|
TSO (soh)
1.
General Tso: a Chinese statesman and military leader of the late
Qing Dynasty
2.
General Tso's chicken: a sweet-and-spicy, deep-fried chicken dish
that is popularly served in North American Chinese restaurants
Common
clues: General
on Chinese menus; Chicken general?; Eponymous general; Hunan
general; General one can take out?; Name associated with chicken
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
3 times a year
News:
10
Chinese Dishes That Real Chinese People Don't Eat
Video:
How to make
General Tso' Chicken
Zuo
Zongtang (November 10, 1812 - September 5, 1885), spelled Tso
Tsung-t'ang in Wade-Giles and known simply as General Tso in the
West, was a Chinese statesman and military leader of the late
Qing Dynasty.
He
was born in Wenjialong, north of Changsha in Hunan province. He
served in China's northwestern regions, quelling the Dungan
revolt and various other disturbances. He served with distinction
during the Qing Empire's civil war against the Taiping Rebellion,
in which it is estimated 20 million people died.
General
Tso's chicken (sometimes Governor Tso's chicken, General Tao's
chicken, General Tsao's chicken, General Gow's Chicken, General
Gao's chicken, or General Gau's chicken) is a sweet-and-spicy,
deep-fried chicken dish that is popularly served in North
American Chinese restaurants. The dish was unknown in China and
other lands home to the Chinese diaspora before it was introduced
by chefs returning from the United States. The dish is named
after General Tso Tsung-tang, or Zuo Zongtang, a Qing dynasty
general and statesman, although this connection is tenuous. He is
said to have enjoyed it, and perhaps helped create a dish, but
there are no recorded recipes. The real roots of the dish lie in
the post 1949 exodus of chefs to the United States. The dish is
reported to have been introduced to New York City in the early
1970s as an example of Hunan cooking, though it is not typical of
Hunanese cuisine, which is traditionally very spicy and rarely
sweet. The dish was first mentioned in The New York Times in
1977.
The
dish has been associated with the name of Zuo Zongtang
(1812–1885), a Qing Dynasty general from Hunan. While Zuo
himself is rumored to have tasted the dish almost as it is today,
recipes and writings indicate he may have authored a similar
formula. The dish is neither found in Changsha, the capital of
Hunan, nor in Xiangyin, the home of General Tso. Moreover,
descendants of General Tso still living in Xiangyin, when
interviewed, say that they have never heard of such a dish.
There
are several stories concerning the origin of the dish. Eileen
Yin-Fei Lo states in her book The Chinese Kitchen that the dish
originates from a simple Hunan chicken dish, and that the
reference to "Zongtang" in "Zuo Zongtang chicken"
was not a reference to Zuo Zongtang's given name, but rather a
reference to the homonym "zongtang", meaning "ancestral
meeting hall". Consistent with this interpretation, the dish
name is sometimes (but considerably less commonly) found in
Chinese as "Zuo ancestral hall chicken".
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Zuo_Zongrang" and
“General
Tso's Chicken”.
|
