![]() ![]() By the time the Chinese diaspora had made it here to Salem, Massachusetts, all the way across the country from their starting point of San Francisco, perhaps their chop suey had left behind the water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, or bell peppers it might have featured in parts of the Western US. But in essence it seems to have been a compromise dish, an application of Chinese techniques to mostly-familiar items and flavors.īased on Ben Collins’ photo, the chop suey of Salem appears to be a mass of bean sprouts and possibly a chunk or two of chicken, suspended in a viscous, mostly transparent gravy of some kind. ![]() There are a number of stories, mostly apocryphal, about the name “chop suey,” what it means, and how the dish originated. So what is chop suey? Is it truly a Chinese dish, or an invention of Chinese-American restaurants? The second act of the documentary film The Search for General Tso traces how the Chinese who’d immigrated to America spread east after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which severely limited not only further Chinese immigration but even the types of work they could do, essentially giving birth to the ubiquitous Chinese laundries and Chop Suey restaurants across the United States. wUBjRZAuOX- Ben Collins JSo what is Chop Suey? They’re called chop suey sandwiches and they only exist in Salem, Massachusetts. Every year on the 4th of July, everyone in my family eats one of these monstrosities. ![]()
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