29 August: Chop Suey

According to foodie legend, on this date in 1896 chop suey was invented in New York by the chef to visiting Chinese Ambassador Li Hung-chang.

1. There are different versions of the story. Some say that Chang refused to eat American food and so his chefs made chop suey. Others say that he wandered into a local Chinese restaurant after the kitchen had closed. The chef hastily threw together a new dish using the leftovers. However, there is no firm evidence that Chang ever ate chop suey on his travels in the US.
2. Whether or not any of that is true, Li Hung-chang was a popular visitor to the US with crowds lining the streets to catch a glimpse of him and the Yellow jacket he always wore. The New York Journal took advantage of Li Hung Chang's popularity to claim in an advertising poster, "Li Hung Chang Never Misses the Sunday Journal." Perhaps the same thing was happening with chop suey, claiming Chang loved the dish to get more people to try Chinese food.
3. There are other tales of the dish's origin that don't involve Ambassador Li Hung-Chang at all. Some say it was invented by Chinese American cooks working on the transcontinental railroad in the 19th century.
4. Another myth is that, in the 1860s, a Chinese restaurant cook in San Francisco had to find something to serve to drunken miners after hours, when he had no fresh food. The miners were belligerent and threatening to beat him up if he didn't feed them. So the cook threw leftovers in a wok and served it to the miners, who loved it.
5. So what is it? Chop suey consists of small pieces of meat (usually chicken, fish, beef, shrimp, or pork) stir fried with Eggs and various other ingredients which might include Celery, Onions, bean sprouts, water chestnuts, Mushrooms and Cabbage. It is typically served with Rice or Noodles.
6. While many say the dish was invented in America to suit American tastes, and was ‘no more Chinese than pork and beans’, there is evidence that recipes for chop suey existed in China before this, especially in the Toisan region.
7. Written tsa sui (Mandarin) or tsap seui (Cantonese), the name means something like ‘odds and ends’ or 'miscellaneous leftovers'.
8. It didn't always get good press. Liang Qichao, a Canton native who travelled in the US, wrote in his travel journal that there was a food item called chop suey served by Chinese restaurateurs, but the local Chinese people wouldn't eat it, because the cooking technique was "really awful". A description written in 1888 read: "staple dish for the Chinese gourmand is chow chop svey [sic], a mixture of chickens' livers and gizzards, fungi, bamboo buds, pigs' tripe, and bean sprouts stewed with spices." In The Detectress (1919), chop suey was described as "a foul concoction of dead dragonflies, shoe leather and a puppy".
9. A chef named Lem Sen from San Francisco claimed to have invented the dish and that American chefs had stolen it. He tried to sue the American chefs and force them to stop serving chop suey, or pay him for the privilege of making it. He gave up in the end and dropped the suit.
10. Chinese restaurants serving chop suey experienced a boost during prohibition. They'd never served alcohol, only tea, and so nothing changed for them. Making the most of their new found popularity some started offering singing, dancing and prostitutes, and opium. The 1930 film East is West depicts chop suey joints as dens of unspeakable vice.

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