Chop suey () is a dish in
American Chinese cuisine
American Chinese cuisine is a cuisine derived from Chinese cuisine that was developed by Chinese Americans. The dishes served in many North American Chinese restaurants are adapted to American tastes and often differ significantly from those ...
and other forms of overseas
Chinese cuisine
Chinese cuisine encompasses the numerous cuisines originating from China, as well as overseas cuisines created by the Chinese diaspora. Because of the Chinese diaspora and historical power of the country, Chinese cuisine has influenced many ot ...
, consisting of meat (usually chicken, pork, beef, shrimp or fish) and eggs, cooked quickly with vegetables such as
bean sprouts
Sprouting is the natural process by which seeds or spores germinate and put out shoots, and already established plants produce new leaves or buds, or other structures experience further growth.
In the field of nutrition, the term signifies ...
,
cabbage
Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&nb ...
, and
celery
Celery (''Apium graveolens'') is a marshland plant in the family Apiaceae that has been cultivated as a vegetable since antiquity. Celery has a long fibrous stalk tapering into leaves. Depending on location and cultivar, either its stalks, lea ...
and bound in a
starch
Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human diets ...
-thickened sauce. It is typically served with rice but can become the Chinese-American form of
chow mein
''Chow mein'' ( and , ; Pinyin: ''chǎomiàn'') is a Chinese dish made from stir-fried noodles with vegetables and sometimes meat or tofu. Over the centuries, variations of ''chǎomiàn'' were developed in many regions of China; there are seve ...
with the substitution of stir-fried noodles for rice.
Chop suey has become a prominent part of
American Chinese cuisine
American Chinese cuisine is a cuisine derived from Chinese cuisine that was developed by Chinese Americans. The dishes served in many North American Chinese restaurants are adapted to American tastes and often differ significantly from those ...
,
Filipino cuisine
Filipino cuisine ( fil, lutong Pilipino/pagkaing Pilipino) is composed of the cuisines of more than a hundred distinct ethnolinguistic groups found throughout the Philippine archipelago. A majority of mainstream Filipino dishes that compose Fi ...
,
Canadian Chinese cuisine
Canadian Chinese cuisine (french: Cuisine chinoise canadienne) is a popular style of Canadian cooking original to take-out and dine-in eateries found across Canada. It was the first form of commercially available Chinese food in Canada. This co ...
, German Chinese cuisine,
Indian Chinese cuisine
Indian Chinese cuisine, Chinese Indian cuisine, Sino-Indian cuisine, Chindian cuisine, Hakka Chinese or Desi-Chinese cuisine is a distinct fusion culinary style that combines aspects of both Indian and Chinese foods and flavours. Though Asian ...
, and
Polynesian cuisine
The cuisines of Oceania include those found on Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea, and also cuisines from many other islands or island groups throughout Oceania.
Since the region of Oceania consists of islands, seafood is a prominent part of ...
. In
Chinese Indonesian cuisine
Chinese Indonesian cuisine ( id, Masakan Tionghoa-Indonesia, ) is characterized by the mixture of Chinese with local Indonesian style. Chinese Indonesians, mostly descendant of Han ethnic Hokkien and Hakka speakers, brought their legacy of Ch ...
/Dutch Chinese indonesian cuisine it is known as ''
cap cai
Cap cai, sometimes spelled cap cay, () is the Hokkien-derived term for a popular Chinese Indonesian and Peranakan cuisine, Peranakan stir-fried vegetable dish that originates from Fujian cuisine.
Various vegetables such as cauliflower, cabbage, ...
'' (tjap tjoi) (雜菜, "mixed vegetables") and mainly consists of vegetables.
Origins
Chop suey is widely believed to have been invented in the U.S. by
Chinese Americans
Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...
, but the anthropologist
E. N. Anderson
Eugene N. Anderson (born 1941) is a professor of anthropology ''emeritus'' at the University of California, Riverside.
Career
Anderson received a B.A. in anthropology from Harvard College in 1962 and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University o ...
, a scholar of Chinese food, traces the dish to ''tsap seui'' (杂碎, "miscellaneous leftovers"), common in
Taishan __NOTOC__
Taishan may refer to:
*Mount Tai or Taishan (), Shandong, China
*Taishan District, Tai'an (), named after the Mount Tai, a district in Tai'an, Shandong, China
*Taishan, Guangdong (), a county-level city of Jiangmen, Guangdong, China
**Gre ...
(Toisan), a county in
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
province, the home of many early Chinese immigrants to the United States. Hong Kong doctor
Li Shu-fan
Li Shu-fan (1887 – 24 November 1966) was a leader of the medical profession in Hong Kong and a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong.
Biography
He was a native of China but received his early education in the US. Li graduated from ...
likewise reported that he knew it in Toisan in the 1890s.
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.
![Chop suey (Philippines)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Chop_suey_%28Philippines%29.jpg)
One account claims that it was invented by Chinese American cooks working on the
transcontinental railroad
A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single ...
in the 19th century. Another tale is that it was created during
Qing Dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
premier
Li Hongzhang
Li Hongzhang, Marquess Suyi ( zh, t=李鴻章; also Li Hung-chang; 15 February 1823 – 7 November 1901) was a Chinese politician, general and diplomat of the late Qing dynasty. He quelled several major rebellions and served in important ...
's visit to the United States in 1896 by his chef, who tried to create a meal suitable for both Chinese and American palates. 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. 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. Yu speculates that shrewd Chinese American restaurant owners took advantage of the publicity surrounding his visit to promote chop suey as Li's favorite.
Another myth is that, in the 1860s, a Chinese restaurant cook in San Francisco was forced to serve something to drunken miners after hours, when he had no fresh food. To avoid a beating, the cook threw leftover meat and vegetables into a wok and served it to the miners, who loved it and asked what dish it was—he replied "chopped sui". There is no good evidence for any of these stories.
Chop suey appears in an 1884 article in the ''Brooklyn Eagle'', by
Wong Chin Foo
Wong Chin Foo (; 1847–1898) was a Chinese American activist, journalist, lecturer, and one of the most prolific Chinese writers in the San Francisco press of the 19th century. Wong, born in Jimo, Shandong Province, China, was among the first ...
, "Chinese Cooking", which he says "may justly be so-called the 'national dish of China'." An 1888 description states it was a "staple dish for the Chinese gourmand is chow chop svey , a mixture of chickens' livers and gizzards, fungi, bamboo buds, pigs' tripe, and bean sprouts stewed with spices." An 1896 newspaper report states: "Chow chop suey is a sort of stew made of chicken's livers and gizzards, calves' tripe, bean sprouts, celery and 'meu', which is a sort of Chinese first cousin to macaroni". An article in
The Illustrated American
''The Illustrated American'' was a weekly American periodical published from 1890 until 1900. It primarily covered current events (with illustrations), but also contained other miscellaneous content and some fiction. on Chinese cuisine in 1897, reproduces a menu from Ma Hung Low's restaurant on
Mott Street
Mott Street () is a narrow but busy thoroughfare that runs in a north–south direction in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is regarded as Chinatown's unofficial " Main Street". Mott Street runs from Bleecker Street in the north to C ...
in New York's
Chinatown
A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
quarter which includes the dish "Beef Chop Suey with Bean Sprouts, Water Chestnuts and Boiled Rice." The dish itself, referred to as "the standard Chinese dish of chop suey," is described as "a stew of beef, chicken, or pork, with bean sprouts, mushrooms, water-lily roots, sprouted grain and unknown flavorings." In 1898, it is described as "A Hash of Pork, with Celery, Onions, Bean Sprouts, etc."
[Louis Joseph Beck, ''New York's Chinatown: An Historical Presentation of Its People and Places'', p. 5]
full text at Internet Archive
/ref>
During his travels in the United States, Liang Qichao
Liang Qichao (Chinese: 梁啓超 ; Wade–Giles, Wade-Giles: ''Liang2 Chʻi3-chʻao1''; Yale romanization of Cantonese, Yale: ''Lèuhng Kái-chīu'') (February 23, 1873 – January 19, 1929) was a Chinese politician, social and political act ...
, a Guangdong (Canton) native, wrote in 1903 that there existed in the United States a food item called ''chop suey'' which was popularly served by Chinese restaurateurs, but which local Chinese people do not eat, because the cooking technique is "really awful".
In earlier periods of Chinese history, ''chop suey'' or ''chap sui'' in Cantonese, and ''za sui'', in Mandarin, has the different meaning of cooked animal offal or entrails. For example, in the classic novel ''Journey to the West
''Journey to the West'' () is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. It is regarded as one of the greatest Classic Chinese Novels, and has been described as arguably the most popu ...
'' (circa 1590), Sun Wukong
The Monkey King, also known as Sun Wukong ( zh, t=孫悟空, s=孙悟空, first=t) in Mandarin Chinese, is a legendary mythical figure best known as one of the main characters in the 16th-century Chinese novel ''Journey to the West'' ( zh, ...
tells a lion-monster in chapter 75: "When I passed through Guangzhou, I bought a pot for cooking ''za sui'' – so I'll savour your liver, entrails, and lungs."[Wu, Cheng'en, and Anthony C. Yu. ''The Journey to the West'' (vol. 3). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012, , p. 379] The term ''za sui'' (杂碎) is found in newer Chinese-English dictionaries with both meanings listed: cooked entrails, and ''chop suey'' in the Western sense.
See also
* American chop suey
* Chinatowns in the United States
Chinatowns are enclaves of Chinese people outside of China. The first Chinatown in the United States was San Francisco's Chinatown in 1848, and many other Chinatowns were established in the 19th century by the Chinese diaspora on the West Co ...
* Japchae
''Japchae'' () is a savory and slightly sweet dish of stir-fried glass noodles and vegetables that is popular in Korean cuisine.
* ''Japchae'' is typically prepared with ''dangmyeon'' (당면, 唐麵), a type of cellophane noodles made from swee ...
* Cap cai
Cap cai, sometimes spelled cap cay, () is the Hokkien-derived term for a popular Chinese Indonesian and Peranakan cuisine, Peranakan stir-fried vegetable dish that originates from Fujian cuisine.
Various vegetables such as cauliflower, cabbage, ...
* Subgum
Subgum or sub gum (traditional: 什 錦; simplified: 什 锦; Cantonese: sap6 gam2; pinyin: shí jǐn; literally "ten brocades", metaphorically "numerous and varied") is a type of Chinese dish in which one or more meats or seafood are mixed with ...
* Chop Suey! (song)
"Chop Suey!" is the first single from Armenian-American heavy metal band System of a Down's second album ''Toxicity''. The single was released in August 2001 and earned the band its first Grammy nomination in 2002 for Best Metal Performance. "C ...
* Chop suey font
References
Further reading
* E. N. Anderson, ''The Food of China'', Yale University Press, 1988.
*
*
* Andrew Coe, ''Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States'', 2009. .
* Alan Davidson, ''The Oxford Companion to Food
''The Oxford Companion to Food'' is an encyclopedia about food. It was edited by Alan Davidson and published by Oxford University Press in 1999. It was also issued in softcover under the name ''The Penguin Companion to Food''. The second and th ...
'', 1999.
* Monica Eng, "Chop Suey or Hooey?", orig. ''Chicago Tribune'', January 4, 2006, online rpr. ''Honolulu Advertiser''
* . Free online, also archived a
Wayback Machine
*
*
;Cookbooks with recipes for chop suey and accounts of Chinese American cuisine
* Hom, Ken. ''Easy Family Recipes from a Chinese American Childhood''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
* Yin-Fei Lo, Eileen. ''The Chinese Kitchen: Recipes, Techniques and Ingredients, History, and Memories from America’s Leading Authority on Chinese Cooking''. New York: William Morrow, 1999.
* Chatterjee, Rhitu
A Classic Chinese-American Dish Takes On A Mexican Flair
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
. August 3, 2017.
External links
Chop Suey Origin at snopes.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chop Suey
American Chinese cuisine
Cantonese words and phrases
Chinese-American history