
Inventor of General Tso's Chicken dies in Taipei at age 98 - rmason
http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3042881
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dopamean
I'm going to use the word literally here and actually mean literally. I have
literally never ordered any other combo meal at a Chinese restaurant than
General Tso's chicken. I had it once when I was a kid and never yearned to try
anything else. I love that damn dish and I will eat some tonight in honor of
this great, great man.

On a related noted: I once watched a TED talk given by a woman whose name I
cannot recall that was about how all Chinese restaurants in the US serve
basically the exact same menus. She pointed out that General Tso's chicken is
funny because General Tso, a real person, lived in a time where it was highly
unlikely that he ever saw broccoli let alone had it cooked in a dish. And now
today a dish that prominently features broccoli is named after him.

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jiqiren
I've never had - nor seen - General Tso Chicken with broccoli in it. The pic
in the article doesn't show broccoli either.

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rmason
I live in the Midwest and I've seen it both with broccoli and without. PF
Chang's which is one of the higher end nationwide chains has it with broccoli.
Their version is called General Chang's.

[http://www.pfchangshomemenu.com/entrees/general-changs-
chick...](http://www.pfchangshomemenu.com/entrees/general-changs-chicken)

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skykooler
I often wonder about General Tso - someone who was once a great military
leader, but is now known for a dish of chicken.

~~~
evanelias
Strangely, in Boston they call the dish "General Gau's Chicken". This never
made sense to me.

Then again, Bostonians also have a weird taxonomy around milkshakes vs
"frappes" (and also "malts"? I'm so confused, and I lived there for two years)

~~~
saghm
We also call those circular things in the roads "rotaries" (as opposed to
"roundabouts" or "traffic circles"), and what what most of America calls
Italian ice, we call "slush"

~~~
acheron
Rotaries and roundabouts are different, though I wouldn't be surprised that
people refer to some of one by the other's name.

[http://www.virginiadot.org/info/resources/round/Differences_...](http://www.virginiadot.org/info/resources/round/Differences_between_Modern_Roundabouts_and_Old_Traffic_Circles.pdf)

~~~
saghm
Interesting! I guess we only call half of the things by the wrong name in
Boston instead of all of them then :)

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Namrog84
Chef Peng Chang-kuei (彭長貴) died at age 98 to pneumonia.

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qwertyuiop924
Programmers and officeworkers around the US should be mourning this day.

General Tso's has always been one of my favorite "Chinese" dishes (real
Chinese - food actually eaten in China - gets its own category). And I
strictly prefer it to Kung Pao, the other popular chicken dish on the
"Chinese" menu (it even has a nickname in JARGON, added under GLS in the 90s -
laser chicken. There was no point to saying that, but if you minded irrelevant
tangents, you'd be reading somebody else's comments).

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d4rti
As an aside, if you want to cook (primarily Sichuan) chinese food I can highly
recommend Fushia Dunlop's Every Grain of Rice -
[http://www.fuchsiadunlop.com/books](http://www.fuchsiadunlop.com/books)

Excellent book, and includes a recipe for General Tso's Chicken.

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Renaud
Outside of the US, is this really a thing? I live in Hong Kong and wouldn't
even know where to get that dish here.

If it's as good as it's made to be, it's a shame it's not more widely
available.

~~~
pidg
It's certainly not a thing in the UK.

I first heard of it on a radio programme about the Americanisation of Chinese
food a few months ago, and I wouldn't know where to find it here.

I'd love to try it though.

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kedean
Can someone answer me why anybody outside his friends and family would be at
all affected by this? He was a chef who created a popular dish. He didn't
change lives, he didn't make some grand contribution to the world, why would
anyone feel personally affected by his death?

This reeks of distractionist news to me.

