Li Hongzhang, a diplomat from China, was visiting the city and hosting American guests for dinner. Rather than risk preparing authentic Chinese food for them, Hongzhang asked his chef to invent a dish that would appeal to both Chinese and American palates. Chop suey was born.
Similarly, where was chop suey invented?
This was, perhaps, an exaggeration; but chop suey was indeed of Chinese origin. Where exactly its roots lay has been debated; but it was probably first cooked in Taishan, in Guangdong, where most early immigrants had grown up.
Moreover, was chop suey invented in China?
Chop suey is widely believed to have been invented in the U.S. by Chinese Americans, but the anthropologist E. N. Anderson, a scholar of Chinese food, traces the dish to tsap seui (杂碎, “miscellaneous leftovers”), common in Taishan (Toisan), a county in Guangdong province, the home of many early Chinese immigrants to …
What is the origin of the word chop suey?
chop suey (n.)
Chinese dish, 1885, American English, from Chinese (Cantonese dialect) tsap sui “odds and ends, miscellaneous bits.” A Cantonese dish brought to the U.S. West Coast by Chinese immigrants.
Is chop suey Japanese or Chinese?
Chop Suey is a classic American-Chinese dish with murky origins. As one legend has it, Chinese viceroy Li Hung Chang, visiting San Francisco’s Palace Hotel in the 1890s, requested vegetables with a bit of meat “job suey,” or “in fine pieces,” and chef Joseph Herder obliged.
Is American chop suey a New England thing?
American chop suey is an American pasta casserole made with ground beef, macaroni and a seasoned tomato sauce, found in the cuisine of New England and other regions of the United States. Outside New England it is sometimes called American goulash or Johnny Marzetti, among other names.
What Chinese food was invented in San Francisco?
“Chinatown was the epicenter for Chinese community going back to Gold Rush days, so much of what became Chinese-American food came from there,” says San Francisco restaurateur George Chen. “Chop suey, egg foo yung, moo goo gai pan, shrimp in lobster sauce were all invented in Chinatown.”
What does chop suey literally mean?
Definition of chop suey
: a dish prepared chiefly from bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, onions, mushrooms, and meat or fish and served with rice and soy sauce.