![]() Now I grew up eating chop suey as well and it doesn’t look spectacularly different than what Ben Collins tweeted. By the time the Chinese restaurateurs of Salem had developed this particular version of chop suey, the kind served with a hamburger bun in a styrofoam clamshell at the chop suey stand in Salem, the gravy might have changed color from its travels through the central states. By the time the Chinese diaspora had made it here to Salem, Massachusetts, all the way across the country from their starting point of San Francisco, perhaps their chop suey had left behind the water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, or bell peppers it might have featured in parts of the Western US. But in essence it seems to have been a compromise dish, an application of Chinese techniques to mostly-familiar items and flavors.īased on Ben Collins’ photo, the chop suey of Salem appears to be a mass of bean sprouts and possibly a chunk or two of chicken, suspended in a viscous, mostly transparent gravy of some kind. There are a number of stories, mostly apocryphal, about the name “chop suey,” what it means, and how the dish originated. So what is chop suey? Is it truly a Chinese dish, or an invention of Chinese-American restaurants? The second act of the documentary film The Search for General Tso traces how the Chinese who’d immigrated to America spread east after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which severely limited not only further Chinese immigration but even the types of work they could do, essentially giving birth to the ubiquitous Chinese laundries and Chop Suey restaurants across the United States. wUBjRZAuOX- Ben Collins JSo what is Chop Suey? They’re called chop suey sandwiches and they only exist in Salem, Massachusetts. Whichever story you choose to believe, one thing is clear: chop suey rules the food scene all over the world.Every year on the 4th of July, everyone in my family eats one of these monstrosities. The dish became an instant hit and really took off, prompting the chef to include the item on his menu. He cooked these ingredients on high heat, serving them to his customers. Fearing a beating, the chef brought together the day’s leftover scraps, which consisted of some meat, shrimps, vegetables, and eggs. As he was closing his eatery for the day, a group of drunk sailors entered the place instructing the chef to whip up something delicious. The chef in question had a restaurant on the transcontinental railroad. Yet another story tells that the dish was the invention of a tired and scared chef. The result is said to have been the American-Chinese fusion dish called chop suey. Hongzhang had some American friends coming over, and in order to provide a hearty and good meal, he instructed his chef to create something that would be suitable for both the Chinese as well as Americans. Other scholars speculate that the dish may have been invented at the house of Li Hongzhang, a Chinese diplomat based in New York. From there on, the dish became popular with the rest of the public. After a hard day’s work of digging for gold, the Chinese immigrants, mostly men who had come to the country with little to their names, chose chop suey to satisfy their hunger as the dish was cheap and filling. ![]() It was in the 1840s when gold was discovered in California, that many immigrants, a large number of which consisted of Chinese people, came to the United States to seek their fortunes. Known as ‘tsap seui,’ which translates to ‘miscellaneous pieces,’ chop suey may have come to America through the earliest Chinese immigrants. ![]() Anderson, a historical scholar on Chinese food, states that chop suey may have its origins in the county of Taishan in the Guangdong province of China. ![]() National Chop Suey Day celebrates the iconic dish that has several origin stories to its name. ![]()
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