Sibu Tales : Chicken with sesame seeds 左宗棠雞

I have two aunts and several cousins who studied in the USA. And they would tell us about the Chinese food they ate in the places they studied. The most common dish they ate was Chop Suey , which they would find most unappetizing. 

However they liked General Tso's Chicken. And so they would prepare that dish when they came back to Sibu, to great success. My father in particular loved his sisters very much and admired their cooking. Once my aunts roasted a good chicken dinner and invited their colleagues to come to the house to have a good meal. The meal was served at our living room, on the table that my uncles lovingly bought for my father for his 50th birthday.

I was told that they ate the chicken very carefully and later assembled all the bones to make a good exhibit. I wonder if my 8th ad 9th aunt (Aunt Pick and Aunt Greta ) remember that.

However General Tso chicken is different because it is  deboned chicken.

In 1953 Admiral Arthur W. Radford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Taiwan for talks with President Chiang Kai-Shek. The presidential palace chef, Peng Chang-Kuei (彭長貴), was asked to create a banquet to entertain the illustrious guest. After planning some traditional Hunan dishes, he decided to create a few new dishes for the menu. One of them was General Tso’s Chicken. Thus the world’s most famous Chinese dish was born.


Today this dish is also found in most restaurants in Sarawak.

The chef must have loved Chinese history. The general was  Zuo Zongtang (Tso Tsung-t'ang) (1812–1885), a Qing dynasty statesman and military leader from Hunan Province.

Notes from Wikipedia :  Zuo could not have eaten the dish or known of it.^] The dish is found neither in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, nor in Xiangyin County, where Zuo was born. Moreover, Zuo's descendants, who are still living in Xiangyin County, when interviewed, say that they have never heard of such a dish