All language subtitles for The Search For General Tso [2014] [1080p] eng

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>> Chi? Chi?

Chi?

Hello? Chi?

>> Yeah.

>> Are you ready?
>> Yeah.

>> Hi!

[speaking in foreign language]

>> Give me that dish
and for the oil I need water.

>> Oil. Water.

[speaking in foreign language]

Give me the brush.
I need a brush.

[speaking in foreign language]

>> 1

2

[camera clicks]

[chickens clucking]

>> What is
General Tso's Chicken?

General Tso's Chicken
is usually --

>> Chicken legs.

>> Dark meat of the chicken.

>> Best made from dark meat.

>> They, cut about, uh..

...inch square.

>> Marinade that was
thick white.

Deep fried in a wok.

And is quickly
tossed in the sauce.

Garlicky.
>> Tangy.

>> Intensive heat.

>> With sweet intensive taste.

>> Salty.
Outside little crisp.

Inside still tender.

>> A glorious, sweet,
fried chicken dish.

>> I don't think that
General Tso's Chicken's

the most popular
ethnic dish in the country

only because there's pizza.

Restaurant after restaurant

it's become
American food, almost.

My customer, they come here
7 times a week.

Unbelievable.

>> I can't wait to start
chowing down on this.

[speaking in foreign language]

>> I don't know that
there was a manual

for restaurateurs,
but you'll find

a random Chinese restaurant
in the middle of nowhere

and all of a sudden selling
General Tso's Chicken.

How did that happen?

[oriental music]

>> Almond chicken,
walnut chicken

Chow gai pan, which
is boneless chicken

crispy baked chicken,
sesame chicken.

Oh, there he is,
the general, $10.95.

>> In 1981,
I was new to New York City

and I was alone in an apartment
on the Upper Westside.

And I heard a riffle
at the door

and I thought, "Oh, great,
I've been here three days

and I'm about to get robbed."

And I peeked out
from around the corner

and saw something slide
under the front door

and few minutes later
I got up the nerve

and went and looked at it
and it was from

Hunan Royal restaurant.
A Chinese takeout menu.

Thus began, uh,
what's now a quarter century of

collecting Chinese restaurant
memorabilia.

This is my Chinese restaurant
memorabilia archive.

It starts up here
with large format menus.

It fills these shelves.

And these shelves.

I have over 10,000
restaurant menus

from all 50 United States

from over a 100 nations
around the world.

This is my Guinness
world record

for the world's largest
collection of restaurant menus.

Rosticceria Chinese,
a Chinese roast shop.

For some reason in Italy

Chinese takeout menus
are squares.

Lucky 8 Chinese restaurant

with Bruce Lee on the cover.

I don't think they're paying
the Bruce Lee family

any royalties,
but I don't know.

Beyond the menus I collect
matchbooks, postcards

toothpicks, chopsticks
calendars, magnets

baseball caps, T-shirts.

Wooden Stir Fry
slicing play set.

Our son was given this
when he was born

and I stole it immediately
from him

and leave it in the package.

You can just throw pins
at this menu

and get great stuff
like fresh snake stem
with bean curd slice.

If you see on a menu,
you see these little pen ticks.

Um, most people
don't see those

but I'm a menu professional.

A pen tick around a dish
means that the waiter

has recommended it many times.

Menus are like mystery books.

You know th -- they answer
a lot of questions

and they are a lot of fun
to read

but they end up
asking more questions.

The mysteries of the Orient.

I must have 15 different
spellings of Tso

in my menu collection.

>> It's T-S-O, so it's Tso.
>> How do I pronounce it again?

>> Uh, I don't know
if you say the T or not.

I just kind of blur a bit,
and that way no one really knows
if I'm saying it right or not.

But I get mine over brown rice.

It's my healthy thing
for the day.

>> Well, up in Chico
they call it General Chicken.

>> You know, it's been called,
General Toes

It's been called -- I think
the naval academy calls it
Admiral Toes.

>> I feel like no matter
what restaurant you go to

there's always a different
spelling of General Tso, so..

...so there's a lot
to find about him.

>> I haven't a clue who he is.

I guess he must've came up
with the recipe himself.

>> I think he was a --
a general in the Chinese army

who died during the time
of Chairman Mao or something

and that was his favorite dish
and they named it after him.

>> He, uh, had his private chef
cook this dish, you know?

Uh, even when he went to battle.

>> I don't think it was a dish
that was made for that general.

Maybe it was made in honor of
him a 100 years after his death.

>> I think they just named it
because it sounds exotic

after somebody nobody's
ever heard of.

>> I imagine General Tso
as almost

a bearded Mongolian warrior,
who's on a horse for sure

riding wildly.

>> He's a general,
so he obviously has a hat.

And he has a military uniform.

But maybe it's bulging
a little bit

because he's so chubby
from eating all that chicken.

>> Beautiful armor, you know,
with jade maybe and gold pieces.

He probably looks
kind of fancy

with an army of thousands.

>> Did he love chicken?
We don't know.

Nobody knows.

[oriental music]

[toys squealing]

>> I know that the general's
name is a Chinese name.

I can say it
if I knew what it was.

[speaking in foreign language]

"Zuo Zong ji"

or they also say it
"Zuo Zongtang ji."

I've only eaten it
when I would have

American-Chinese takeout
when I was little.

I was surprised,
I have to say

that I haven't seen it directly
on a menu in China.

[instrumental music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[laughs]

[music continues]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[instrumental music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

>> General Tso
was a 19th century general

in the Qing Dynasty.

And helped put down
the Taiping Rebellion

uh, which was
a great pheasant rebellion.

[war cries]

>> He was a great patriot.

He had tremendous loyalty
from his men.

He was obviously
a very intelligent

and strategically
sophisticated person.

And also, I think, ruthless.

Zuo Zongtang was very much
part of that mentality

of trying to strengthen China
and maintain Chinese values.

>> General Tso played
a critical role

in keeping together
what is now modern-day China.

At that point,
there was truly a threat

you know, during
the age of colonization.

And he always wanted to keep
the westerners out of China.

So if you told General Tso that
this dish was named after him

I think he'd raise his eyebrows.

>> General Tso's Chicken,
it's a very sweet dish.

And the Hunanese

although they have
some sweet dishes

they don't really like
mixing sweet and savory foods.

So not only have people
not really heard of it

but, um, it's not really
the kind of flavor

they'd like to eat anyway.

[speaking in foreign language]

[instrumental music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[knives swish]

[ship horn blowing]

[seagulls squawking]

[instrumental music]

[chuckling]
>> I have no idea.

We don't have a file
on General Tso

at the Chinese
Historical Society.

It's amazing to me
how a pattern developed.

Did several people have
the same idea at the same time?

I mean, it cropped up
in different places.

East Coast, West Coast,
you know.

So this map gives you
the number

according
to the 2010 census

of Chinese

in every state of the union.

Chinese are 1%
of the US population

which is a drop in the bucket.

Yet, probably most Americans
have eaten Chinese food.

So how do you explain that?

And how many have eaten
General Tso's Chicken?

>> Even though there's now
General Tso's Chicken

in restaurants coast to coast

there was a time
when Chinese food

was completely new to America.

>> The biggest reason Chinese
began to come to the US

was the California gold rush
of the 1850s.

The early Chinese
are primarily Cantonese.

Chinese in the Guangdong area

started coming
to California in droves

through the port
of San Francisco.

And the Chinese quarter
got more and more crowded.

>> For Americans, the Chinese
were the space aliens.

They had their hair
in long braids called Queues.

They eat with sticks,
not with forks.

And Americans were sort of
amazed by Chinese food

but also little bit
repulsed by it.

>> The mainstream audience
saw Chinese food

as scary, you know.

I mean, they thought of --
they had ideas in their head

about Chinese people eating rats
and things like that

and so you really were
risking something

when you went into Chinatown.

The white authorities
saw it

as a quarter of
vice and slums

and prostitution
and opium dens

and they said, "Let us rid,"
uh, you know

"San Francisco
of it's Chinatown."

>> They saw the Chinese
as the competition.

"The Chinese must go," was the
slogan that a lot of them used.

>> There were laws
that were put in place

that would make it
legal to prosecute violence

against Chinese,
and, of course

this culminated in
the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

>> 1882, the law was passed
and it made it difficult

for anyone except for
few people

in protected classes to, uh,
come to this country.

Uh, made it particularly
difficult for women

uh, to arrive.

>> The whole idea of these laws

is to somehow stave off
this generation.

>> They would have white mobs
comi communitiesheir

burning them out,
tossing their stuff

out on to streets.

There's a quote, it said

"They say exclusion,
but they mean extermination."

>> The Exclusion Act basically
forced them out of labor.

And so they have
to be self-employed.

And this is where
two very important professions

came in being.

One is providing laundry

and one is providing food.

>> Restaurant work
was one of the few jobs

that the Chinese could find.

And Chinese restaurant owners
discovered

that if they adapted
simple dishes

to American taste
that they could make money.

[knives swish]

[Oriental music]

>> Hey, how you doin' today?
Is it wet and cold out there?

>> It's startin' to sprinkle.
>> Oh, man.

Wish it would have rained
a little while earlier.

[speaking in foreign language]

>> Believe it or not, she says
she doesn't eat it. So..

My name is Harlan Lee
and, uh, we are at

Sing High Chop Suey house
here in Phoenix, Arizona.

And, uh, this is my mother.

She is the senior partner
of Sing High.

[speaking in foreign language]

>> My name, uh...Ella Lee.

>> My grandfather
opened Sing High, uh, in 1928

in downtown Phoenix.

You know, Chinese food
was not that popular here yet.

I mean, if you looked
at our business

we've changed our menus
based on

the demands and the tastes
of the people around us.

>> This awareness of having
to make yourself

acceptable to a wider world

was very much on the minds
of Chinese restaurants.

Even then, I mean,
at that early time

they had experienced
outrageous racism.

And to deal with it
they got pretty savvy

I mean, all kinds of dishes
frying up

that would appeal
to white audiences.

>> You know, chop suey is,
simply means, you know

just bits and pieces
of different things.

It's very, very obvious
that it caters

to the more
Americanized palate.

>> Chop suey is
basically two things.

One it's a meat,
like pork or chicken or beef.

So all meats
that Americans recognize

accompanied by
sort of these exotic vegetables

which are cool,
but very much flavorless.

>> I -- I don't come
in my collection every day.

And -- and look and -- and..

This is from
the age of chop suey.

This is a replica of one of the
oldest menus in my collection

It's from 1916.

Uh, and I don't handle
the original

'cause it's crump -- crink..
It's falling apart.

It's -- it's very, very old.

Chop suey is 15 cents,
30 cents, 25 cents.

I don't think the general
was part of that scene.

You could get steak
with mushrooms, was 40 cents.

But how you know
that a menu is from 1916?

Scrapbooks, where people

had this quote-unquote
"exotic meal"

and saved the menu
as a souvenir.

>> They would have,
you know, menus

steaks or whatever potatoes.

And yet they would
have chop suey on the menu.

And so it's this mash up

of being kind of exotic
and kind of unfamiliar

but not too different.

You know, it's that foreign
yet familiar thing

that was the real beginning
of what

Chinese-American cuisine was.

It was a way in for people.

>> I do vividly recall
I was 18 years old

and got off a Greyhound bus
from Dayton, Ohio.

Got in late at night,
saw the neon signs.

The first thing I ordered
when I got off the bus

was chop suey.

>> I've been eatin' in here for,
well, since the '50s.

>> Quite frankly I didn't know
what I was eating.

They've served
this food forever.

It's just been very popular
in Flagstaff.

>> I knew Fred's dad
and his uncles.

Same here, Gina. Haven't seen
you in a long time.

>> I know.

[laughing]

>> This right here
is a postcard

of the restaurant

back in, probably,
the '50s, you know.

My dad started
the restaurant.

Half of my orders
is Chinese food

and the other half,
American food

steaks, fried chicken.

This is clubhouse sandwich.

Big sandwich.

>> All of a sudden,
in Chinatowns all over

you would find
these huge neon signs

advertising chop suey.

>> Chop suey became
a national phenomenon.

It basically allowed
for the proliferation

of Chinese restaurants

all across United States
into little towns.

And in a way it sort of
laid the groundwork for

what was yet to come.

>> Chinese are very
enterprising people.

So..

...I think anywhere in the world
where they can find a place

to put a restaurant
they will do it.

[instrumental music]

>> If you were to look
at a map of the US in 1850

you would find
all of the Chinese

in California.

Then over time

after 1882, the Exclusion era

they began
a very pronounced migration

into sparsely populated
counties

all across the country.

Midwest, East
and even the South.

One of the motivations
for the dispersion

was to escape persecution
on the West Coast

and earn a living
in a safer environment.

But the major reason was
an effort to find employment

uh, in a way that didn't
compete with other Chinese.

>> My restaurant's name's
Golden Dragon.

We are the only Chinese
restaurant in town.

We are the only Chinese family
in town.

It's hard, you know,
to stay in a small town.

A lot of people think I'm crazy.

One of my -- lots of my friends,
my family.

But I like it in this town.

When we first come,
this restaurant want to sell.

So we just came, we see it,
and we think

"Oh, yeah, that -- that
good for a family," you know.

And then we have kids.

1, 2, 3, 4.
We got 4 kids.

But for me it's okay.

You know, somebody
when tell me, tell me

"I always travel from New York
to San Francisco.

You are the best!"

They drive me -- Makes me
so happy, you know.

[instrumental music]

>> Hmm.

I am David R. Chan.

I am a tax attorney and
certified public accountant.

And in my spare time,
I like to

uh, eat at different
Chinese restaurants.

And over the years,
I've managed to eat at

over 6000 different
Chinese restaurants.

[camera clicks]

Rice noodle in clay pot.

I don't know, I'm not sure
if that's enough for us.

Maybe we should add
a couple more items.

Steamed chicken buns?

I never thought of
that as a dessert.

Here we have some, uh,
curry fish balls.

Rice pancakes
with minced beef stuffing.

You know, if somebody asks me
why I travel all over

to seek Chinese restaurants
to eat at

it's really part of a,
uh, seeking of an identity.

And to see where,
as a Chinese-American, how

you know, how that fits in with
the overall American culture.

I started to notice

most Americanized
Chinese restaurants

they have names
that would be not threatening

to the local population,
like Golden Palace or China Inn.

I don't know how many
China Inns there are.

Some restaurant names

people just don't quite
understand what the words mean.

So for example, I mean,
in New York Chinatown

there's a restaurant
called Strange Taste.

Well, I mean,
would you really wanna go

to the Strange Taste Restaurant?

I noticed even
when I was a kid

whenever we traveled
anywhere in the country

there was
one Chinese restaurant

at least one Chinese restaurant
in any city

of any particular size.

Actually what happened is

the Regional Chinese Association

basically assigned territories.

Even to this day,
if you go to Chinatowns

you'll see a lot of
buildings that say

you know, Wong Association

or, you know,
Fujian Association.

>> All the takeout restaurants
sell these dishes.

Everywhere.

Everywhere.

You know, I know.

I'm in charge
of this organization.

This is one of the oldest
organization in Chinatown.

We are 130 years here.

This is the first step,
you know.

A lot of the new immigrant
they just come here

and if the organization
can help them

to set up the business
in a proper way.

I mean, register them.

They teach you how to cook
step by step.

>> Chinese restaurant owners,
uh, to a great extent

relied on the traditional
Chinese networks.

Family associations,
district associations.

They would get information
about the popular dishes

to help each other
in a strange place.

[speaking in foreign language]

>> It's not easy to settle here
in Chinatown.

Because the rent is high.

The organization
gives you some information

where to go, which state
or which town is better.

That's why they spread out.
All over in the country.

[instrumental music]

In a lot of the smaller town,
it's very lonely.

Because they have no relatives,
no entertainment there.

No place to go.
They don't understand.

They don't speak
English that well.

And then sometimes
they have some trouble.

[mooing]

>> I'm not exactly sure
where General Tso's Chicken

originated from,
but I do know

where cashew chicken came from.

[speaking with thick accent]

>> Pensacola, Florida.

>> My father came over from
Canton, China in 1940.

A famous physician
tried my dad's cooking

and loved it and asked him
if he'd be willing

to move to Springfield,
Missouri.

During that time my dad
opened up his own restaurant

for a while, and he was not
very accepted.

He had people picketing
his restaurant

protesting his restaurant.

"Go back to China."
Things like that.

Actually our restaurant was
blown up before we opened.

It was bombed.

There was a lot of prejudice
about a Chinese person

owning a business here
in Springfield, Missouri.

What won, uh,
the people over though was

once they started eating
the food they loved it.

He knew that in the Midwest,
people like comfort food.

They love their food fried.

What he did was, he, uh

took off the bones
on a fried chicken

deep fried it and put
a brown gravy sauce over it.

Hence, that's how he came up
with cashew chicken.

And it just took off
like wild fire.

There's over a couple of
hundred restaurants

just in the Springfield area
now that serve cashew chicken.

>> There's a little story
about the cashew chicken.

Late '60s or early '70s,
McDonald's Corporation

actually came to see
how the technique

was to bread
and fry the chicken nuggets

and they wanted
my dad's recipes and..

But they didn't wanna
pay for it.

My dad's, "Well, I'm not gonna
give it to you."

A year later,
Chicken McNuggets come out.

So, you know, tell me
is that a coincidence or what?

I, uh, I tend to think that,
you know, they owe me royalty.

Now, I'll show you

the General Tso's Chicken
that we do.

We use the same chicken nuggets
we use on the cashew chicken.

People ask me, "Wing, do you
think you'll be frying chicken

till the end of your life?"

I said, "I probably will."

Even when I'm dead
I'll be frying chicken.

>> Cashew chicken
really hit upon this formula.

It was chicken, it was fried,
and there was sauce.

>> Interesting thing about
Springfield cashew chicken

is the fact that it's kind of
mind boggling to find

a Chinese dish
becoming so widespread, popular

in an area which has virtually

no Chinese population
of its own.

>> Springfield cashew chicken

it's not a traditional
Chinese food.

It's something
that's Americanized.

And one thing that most of
the immigrants from China

have learned is to adapt.

>> My brothers and I were born
in Hong Kong.

We are a family of 5 boys

and my father passed away
when I was 5 years old.

So my mom was widowed
with 5 boys in Hong Kong.

She didn't see
much future there.

When we first opened up
in Hammond

we were the only
Chinese family there.

And it's a smaller town.
It was kinda..

It was culture shock,
it was kinda unique.

>> Well, I'm gonna get to that
because Dr. Fanning

who's with us today
is here from Albuquerque.

So I was explaining,
I was givin' him the history.

What they did was blend

the best of Louisiana
with the best of Chinese.

It is divine.

It is divine.

>> Wherever you go you know
you not cook for yourself.

You gotta cook for
what the local people like.

>> It's alligator leg.
This is a baby alligator.

So it's sweet and sour.

You know, I do flounder,
cod fish, alligator.

Chinese gumbo!

Louisiana Chinese gumbo.

>> This lady came and said,
"Oh, eve -- every Sunday

"my dad used to take us after
church and eat Chinese food."

And, "Can you make it for me?"
I said, "Yeah, just tell me
what it was."

I walked back by the table
and she had the biggest smile
on her face.

She said, "Oh, yeah, this is
just like I remember
with my dad on Sundays."

I said, "You know, I'm --
I'm thinkin', ain't this ironic

"that Chinese food
has become comfort food?

That, um, it replaced meatloaf
and fried chicken?"

[Oriental music]

>> I was growing up
in Saratoga, New York.

And we were
an orthodox Jewish family.

We would go, um,
a couple of times a year

to a restaurant in Schenectady

called Lum Fung's,
a Chinese restaurant.

I remember my mother
would always order

uh, shrimp with lobster sauce.

My father would look at this
as just abominable.

And my dad who's still alive,
he's 95

would never eat pork
or shellfish.

Then we get these egg rolls
and I'd say what are these
little brown bits in it?

And then his comment was, "Well,
if you can't identify it,
it's okay to eat."

And I always thought that,
it's called, "safe-treif."

"Treif" meaning forbidden.

And for years, I thought
that was actually
Rabbinical statement.

Until I asked a few rabbis'
and they said, "No, no, no

"if you can't identify it,
absolutely don't eat it."

>> I can't remember which year,
you know, it was Christmas day,
when I open.

>> Wow!
>> Yeah.

>> Over 90%
of Jewish people.

They say, "Jewish people either
Christmas or Thanksgiving."

>> It's Christmas, yeah.

>> Only-only Chinese food
and the movie.

>> There's an old joke that..

...Jews have been around for
well over 5,000 years

and the Chinese culture
has been around for -- for
a bit over 4,000 years.

Which means that, there's been
about 1,500 years that Jews had
to survive without Chinese food.

[instrumental music]

Lot of Jews just wanted
to become Americanized.

Part of that is going out to
Chinese restaurants.

>> We ate Chinese food
growing up once a month
on a Sunday night.

My mom's from Brooklyn.

And we're Jewish
and that was a Jewish thing.

I -- I met Sandy Koufax
this past summer.

He liked Chinese food too.

>> I ate two ethnic foods
as a child.

Uh, well, I ate some Jewish food
from my grandmother.

But clearly when we wanted to go
out for something different.

Chinese food was at
the top of the list.

>> It's part of the American
tradition now

to go to Chinese restaurants.

>> I'm from a small town
in Montana. Missoula, Montana.

And I remember going to, you
know the pink and the red boots

with the neon and getting
the...um, white takeout boxes
with the fortune cookies.

>> We had a favorite Chinese
restaurants, it was called
"Wai-Wai."

W-A-I, W-A-I. "Wai-Wai."

And it was about,
maybe about a mile?

>> From -- from the house.
>> Not even.

>> Yeah! We were there a lot.
>> Yeah, yeah.

>> They had the best Chinese
buffet you ever had.

>> Mom doesn't wanna cook,
"Oh, let's call in for Chinese."

It's fast, it's easy and you
don't have to do any dishes.

'Cause everything
is right there for you.

They even throw
in the plastic forks. So..

[chuckles]

>> For Americans
this small restaurant

where the lone
Chinese family lives

is their invitation into the
world...of Chinese culture.

Even though it is..

...as American as anything else.

[machine whirring]

>> This is one
of the tradition.

That lasted for more
than 100 years in..

...in United States.

People when they go to
a Chinese restaurant

expect that, after the dinner,
they'll have dessert.

And also they can
see the fortunes.

We have some freelance writers
to help us to write, some
students help us to write.

Nowadays, we have more than
10,000 pieces of message
in our database.

I used to say that,
I've never seen a fortune
cookie...uh, in China.

[instrumental music]

[speaking in foreign language]

>> It's a product
of a America.

>> By the 1940s,
despite the fact

that there is this prohibition
for Chinese immigration

Chinese food becomes one
of the ways in which Chinese
and Chinese-Americans

gain social acceptance
and cultural acceptance
in United States.

And at the same time,
as the United States
enters the second World War

um, China becomes, you know,
an ally of the United States.

And by 1943,
the Congress is persuaded

to abrogate
the Chinese Exclusion Acts.

So the kind of really
virulent and violent

anti-Chinese movement
subsides,

and Chinese restaurants
becomes ubiquitous.

>> Wherever you go.

You know, there's sunshine --
sunshine on the land

there's a Chinese,
there's a Chinese restaurant.

>> My favorite fortune..

"Everything you
have prepared, will be
paid off soon."

And also like the message,
"No pain, no gain."

[indistinct chattering]

[instrumental music]

>> One of the interesting
things about Chinese food

is that, it's always
been linked with
international relations

between China and United States.

>> In the 1950's,
particularly after the
Chinese Communist Revolution

the image of China and Chinese,
uh, in the United States begins
to change quite dramatically.

United States is gripped with,
uh, anxiety about
the rise of -- of Communism.

Particularly in Asia.

So many Chinese families
feel very vulnerable.

China, Mainland China
was now enemy, particularly
during Korean war.

And, so everything about China
was negative.

Including Chinese-Americans,
including Chinese food.

>> When I came here, 1950s

there was Chinese food
in the USA.

Everywhere you go, pretty much
the same, same menu.

It just taste so -- pretty bad.

>> Bland.

>> Yeah, no flavor.
>> No spice.

>> Yeah, nothing.

>> I -- I tried to introduce the
real Chinese food to Americans.

I opened The Mandarin
restaurant in 1959
in San Francisco.

Um, Polk Street.

>> It was food
that she grew up with.

That she, you know,
served at The Mandarin.

It had that, sort of...refined
elegance to it, you know.

>> I really had a tough time.

Those days, a lot of a...what
you call "discrimination."

They didn't give me any credit.
Everything I have to pay cash.

We try to run..

...a apartment in
a good location.

American won't rent for me.

Because they said that Chinese
person is very dirty.

>> They weren't assimilated,
they marginalized.

And...this thing went on, uh,
for a very, very long time.

>> After Mao took over China

the same time Chop Suey was
being forgotten.

There was nothing new in Chinese
food. It was in the doldrums.

>> It's really hard
for me to date menus

So there's a certain esthetic,
you can just tell
these are -- are '50s.

Let's see if
General Tso appears.

"Chef Special Chicken Salad."

"Hacked Chicken."

This is gotta be '60s.

Let's see what kind
of chicken they had here.

"Pineapple Chicken,
Curry Chicken"

and "Steamed Chicken
and Sausage."

I don't believe
General Tso has reared

his armor
at this point in history.

[instrumental music]

>> Premier Zhou Enlai on behalf
of the government of the
People's Republic of China.

Has extended an invitation to
President Nixon to visit China.

At an appropriate date,
before May 1972.

President Nixon has accepted
the invitation with pleasure.

>> There can be no stable
and enduring peace

without the People's
Republic of China.

>> When Nixon visited China,
the bamboo curtain lifted.

On February 21, 1972

Nixon was hosted at a banquet
by Premier Zhou Enlai

in Beijing's Great Hall
of the People.

And live on national
television, Americans saw
him eat real Chinese food.

And they salivated.

>> Raising a toast
he drank that very powerful

Chinese wine called the Maotai.

It's like 120 proof,
kind of thing, you know,
if you ever..

It's like jet fuel.

It's sort of sparked a trend,
I think, in terms of all things
Chinese.

[camera clicks]

>> Right after
Nixon visit China

I got so many phone calls.

And they said, "Can you
duplicate Nixon's dinner."

>> Suddenly all these
Chinese restaurants

had lines outside the door.

>> It ushered in,
kind of the golden age

of fine Chinese cooking
in the United Sates.

[upbeat music]

The first Szechuan restaurants,
the first Hunan restaurants

Fujian styled restaurants.

>> All of a sudden,
here came this wonderful,
well-seasoned food

from the cooler regions
of China, and this stuff
tasted great to us.

But this one dish
just stuck out.

[knives swishing]

[instrumental music]

The renaissance in Chinese food
in New York began

with Michael Tong,
the pre-eminent Chinese
restaurateur in America.

He opened his first restaurant
in New York, Shun Lee Palace.

Michael Tong, sort of opened
the door to the Szechuan
and Hunanese food.

[speaking in foreign language]

>> American people,
late '60s and the '70s

they urged for something
different.

In 1971, we opened the, uh,
Shun Lee Palace.

1972, we opened Hunan.

Then suddenly,
Hunan become a superstar.

>> Chef T.T. Wang
of the Shun Lee restaurants

devised a dish that he called
General Tso's Chicken.

[instrumental music]

>> There was chunks of chicken,
it was put it in a batter,
it was fried

brown sauce, a little sweet,
a little garlicky and spicy.

And the restaurant got a 4 star
review from New York Times.

>> Shun Lee and Hunan
were a great great success.

>> We are the first one who has
General Tso's chicken in the US.

Because we opened the first
Hunanese restaurant in 1972.

Before anybody else and we do
have General Tso's Chicken
on the menu.

But I do have to say,
I have to confess

Taiwan do you have
General Tso's Chicken
in the '60s?

[instrumental music]

>> Timing is everything,
right man in the right place

at the right time,
with the right dish.

But whose dish was it?

>> Chef T.T. Wang
was really inspired

by this restaurant in Taiwan
which was this..

The most famous Hunan-style
restaurant there.

In the early 1970s, businessmen
from the Shun Lee restaurants

went to Taiwan looking to do
something new and interesting
and came back

from there, with dishes
from this particular
restaurant called..

...Chef Peng's Hunan Yuan.

Chef Peng, P-E-N-G

emigrated to Taiwan
from China.

>> Peng Chang-Kuei as a
young boy was taken on
as an apprentice

by one of the great
Hunanese chefs.

He was very talented

he quickly rose to the position
of chef to the nationalist
government

who are fighting the Communist
in the Chinese Civil War.

There is this association
in Hunan

um, between eating chilies and
having a fiery military spirit.

His style of cooking was so
influential, you know

he was really regarded as one of
the great Hunanese chefs.

In 1949, when Chairman Mao's
communist finally conquered
the Mainland

Peng Chang-Kuei fled to Taiwan
with the Nationalist
Government with the army.

He cooked for
the government there.

His inspiration was the sour
and hot flavors of his much
missed home province Hunan.

Which he had to leave.

You know, Hunan was the home
province of many leading
figures

in Chinese military
and politics like General Tso.

He is one of the famous people
of Hunan province.

People are very proud of him.

So, Peng Chang-Kuei invented
many dishes and one of the
dishes that he invented..

...was General Tso's Chicken.

[instrumental music]

>> In Taiwan, Chef Peng
understood very early

that a couple of restaurateurs
from New York had come and seen
his restaurant

and went back to New York
and copied it.

And Chef Peng was..

"Hey.

"These guys are ripping me off,
I'm gonna go there and show
them, you know..

...the real goods."

[instrumental music]

>> Early in 1970,
the Eyewitness News
team decided..

"Here is a new
feature, it'll be called
The Eyewitness News Gourmet."

We'd go to visit a restaurant,
once a week

and would film the preparation
of one of their signature
dishes.

And I've heard that there
was this hot new
Chinese chef in town.

He had come to New York
from Taiwan.

So we went to meet the,
Chef Peng and film the dish.

>> This is Bob Lape, Channel 7,
Eyewitness News.

>> He was this,
long skinny fellow.

Spoke not a word of English.

He knew precisely what he was
there to do which was to cook.

He came out into the dining
room where we'd wheeled this
display cart

full of pre-chopped ingredients

so that could just go,
bing-bing-bing.

And he'd throw them into
the wok one after the other,
give them a quick stir

you got the sizzle
of the oil.

The cloud of steam rising
that you could smell.

He just whipped through that
dish in the wok

with all sorts of elements
and colors and textures.

We put it on the air and it
was over a thousand requests
for that particular recipe.

[instrumental music]

>> But to Chef Peng's dismay,
Americans didn't get
the whole story.

People thought that
Chef Peng was coming
and copying Chef Wang.

Well, in fact it was
the other way around.

But Chef Peng never
really convinced everyone
that he was the original.

[dramatic music]

>> It would be great to have
the 16 millimeter film that was
shot of Chef Peng

but that stuff was
just thrown out.

And so, that stuff was probably
gone before 1980 arrived,
sorry to to say.

I never spent enough...quality
time with Chef Peng.

To get into his emotions,
I mean, firstly, he was,
primarily Chinese

and spoke not much English.

What's happened though is,
because chefs and restaurateurs

feel like they have a certain,
shall we call it
"poetic license"

to rename or recreate things

that when Chef Wang came to
making General Tso's Chicken

he felt the American palate
was a sweeter palate than
the Chinese palate.

So he gave it
a touch of sugar.

>> Everybody have
their own sauce.

Our General Tso's Chicken

it has a little sweet taste,
this is the most American people
like that taste.

>> Little vinegar and little
sugar is low sweet.

>> Vinegar, little bit sugar.

>> They've got some honey in it.
That's the most secret in here.

>> The dish, in many cases has
become sweeter than it was
originally.

Full of fire, spice
and all these other things
but not sweet, per say.

I think it is a simple matter

of people playing copy cat.

"This works, let's do it."

And in the end it becomes an
entirely different affair.

[instrumental music]

>> Crispy Chicken

is a national dishes
for Americans.

You can buy Chicken Nuggets
and adding soya
and sour spicy sauce

you can make your own
General Tso's Chicken today.

>> By the time,
General Tso's Chicken appeared,
there was this

infrastructure
of Chinese restaurants
and Chinese associations

and Chinese chefs
and Chinese menus.

>> The dish spread just
all over the place.

And places where you wouldn't
expect to find it at all.

Here's General Tso
marching at the door.

>> There are about 50,000
Chinese restaurants
in the United States.

The killer combination is to
find an item that everyone
likes.

And keeps ordering
time after time.

Yet, it's something
that we could produce
for a relative price.

How many orders does the
average restaurant sell a day?

Maybe 10?

10 bucks an order?

You start to talk
about a business just
in General Tso's Chicken.

That's in the billions
of dollars.

[instrumental music]

>> General Tso's Chicken
is an icon
in the Chinese food.

It's huge,
it cover the whole country,

cover the whole
United States.

>> I think if Chef Peng were
looking at the scene today

I think he'd be amazed
at the fact that this dish
has become so iconic.

[music continues]

[singing in foreign language]

[instrumental music]

[instrumental music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[instrumental music]

>> As I know
when I was very young.

Chiang Kai-Shek
who is the president

asked my father to prepare
to present dinner.

My father tried to make
something unique.

Uh, different.

He tried to make some name for
it and then he find

that Hunanese very famous
general, who's General Tso.

He is a general,
never lose the battle.

The people honor him,
especially Hunanese people.

General Tso, he likes, he
personally...preferred chicken.

He liked the chicken.

My father is a very happy
to name it as
a General Tso's Chicken.

>> But the name is,
is so popular, is so popular,
is so famous.

This name of General
Tso's Chicken.

And he makes all kind
of different version.

[speaking in foreign language]

[instrumental music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[music continues]

[speaking in foreign language]

[speaking in foreign language]

>> In a way, General Tso's
Chicken really did come from
Hunan province

because Chef Peng himself
was inspired by his
own native cuisine.

But one of the ironies about
General Tso's Chicken is that
the general himself

was very much about
preserving Chinese culture
and Chinese tradition.

Then this chicken dish that is
named after him has in fact
evolved, become anything

but authentic Chinese.

[music continues]

>> The world's most magnificent
culinary culture

and the world's most
diverse cuisine

has been represented
in the west by such
a narrow range of dishes.

And it's not just about eating
and the pleasure of eating.

But also about the culture.

Because food is really at the
heart of Chinese culture.

Food is about love,
it's about doing business,
it's about the family.

It's how you stay connected
with your living relatives.

And all your ancestors.

It's just particularly
important in Chinese culture.

>> It's so integral
that actually it's the greeting.

Um...you'll see all these old
timers would say...

[speaking in foreign language]

Which means
"Have you eaten yet?"

But that's their greeting,
it's your hello.

Because it's so important

but becomes a short hand
for your well-being.

>> Growing up, we learnt to
pick the meat out of crab.

Here, there's no way a child
in America would sit down.

You know, painstakingly,
just to nibble

a little piece of meat
from a crab.
There's no way they do it.

>> I have some nephew's kids
came here

and visiting me,
so, I give, give them --
and they said

"Oh, grandma,
too much trouble."

At home,
we now, everything pour
it in the blender.

That's real funny to me,
everything put in the blender

>> Liquid diet.

>> Then, they just drink it.

[chuckles]

[instrumental music]

>> I think in America,
there is a downward appreciation
of Chinese food.

If you want French food

you have a lot of labor
and you get charged for it.

Chinese food is a lot of labor,
but they can't get away
charging a lot of money.

So that is a question
of attitude.

The culture attitude, the
perception, China has a place.

Their currency worth nothing
and their labor worth nothing.

[music continues]

Chinese restaurants still are
the first job for immigrants
coming to this country.

You don't speak the language.

You can't find a job.

You know how to cook.

>> You try to make it work.

You try to make this restaurant
stick, in a place where another
restaurant wouldn't stick.

>> These dishes are the
economic necessity

and would help you succeed
and survive.

[music continues]

>> Regarding, the General Tso's
Chicken and a different taste

my personally
it's kind of honor.

Is honor.

Is honor to have this people
like to serve this dishes.

I'm proud of to be
my father's son.

We are making some...ah, joke.

The most famous people in the
world is Mr. Zuo Zongtang.

Because every -- every day,
everybody order Zuo Zongtang,
Zuo Zongtang, Zuo Zongtang.

[instrumental music]

This is the General Tso's
Chicken we serve.

[music continues]

>> We started P. F. Chang's,
about 20 years ago.

My mother's food..

at the Mandarin,
it was food of the courts.

We have Peking duck.

Uh, we had dishes that needed
more preparation, more care.

In my style...part of the
generation gap, I think was..

I like, I wanted something
more casual.

We call it Chang's Chicken
here, it's one of our most
popular dishes.

You know, there's different,
everybody has their version

version of this dish and anyway
this is our version here.

>> Americans embrace certain
ideas about ethnic food.

You know, whether it's the taco
or French fries or..

You know, Swedish Pancakes.
They make it their own.

[instrumental music]

There's nothing wrong
with that.

I mean, Chinese-American food
is, it's a style.

You know, it's a style of
cooking.

It's a cuisine in itself,
I think.

>> Our idea about authenticity,
we've created this value of
authenticity.

But I don't there is such
a thing as authenticity.

You know, the idea
that there is some
original Chinese cuisine.

Chinese cuisine has changed
everywhere.

>> You realize that every
country has it's own version of
authentic Chinese food.

Because to them, that's
the version of Chinese food
which is a taste of home.

[instrumental music]

>> We are at Chinese Mirch
in Manhattan.

We are actually, the first
Indian-Chinese restaurant
to open in New York.

Indian Chinese is Chinese food,
but with Indian flavors.

It is Chinese,
the way we eat it in India.

>> This is western style
Chinese vegetable fried rice.

>> Some of the Mexican
restaurant and Italian
restaurants

think that this is a good idea
and have Fortune Taco Cookie and
Fortune Cannoli Cookie.

>> Nothing is authentic
here in our restaurant

We are not authentic Chinese,
we are not authentic Mexican.

And isn't that American?

>> So this our General Tso's
veal rib

and mission Chinese food.

>> I'm gonna make a General
Tso's Tofu Sandwich.

>> I just order General Tso's
Soft boiled egg.

>> Actually, they had
General Tso's Snake

at this restaurant.

>> In fact, you can now get
General Tso's Chicken in China.

[speaking in foreign language]

>> I admit that I don't
often look for it when
I go to a restaurant.

>> I've never ordered it.

>> I did it have a four year
General Tso's love affair.

[speaking in foreign language]

>> I don't think,
this dish will disappear.

People will still like enjoying
that sort of groovy sauce.

They like it.

And why not?

[instrumental music]

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