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Yet recent research by the scholar Renqui Yu led him to conclude that "no evidence can be found in available historical records to support the story that Li Hung Chang ate chop suey in the United States." Li brought three Chinese chefs with him, and would not have needed to eat in local restaurants or invent new dishes in any case. Another story is that Li wandered to a local Chinese restaurant after the hotel kitchen had closed, where the chef, embarrassed that he had nothing ready to offer, came up with the new dish using scraps of leftovers. Another tale is that it was created during Qing Dynasty premier Li Hongzhang's visit to the United States in 1896 by his chef, who tried to create a meal suitable for both Chinese and American palates. One account claims that it was invented by Chinese American cooks working on the transcontinental railroad in the 19th century. įilipino chop suey, introduced during the American colonial period of the Philippines The long list of conflicting stories about the origin of chop suey is, in the words of food historian Alan Davidson, "a prime example of culinary mythology" and typical of popular foods.
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Hong Kong doctor Li Shu-fan likewise reported that he knew it in Toisan in the 1890s. Anderson, a scholar of Chinese food, traces the dish to tsap seui (杂碎, "miscellaneous leftovers"), common in Taishan (Toisan), a county in Guangdong province, the home of many early Chinese immigrants to the United States. by Chinese Americans, but the anthropologist E. In Chinese Indonesian cuisine/Dutch Chinese Indonesian cuisine it is known as cap cai (tjap tjoi) (雜菜, "mixed vegetables") and mainly consists of vegetables.Ĭhop suey is widely believed to have been developed in the U.S. It is typically served with rice but can become the Chinese-American form of chow mein with the substitution of stir-fried noodles for rice.Ĭhop sui has become a prominent part of American Chinese cuisine, Filipino cuisine, Canadian Chinese cuisine, German Chinese cuisine, Indian Chinese cuisine, and Polynesian cuisine.
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Chop sueyĬhop suey ( / ˈ tʃ ɒ p ˈ s uː i/) is a dish in American Chinese cuisine and other forms of overseas Chinese cuisine, consisting of meat (usually chicken, pork, beef, shrimp or fish) and eggs, cooked quickly with vegetables such as bean sprouts, cabbage, and celery and bound in a starch-thickened sauce. For the song by System of a Down, see Chop Suey! For other uses, see Chop suey (disambiguation). For the New England dish, see American chop suey.
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