Animal Internet

Quick.  Think of a chicken dish in a Chinese restaurant.

General Tso’s Chicken. Did I guess right? 

General Tso’s is by far the most popular chicken dish served in Asian restaurants. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s named after a great military hero.

Only we chickens are good enough to share a dish with his name. They don’t make General Tso’s Pig or General Tso’s Dog.  It’s an honor bestowed only upon chickens.  An honor that comes at a great price, however.  The more popular a dish is, the more it is ordered. See where I’m headed?  More dead chickens.  “I have no idea what to get-- Wait a second!  I’ll have the General Tso’s Chicken. I don’t even know what’s in it but if it’s good enough for such a great General...” Suddenly sharing the dish with the general is not such an honor, is it? 



General Tso Tsungtang had a very distinguished military career in the mid 1800s.  He also suffered from malaria.  I don’t know why I brought that.  I don’t want you to associate General Tso with malaria. Anyway, the dish wasn’t invented by him nor did he ever taste it.  As best historians can tell, it wasn’t until a hundred years later (1974) that it first appeared in Peng’s Szechuan/Hunan style restaurant in New York City.

Blah, blah.  I don’t care. I’m sure peaches don’t care who Melba was either. What I do care about is that now millions of humans order it simply because it’s named after a war hero. A war hero who had numerous bouts of dysentery, by the way.  Sorry, I accidently did it again. It would be a shame if you couldn’t get dysentery out of your head every time you saw General Tso on a menu.  Or malaria.  Terrible disease, malaria.  Not to suggest that dysentery is pretty either.  Please try not to picture either malaria or dysentery in your mind every time you see the name General Tso. Again, sorry I brought it up.