Knowing the palate of American diners, Chef Wang added a crispier batter to the chicken as well as sugar to the sauce.Īs the story goes, sometime later, Chef Peng Chang-kuei left his native Taiwan for America in pursuit of the American dream. The arrival of the dish in AmericaĪ man named Tsung Ting Wang, a New York chef, said to be responsible for the popularization of Sichuan cuisine in the United States, stumbled upon General Tso chicken during a culinary trip to Taiwan. Hence the appearance of “General Tso chicken” on the menus of restaurants at the time.
It turns out that Chef Peng Chang-kuei was also from Hunan Province and was made ambassador of a chicken recipe with a spicy-sour sauce, called General Tao. Zuo Zongtang, also known as General Tso in the United States, was a well-known military man from Hunan Province in China.
General Tao was a real person, but he was not a chef. So, it wasn’t General Tao himself who created this recipe? Not quite.
The dish’s origins go back to Chinese culinary practices, along with their many regional influences, but its popularity certainly stems in part from the adaptation for North American palates created in New York in the 1970s from the original recipe of the late chef Peng Chang-kuei.
