A friend of mine has this theory that Americans so passionately love anything battered and deep-fried, it almost doesn't matter what's underneath the crispy crust -- rattlesnake, dried algae, dog turd -- as long as it's served as a crunchy, golden brown creation, preferably covered with a cream gravy or a sugary sweet-and-sour sauce.
That concept has certainly crossed my mind at certain lowbrow Chinese buffets, where the steam tables are piled high with battered bits of God only knows what -- it's usually identified as chicken -- and deluged in some variation of a cornstarch-based sauce. One of the most popular dishes on any buffet -- or Chinese carryout menu -- is the Chinese-American invention called General Tso's chicken, also known as Governor Tso's chicken, General Tao's chicken, General Gao's chicken and -- at one local buffet -- General chicken.
There was, for the record, a real General Tso: a Qing Dynasty general and statesman also known as Zuo Zongtong. It's believed that he never tasted a dish resembling anything like his namesake entree. And why would he have? The dish is believed to have been invented in New York City in the early 1970s. Two restaurateurs in New York claim to have created the dish first: chef Peng Chang-kueix, a Hunan province native who had cooked for Chiang Kai-shek, and Michael Tong, owner of the Shun Lee Palace restaurants in New York, which he claims were the first dining rooms to serve Hunan cuisine in the United States. The first recorded mention of the dish was in The New York Times in 1977, but the sweet-spicy dish immediately caught on with American palates. By the early 1980s, it was hard to find a Chinese restaurant that didn't serve General Tso's chicken.
No matter what the dish is called, it's not always prepared the same way. Some Chinese restaurants heavily batter the bird; others use a feather-light tempura batter. The traditional recipe calls for the use of dark chicken meat -- leg and thigh meat -- but it's more typical to find white breast meat being used at restaurants like Bo Lings. (Owner Richard Ng says the dish is the best-selling entree at all of his locations.) The sauce can be spicier or sweeter, depending on the venue serving it, but it's traditionally concocted from soy sauce, sherry, hot peppers, ginger, garlic and a generous dose of-- drumroll, please -- sugar (which may explain its rapid popularity and acceptance).
The meatless version served at Encore Cafe in Lawrence (1007 Massachusetts) is less jarringly sugary than most. The battered chunks are made from gluten, and the dish looks and tastes like a first-rate version of the real thing.
An interesting footnote: One of the chefs who claims to have invented General Tso's chicken, Peng Chang-kueix, returned to Hunan province in the 1990s to open a restaurant there. The signature dish was General Tso's chicken. The restaurant was a failure, reportedly, because the customers didn't care for the American dish. It was too sweet.
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Point taken, and I can appreciate it. Intention does not control meaning, though, and the phrase is racist on its face.
No "racism" intended, since the idea of "offbeat" meats never occurred to me. I've never been wholly convinced that all of those "battered bits" contain meat or poultry of any kind. Household sponges, perhaps.
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