Well, Peking Duck is Wades-Giles, so why wouldn’t General Tsao be as well? They probably figured in 1980 that they wouldn’t bother switching names of well-liked dishes (“What happened to the General Tsao’s Chicken?” “It’s General Zuo’s Chicken” “Why?”) so the names have stuck. Also, isn’t “ts” evident of Wades-Giles?
What? Peking is Wades Giles? I thought it was Cantonese derived. It doesn’t make any sense as a Mandarin phonetic thingy at all. Oh yeah, I forget, it’s Wades-Giles, it doesn’t need to make sense.
Yeah, Ts indicates WG, but I thought that was “c” as in “cao,” hence my warning. Zuo? What the hell. I hate Wades-Giles.
In Mandarin (pinyin), General Tsao’s Chicken = zou gong ji
oops, i meant zuo gong ji… :o
That article says it’s “zuo” are they wrong? Zou I can see as Tsao, Zuo just doesn’t work.
My apologies again. It’s zuo zong ji in mandarin (pinyin). Zuo zong is the name of the general. I’m pretty sure it’s right since I just looked at a menu with Chinese characters. In Chinese, Zuo (probably a surname) literally means “left”.
After work update:
vibrotronica was forced to buy his coworker a lunch of zuo zong ji.
How’s this for tangential:
Chicken Marengo was General Napoleon’s chicken. It was invented in the middle of a campaign in Italy, right after the Battle of Marengo in the year 1800. Napoleon, being a Frenchman, took his chef along when he went to war. After the battle, the countryside being ravaged and all, it wasn’t easy to rustle up some grub. The chef managed to get hold of an old chicken. What to do with it? He threw in whatever else that was edible he could scrounge up. Doesn’t sound very appealing, but this was, après tout, not a French chef for nothing! Napoleon liked the result so much (“You must feed me zis after every battaille”), Chicken Marengo became a popular dish.
I don’t know but always assumed General Tso had a similar culinary experience.
Up here, it’s called General Tao’s Chicken. Tao, pronounced Ta-oh. Same deal: battered chicken with sweet/salty sauce over rice.
I pronounce it “Tao”, too. Dang. Well, I can’t change now.
Brilliant! Mind if I use it as a sig?