National Chop Suey Day on August 29 is dedicated to this delicious and amazing American-Chinese dish.
Made with an assortment of ingredients like vegetables, meat, and eggs, chop suey is served with rice or noodles.
Many Americans have grown up eating it and enjoy it well into their adulthood too.
Because of globalization, chop suey is now enjoyed all over the world. There may be variations in the recipe here and there, but the element of scrumptiousness remains constant.
Much like the hundreds of various chop suey recipes out there, there are several origin stories about it too.
From transcontinental roads to immigrants in a new country to royal courthouses, chop suey’s origin stories do take one on quite the ride.
National Chop Suey Day celebrates the iconic dish that has several origin stories to its name. E. N. Anderson, a historical scholar on Chinese food, states that chop suey may have its origins in the county of Taishan in the Guangdong province of China.
Known as ‘tsap seui,’ which translates to ‘miscellaneous pieces,’ chop suey may have come to America through the earliest Chinese immigrants.
It was in the 1840s when gold was discovered in California, that many immigrants, a large number of which consisted of Chinese people, came to the United States to seek their fortunes.
After a hard day’s work of digging for gold, the Chinese immigrants, mostly men who had come to the country with little to their names, chose chop suey to satisfy their hunger as the dish was cheap and filling.
From there on, the dish became popular with the rest of the public.
Other scholars speculate that the dish may have been invented at the house of Li Hongzhang, a Chinese diplomat based in New York. Hongzhang had some American friends coming over, and in order to provide a hearty and good meal, he instructed his chef to create something that would be suitable for both the Chinese as well as Americans.
The result is said to have been the American-Chinese fusion dish called chop suey. Yet another story tells that the dish was the invention of a tired and scared chef. The chef in question had a restaurant on the transcontinental railroad.
As he was closing his eatery for the day, a group of drunk sailors entered the place instructing the chef to whip up something delicious. Fearing a beating, the chef brought together the day’s leftover scraps, which consisted of some meat, shrimps, vegetables, and eggs.
He cooked these ingredients on high heat, serving them to his customers. The dish became an instant hit and really took off, prompting the chef to include the item on his menu.
Whichever story you choose to believe, one thing is clear: chop suey rules the food scene all over the world.
