For Chinese who don't know, ask any English speaker, "what is the most common meal on a Chinese restaurant menu." Chop suey, of course..
Below, James 007 and macs have made some very palatable contributions to the chop suey smorgasbord of information.
Quoting from [Professor Carl]: What is Chop suey Prof? I do not understand either.
Replying to Moolan99Quoting from [Professor Carl]: What is Chop suey Prof? I do not understand either.
Better known as: ''AMERICAN CHOP SUEY''
A delightful preparation of crispy noodles served with vegetables and a tangy sauce.
This recipe is not an authentic Chinese one, but an invention of Chinese restaurateurs in Western countries.
One of the literal translations of this recipe means 'savoury mess'.
Dating back to at least the mid-19th century, this Chinese-American dish includes small pieces of meat (usually chicken) or shrimp, mushrooms, bean sprouts, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, and onions. These ingredients are cooked together and served over rice. Chop suey doesn't exist as a dish in China.
Chop suey is part of American Chinese cuisine, Canadian Chinese cuisine, and, more recently, Indian Chinese cuisine.
Origin
There are various colorful stories about the origin of Chop Suey. It is alleged to have been invented by Chinese immigrant cooks working on the United StatesTranscontinental Railway in the 19th century and has also been cited in New York City's Chinatown restaurants since the 1880s. Other sources say that a Chinese dignitary's cook, visiting the United States invented it. [1]
Davidson (1999) characterizes these stories as "culinary mythology", citing Anderson (1988), who traces it to a dish of Taishan, the homeland of many Chinese immigrants.
Regardless of its ultimate origin, in China itself, it is often called "American chop suey"
Source: www.answers.com/topic/chop-suey
(Professor Carl says, "thanks".)
Dear Sir,
The Chop suey here in Singapore, advertised in the billboards of some hawkers stalls are for other dish than meat and vegetables, but it is soupy dish. I guess, it is only those overseas Chinese or foreigners who hear about Chop suey, not those from the mother-land.
Perhaps this is not so well known in China, where they eat almost anything that grows and moves, the most popular ones which you can find in Beijing are:
1. Beijing ducks.
2. Salt-vegetable duck soup.
3. Buns with meat or vegetable fillings.
4. Fish ball noodles.
5. Seafood noodles.
6. Shark's fin soup.
7. Ramen noodles.
There are many more, such as deep fried locusts, scorpions, lizards soaked in wine, snake heart, bull testicles, pig brains, pig testicles and others.
James OO7
Professor Carl adds another ingredient to the chop suey:When a meal is finished, often there is food that remains, uneaten. After a few such meals, the remains accumulate. In my part of the English speaking world—perhaps in other parts too—these remains are called “leftovers”. According to one unable-to-be-proven account, chop suey originated as a way to make a meal from these leftovers.
Those leftovers are not for the people to eat, they are collected by the farmers and fed to the pigs. The farmers pay nothing for the swill, only before Chinese New Year, they give each contributor a live chicken.
The 'Chop Suey' is the American-Chinese, Canadian-Chinese and recently, the Indian-Chinese dish of chopped meat with soya beans, but it is not the mainland Chinese cooking, neither the Singapore-Chinese.
http://chinesefood.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=chinesefood&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.batista.org%2Fchopsuey.html
Here we have the Kway Chap, a soupy bowl of broad noodle cooked with pig intestines, stomach, liver and the kidneys, that are more expensive. Romanised Chinese in the pre-Hanyu Pinyin days did not follow one pronunciation and spelling, e.g. Suay could be spelt as sway.
http://foodlane.sg/pages/Public/VendorDetails.aspx?vid=1347
James OO7
and come back healthy ,,
![[em37]](http://img.alibaba.com/images/eng/style/icon/emoticons_cheers.gif){kind=icon}
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Replying to macs2005Re: chop suey [chop SOO-ee]
As usual, you have made a valuable contribution, above and beyond the call of duty
Quoting from [James 007]:
Dear Professor Carl:
Those leftovers are not for the people to eat, they are collected by the farmers and fed to the pigs. The farmers pay nothing for the swill, only before Chinese New Year, they give each contributor a live chicken.
The 'Chop Suey' is the American-Chinese, Canadian-Chinese and recently, the Indian-Chinese dish of chopped meat with soya beans, but it is not the mainland Chinese cooking, neither the Singapore-Chinese.
http://chinesefood.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=chinesefood&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.batista.org%2Fchopsuey.html
Here we have the Kway Chap, a soupy bowl of broad noodle cooked with pig intestines, stomach, liver and the kidneys, that are more expensive. Romanised Chinese in the pre-Hanyu Pinyin days did not follow one pronunciation and spelling, e.g. Suay could be spelt as sway.
http://foodlane.sg/pages/Public/VendorDetails.aspx?vid=1347THE KWAY CHAP
James OO7
Professor Carl says: "Thanks, James".
Quoting from [Professor Carl]:Replying to macs2005Re: chop suey [chop SOO-ee]
As usual, you have made a valuable contribution, above and beyond the call of duty
It's always a pleasure to contribute to your interesting topics and learn from them, too. ~ macs2005