FIRST "CHOP-SUEY"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 62, 10 September 1937, Page 14

FIRST "CHOP-SUEY"

Mr. Carl Crow, in a book about travel in China, tells of the interesting origin of chop-suey. He reveals that this dish is far from being one of the national foods of-China. In fact, chop-suey is a slang term in Canton, and means "beggar's hash." It describes the contents of a beggar's plate after he has collected fragments from many houses. During the gold-rush days of California, however, several miners visited a San Francisco restaurant and asked for something to eat. Supplies were scarce, so the proprietor secretly collected all the scraps left on the plates of previous customers, and these he served to the miners with a Chinese sauce. The men enjoyed the dish, and demanded to know its name, so that they could order it again next time. "It is chop-suey," answered the proprietor quite honestly. Thus the term originated, and, according to Carl Crow, "thousands of Chinese have laughed for generations because every dish of chop-suey served is a culinary joke at the expense of the foreigner." •