Rising Star Chinese Eatery – Albuquerque, New Mexico
Let’s get one thing straight. General Tso’s chicken is not some weird cold war Chinese one-upmanship response to Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken. In other words, China did not deliberately seek to outdo the United States by creating a chicken dish and naming it for a General, a rank superior to the rank of Colonel. Not even close! Back in the early 50s, Colonel Harlan Sanders actually did create a revolutionary way of preparing poultry (pressure fried, eleven herbs and spices, yada, yada, yada). General Zuo Zongtang (romanized as Tso Tsung-t’ang), on the other hand, did not create the dish named for him. Nor did he ever eat it. In fact, he never even heard of it. It wasn’t even…