左宗棠鸡的奇怪来源

General Tso's chicken (also General Gau's, Tao's, Tsao's, Zhou's, Gao's, Chou's, Tzo's, To's, So's, Joe's, or Toso's) is named after 左宗棠/Zuo Zongtang, a famous Chinese general who crushed uprisings in 新疆/Xinjiang in the 1870s. (The difference in spelling is because "Tso" comes from the unacceptable Wade-Giles transliteration system.) General Tso's chicken is the most famous 湖南/Hunan dish outside China - except that it doesn't exist in Hunan. Here is the bizarre story of how General Tso's chicken was invented in 1950s 台北/Taibei and 1970s New York, how Henry Kissinger disseminated it to the world, and how latter-day Hunanese chefs are now adopting it as a "traditional" dish.