I remember watching a video somewhere that touched upon this. IIRC, whenever a Chinese immigrant came to a city in the United States with a large Chinese population, such as San Francisco, they would seek out people from their hometown and would often be directed to benevolent societies. These societies help provide means for the immigrant to start looking after themselves, by offering different professions folks can jump into. Often times that would include providing recipes for dishes they could fix up at restaurants.
I think the video was a documentary about General Tsao’s chicken.
Okay I made a quick pop in to Wikipedia just to check, and I can tell you that General Tsao and General Tso were different people. Several different people in fact, some fictional and others real, but they don’t overlap.
It’s “General Tso’s Chicken” and has been a NYT Crossword clue, which got me started with “in case you ever need it for a crossword clue,” because I know accurate spelling is not really necessary here.
I remember watching a video somewhere that touched upon this. IIRC, whenever a Chinese immigrant came to a city in the United States with a large Chinese population, such as San Francisco, they would seek out people from their hometown and would often be directed to benevolent societies. These societies help provide means for the immigrant to start looking after themselves, by offering different professions folks can jump into. Often times that would include providing recipes for dishes they could fix up at restaurants.
I think the video was a documentary about General Tsao’s chicken.
Okay I made a quick pop in to Wikipedia just to check, and I can tell you that General Tsao and General Tso were different people. Several different people in fact, some fictional and others real, but they don’t overlap.
It’s “General Tso’s Chicken” and has been a NYT Crossword clue, which got me started with “in case you ever need it for a crossword clue,” because I know accurate spelling is not really necessary here.
I mean spelling Chinese names in romaji (romachi?) is a crapshoot to begin with. The only consistent English spelling in “General Tzo” is “General”
I agree which is why I checked Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Tsao
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Tso
The list for Tsao includes a fictional character, but the chicken recipe is associated with Tso.
Much appreciated! Accuracy is important