Editing Chop suey (section)

==Origins==
Chop suey is widely believed to have been developed in the U.S. by [[Chinese Americans]]. However, the anthropologist [[E. N. Anderson]] traces the dish to ''tsap seui'' (杂碎, "miscellaneous leftovers"), common in [[Taishan, Guangdong]] (Toisan) {{endash}} the home of many early Chinese immigrants to the United States.<ref>E. N. Anderson, ''The Food of China'', Yale University Press, 1990, {{isbn|0300047398}}, p. 216</ref><ref>E. N. Anderson, "Guangzhou (Canton) Cuisine", in Solomon H. Katz. ''Encyclopedia of Food and Culture''. (New York: Scribner's, 2003; Vol I {{ISBN|0684805685}}), p. 392.</ref> Hong Kong doctor [[Li Shu-fan]] likewise reported that he knew it in Toisan in the 1890s.<ref>E. N. Anderson Jr. and Marja L. Anderson, "Modern China: South" in K. C. Chang, ''Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives'', Yale, 1977. p. 355.</ref> Charles Hayford argues that the dish was not invented per se, but rather was collectively adopted by Chinese American restaurants when the owners saw an opportunity to have a dish that Americans would like.<ref>Hayford, p. 9.</ref>

The long list of conflicting stories about the origin of chop suey is, in the words of food historian Alan Davidson, "a prime example of culinary mythology" and typical of popular foods.<ref>Alan Davidson. ''The Oxford Companion to Food''. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,  1999;  {{ISBN|0192115790}}), p. 182.</ref>

[[File:Chop suey (Philippines).jpg|thumb|left|[[Filipino cuisine|Filipino]] chop suey, introduced during the [[American colonial period of the Philippines]]]]

One account claims that it was invented by Chinese American cooks working on the [[transcontinental railroad]] in the 19th century. Another tale is that it was created during [[Qing dynasty]] premier [[Li Hongzhang]]'s visit to the United States in 1896 by his chef, who tried to create a meal suitable for both Chinese and American palates. Another story is that Li wandered to a local Chinese restaurant after the hotel kitchen had closed, where the chef, embarrassed that he had nothing ready to offer, came up with the new dish using scraps of leftovers. Yet recent research by the scholar Renqiu Yu led him to conclude that "no evidence can be found in available historical records to support the story that Li Hung Chang [Li Hongzhang] ate chop suey in the United States." Li brought three Chinese chefs with him, and would not have needed to eat in local restaurants or invent new dishes in any case. Yu speculates that shrewd Chinese American restaurant owners took advantage of the publicity surrounding his visit to promote chop suey as Li's favorite.<ref>"Chop Suey: From Chinese Food to Chinese American Food", ''Chinese America: History and Perspectives'' 87 (1987): 91–93</ref>

{{multiple image|align=right |direction=horizontal |total_width=550
 |image1=North on Grant Ave. from California. San Francisco. Chinatown. (4157858849).jpg |caption1=Looking north on [[Grant Avenue]] in [[Chinatown, San Francisco]] (1952)
 |image2=Far East Chop Suey Little Tokyo LA.jpg |caption2=Far East Chop Suey restaurant in [[Little Tokyo, Los Angeles]]
 |footer=Restaurants like this are now rare, but were once a common sight in the United States. Coincidentally, both restaurants are now named Far East Café.
}}

Another myth is that, in the 1860s, a Chinese restaurant cook in San Francisco was forced to serve something to drunken miners after hours, when he had no fresh food. To avoid a beating, the cook threw leftover meat and vegetables into a wok and served it to the miners, who loved it and asked what dish it was—he replied "chopped sui".<ref>[[Joseph R. Conlin]], ''Bacon, Beans and Galantines: Food and Foodways on the Western Mining Frontier'', University of Nevada Press: Reno 1986, pp. 192–3</ref> There is no good evidence for any of these stories.<ref>[[Madeline Y. Hsu]], "From Chop Suey to Mandarin Cuisine: Fine Dining and the Refashioning of Chinese Ethnicity During the Cold War Era," in Sucheng Chan, Madeline Yuan-yin Hsu, eds., ''Chinese Americans and the Politics of Race and Culture'' (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,  2008): 173–193. [http://www.instrcc.ubc.ca/History485_2008/Hsu.pdf full text in PDF] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706210210/http://www.instrcc.ubc.ca/History485_2008/Hsu.pdf|date=2011-07-06}}</ref>

Chop suey appears in an 1884 article in the ''[[Brooklyn Eagle]]'', by [[Wong Chin Foo]], "Chinese Cooking", in which he says it "may justly be so-called the 'national dish of China'."<ref>[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30647521/early-chop-suey-citation-1884/  Chinese Cooking]. Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 6 July 1884.</ref><ref>Andrew Coe, ''Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 155.</ref> In 1888 Wong wrote that a "staple dish for the Chinese gourmand is chow chop svey {{sic}}, a mixture of chickens' livers and gizzards, fungi, bamboo buds, pigs' tripe, and bean sprouts stewed with spices."<ref>''Current Literature'', October 1888, p. 318, as quoted in the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', Second Edition, 1989.</ref> An 1896 newspaper report states: "Chow chop suey is a sort of stew made of chicken's livers and gizzards, calves' tripe, bean sprouts, celery and 'meu', which is a sort of Chinese first cousin to macaroni".<ref>"New York Letter", ''The Racine Journal Times'' (October 22, 1886), p. 4.</ref> An article in ''[[The Illustrated American]]'' on Chinese cuisine in 1897, reproduces a menu from Ma Hung Low's restaurant on [[Mott Street]] in New York's [[Chinatown]] quarter which includes the dish "Beef Chop Suey with Bean Sprouts, Water Chestnuts and Boiled Rice." The dish itself, referred to as "the standard Chinese dish of chop suey," is described as "a stew of beef, chicken, or pork, with bean sprouts, mushrooms, water-lily roots, sprouted grain and unknown flavorings."<ref>"A Chinese Dinner in New York", ''The Illustrated American'', September 4, 1897</ref> In 1898, it is described as "A Hash of Pork, with Celery, Onions, Bean Sprouts, etc."<ref name='beck'>Louis Joseph Beck, ''New York's Chinatown: An Historical Presentation of Its People and Places'', p. 50 [https://archive.org/details/newyorkschinato00beckgoog <!-- quote=New York's Chinatown: An Historical Presentation of Its People and Places. --> full text at Internet Archive]</ref>

During his travels in the United States, [[Liang Qichao]], a Guangdong (Canton) native, wrote in 1903 that there existed in the United States a food item called ''chop suey'' which was popularly served by Chinese restaurateurs, but which local Chinese people do not eat, because the cooking technique is "really awful".<ref>Liang, Qichao (1903) ''{{ill|Travels in the New Continent|lt=新大陆游记|zh|新大陆游记}} ([[Travels in the New Continent]])''. [[Beijing]]: Social Sciences Documentary Press (reprint 2007). {{ISBN|7-80230-471-7}}. “然其所谓杂碎者，烹饪殊劣，中国人从无就食者。”</ref>

In earlier periods of Chinese history, ''chop suey'' or ''chap sui'' in Cantonese, and ''za sui'', in Mandarin, has different meanings of cooked animal [[offal]] or [[entrails]]. For example, in the classic novel ''[[Journey to the West]]'' (circa 1590), [[Sun Wukong]] tells a lion-monster in chapter 75: "When I passed through Guangzhou, I bought a pot for cooking ''za sui'' – so I'll savor your liver, entrails, and lungs."<ref>Wu, Cheng'en, and Anthony C. Yu. ''The Journey to the West'' (vol. 3). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012, {{ISBN|0226971376}}, p. 379</ref> The term ''za sui'' (杂碎) is found in newer Chinese-English dictionaries with both meanings listed: cooked entrails, and ''chop suey'' in the Western sense.{{Citation needed|date=March 2012}}

In 2012, Andrew Coe, who wrote '' Chop Suey – A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States'', stated that in chop suey's period of peak popularity, chop suey restaurants attracted "an interesting crowd of artists and theater people and the kind of like demimonde" and that chop suey "was exotic" and "like [[sushi]] is today".<ref name=STLPR>{{cite news|url=https://www.stlpr.org/2012-02-07/from-far-east-to-midwest-chop-sueys-last-stand#stream/0|title=From Far East to Midwest: chop suey's last stand |publisher=[[St. Louis Public Radio]]|date=2012-02-07|access-date=2025-04-14}}</ref>

Hayford stated that the popularity of chop suey declined after a new interest in China and new immigration into the United States in the mid-20th century pushed new dishes into prominence while chop suey became perceived as inauthentic.<ref>Hayford, p. 11.</ref> Chop suey especially declined in the West Coast and the East Coast with new Chinese immigration and with more diverse types of food available, while it retained more prominence in the American Midwest, where there was less Chinese immigration. St. Louis, Missouri, as of 2012, continued to have a number of chop suey restaurants in low income neighborhoods.<ref name=STLPR/>