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General Tsao’s (or Tso’s) chicken: In today’s review of Spice China, we mention this ubiquitious spicy-sweet chicken dish, but who was the man behind it? “General Tso Tsungtang … was born on Nov. 10, 1812, and died on Sept. 5, 1885,” wrote Michael Browning in The Washington Post in 2002. “He was a frighteningly gifted military leader during the waning of the Qing dynasty… He served with brilliant distinction during China’s greatest civil war, the 14-year-
long Taiping Rebellion, which claimed millions of lives.” His dish combines sugary Cantonese and hot Hunan seasonings, but the general never tasted it, as it was most likely invented in New York City in the 1970s.|Kristen Browning-Blas
