Culinary Mythology: The origin of Chop Suey

This is discussed under chop suey and is a fine example of a culinary myth gone wrong. In other words, we have presumed the dish to be a creation of immigrant cooks seeking to gull us into thinking it was authentically Chinese when, in point of fact, it was authentically Chinese. A more classic example of immigrant creativity may be the chicken tikka masala of Great Britain, or perhaps General Tso’s chicken, a soi-disant Hunanese dish created in Taiwan which spread throughout the US, but which had very little to do with the real General Tso.