exploring the origins of the dish, it delves into the Chinese diaspora in the US and the evolution of North American Chinese food. Highly recommended!
- crikli 10y ago
  If you hadn't mentioned it I would have. It's a great documentary and explains quite a few things I'd always wondered about, such as why Chinese Americans were so strong in the laundry and restaurant industries. It does a really good job of talking about the Chinese culture in America, which could be a pretty heady subject, but it has this fun pretext of trying to discover how this ubiquitous dish came to be.
jiqiren 10y ago
I've never had - nor seen - General Tso Chicken with broccoli in it. The pic in the article doesn't show broccoli either.
- wtf_is_up 10y ago
  Every version I've had has had it.
- mcphage 10y ago
  It's common, although obviously not universal.
- evanelias 10y ago
  Interesting; I wonder if it's a regional difference? Broccoli in General Tso's is nearly universal in the New York City region. I've probably ordered the dish from a few dozen places over the years here, and maybe only one or two omitted the broccoli.
- rmason 10y ago
  I live in the Midwest and I've seen it both with broccoli and without. PF Chang's which is one of the higher end nationwide chains has it with broccoli. Their version is called General Chang's. http://www.pfchangshomemenu.com/entrees/general-changs-chicken http://www.pfchangshomemenu.com/entrees/general-changs-chick...
nickpsecurity 10y ago
"I'm going to use the word literally here and actually mean literally. I have literally never ordered any other combo meal at a Chinese restaurant than General Tso's chicken. " I'm with you. If I'm invited to the buffets, it's about all I eat along with some American-style food & a few experiments with the Chinese stuff. I doubt it tastes like the real thing he made but it's the best-tasting thing there.
baddox 10y ago
Weird. I've ordered General Tso's chicken many times, and never noticed any broccoli. Midwest United States thing, perhaps?
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  Just received an order of it in memorial. It does contain broccoli. I'm outside Philly.
- jghn 10y ago
  Most places I've been in most areas of the US include broccoli, but not always. I don't think it is regional but it does seem to be fading away a bit.
intopieces 10y ago
That woman, Jennifer 8 Lee, gave a talk at the Unicode Consortium earlier this year, advocating for the addition of fortune cookie, chopsticks, Chinese food box, and dumpling to be added to the Emoji block of unicode. She was successful.

dylz 10y ago

It's likely this one https://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_8_lee_looks_for_general_tso https://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_8_lee_looks_for_general_t... If you are interested, this was a very good read (by same person): https://www.amazon.com/Fortune-Cookie-Chronicles-Adventures-Chinese/dp/0446698970 https://www.amazon.com/Fortune-Cookie-Chronicles-Adventures-...

jenny8lee 10y ago
Yes. Doc, TED talk, book are all from my research. Thanks for the plug! I've been waiting for this day for a while. Last time we saw him, he was 92, in December 2010, for the documentary. We suit him first since his age made us very nervous how much longer he was going to be around. But he lasted for another 6 years. Even attended a documentary showing in Taiwan.
- rmason 10y ago
  Boy the people that you meet on HN;<)! Saw your documentary, General Tso's has always been my favorite Chinese dish. I've been told by a great many people that it was invented in America and wasn't a Chinese dish at all! My sister who traveled several times to the mainland said she has never seen it on a menu there. You think that is possibly a slight against Taiwan?
  - rangibaby 10y ago
    > My sister who traveled several times to the mainland said she has never seen it on a menu there. You think that is possibly a slight against Taiwan? I have never seen it in my life and Japanese Wikipedia says that like Chop Suey it is an Americanized dish. In general Chinese food is wildly different depending on where you eat it; there was not much in common between local Chinese food I ate in Beijing, Sichuan, or Kuala Lumpur.
    - wahern 10y ago
      Like most Chinese diaspora communities, ethnic Chinese in Malaysia mostly emigrated from southeast China. Many Chinese dishes in Malaysia are quite similar to dishes in the those regions. Look at Hainanese chicken rice. It was invented by Hainanese immigrants in Singapore, and the only place you'd ever find it in Beijing would be at a Singaporean restaurant. But it's basically an unmistakable evolution of a classic dish from Hainan province. A lot of Chinese cuisine in SE Asia is like that. Regarding chop suey, in San Francisco Chinatown there's a Chinese restaurant, New Lun Ting, popular with older Chinese-Americans that sells a version of chop suey that is arguably an authentic Chinese-American dish. Some other restaurants in Chinatown also sell chop suey or something like that, but it was always easy to dismiss as something sold to attract tourists--originally in earnest to meet their tastes, now more as an ironic thing. But now I'm fairly confident it has deeper Chinese roots, and is less adulterated, than is commonly assumed. The longer I live in San Francisco, and the more I eat in Asia (Mongolia, South Korea, Taipei, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and all over Malaysia and Singapore), the more I realize how nuanced, complex, and interrelated the origins and evolution of Asian food can be. And the more I understand my own subtle prejudice--white Americans, at least the more cosmopolitan ones, instinctively understand that nuance and complexity when it comes to European cuisine. And like with European fare, not all Asian fare is bold and exotic. It's easy to dismiss chop suey as something invented for the palates of Americans because it seems so plain and cheap; and because it seems so undesirable compared to common "authentic" Chinese dishes. But that's a subtle form of bias. There are plenty of boring American dishes, for example, that are completely unlike hamburgers, hot dogs, or BBQ and that foreigner would think couldn't possibly be "authentic" American.
  - 10y ago
- schoen 10y ago
  Hi Jenny, I used to know you from DEF CON over a decade ago. Congratulations on all of the varied things you've been able to track down in your journalistic research!
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

zzalpha 10y ago

There's also a great documentary that (around here) is on Netflix called The Search for General Tso that's quite fascinating. In addition to exploring the origins of the dish, it delves into the Chinese diaspora in the US and the evolution of North American Chinese food. Highly recommended!

crikli 10y ago
If you hadn't mentioned it I would have. It's a great documentary and explains quite a few things I'd always wondered about, such as why Chinese Americans were so strong in the laundry and restaurant industries. It does a really good job of talking about the Chinese culture in America, which could be a pretty heady subject, but it has this fun pretext of trying to discover how this ubiquitous dish came to be.

jiqiren 10y ago

I've never had - nor seen - General Tso Chicken with broccoli in it. The pic in the article doesn't show broccoli either.

wtf_is_up 10y ago
Every version I've had has had it.
mcphage 10y ago
It's common, although obviously not universal.
evanelias 10y ago
Interesting; I wonder if it's a regional difference? Broccoli in General Tso's is nearly universal in the New York City region. I've probably ordered the dish from a few dozen places over the years here, and maybe only one or two omitted the broccoli.
rmason 10y ago
I live in the Midwest and I've seen it both with broccoli and without. PF Chang's which is one of the higher end nationwide chains has it with broccoli. Their version is called General Chang's. http://www.pfchangshomemenu.com/entrees/general-changs-chicken http://www.pfchangshomemenu.com/entrees/general-changs-chick...

nickpsecurity 10y ago

"I'm going to use the word literally here and actually mean literally. I have literally never ordered any other combo meal at a Chinese restaurant than General Tso's chicken. " I'm with you. If I'm invited to the buffets, it's about all I eat along with some American-style food & a few experiments with the Chinese stuff. I doubt it tastes like the real thing he made but it's the best-tasting thing there.

baddox 10y ago

Weird. I've ordered General Tso's chicken many times, and never noticed any broccoli. Midwest United States thing, perhaps?

cmdrfred 10y ago
Just received an order of it in memorial. It does contain broccoli. I'm outside Philly.
jghn 10y ago
Most places I've been in most areas of the US include broccoli, but not always. I don't think it is regional but it does seem to be fading away a bit.

intopieces 10y ago

That woman, Jennifer 8 Lee, gave a talk at the Unicode Consortium earlier this year, advocating for the addition of fortune cookie, chopsticks, Chinese food box, and dumpling to be added to the Emoji block of unicode. She was successful.