this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2025
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Chicken tikka masala was supposedly only invented in the 1960s - 1970s. Butter chicken only in the 1950s. Now I'm scared to look up naan for fear of learning it was invented by Nestle in 1994 or whatever.
Naan is safe.
General Tso's chicken on the other hand, is another 1960s invention.
Same with orange chicken.
In fact, most "Chinese" food that Americans or Brits eat was invented in the 60s or 70s.
Oh, also, chicken tikka masala was invented in Scotland in the 1970s
Chicken tikka masala is God's gift to man. I will drink that shit
I find it preposterous to believe that nobody made these dishes before the 1960s. Surely people did. They just weren't popular or have the branding associated.
New dishes are invented all the time.
But the reason who these two are so ubiquitous is simple.
General Tso's chicken was featured on 60 minutes. The guy being interviewed showed how to make the dish with each ingredient. After that, it quickly showed up on every Chinese restaurant menu.
Orange chicken was specifically designed for American tastes by Panda Garden, which then spawned imitators.
And most of it wholly invented in the US, too. Hardly any Chinese takeout is legitimate food that is eaten in China, but an Americanized facsimile. Iirc almost all US Chinese restaurants are legit sourced from the same company in terms of most of their recipes and even their decorations and stuff like the "chinese zodiac" placemats
Some of it was invented by Japanese-American restaurateurs (fortune cookies are one example), who were in the same business as the Chinese ones: using their knowledge to make cheap, satisfying food that the locals would like, authenticity being no consideration. It all got labelled as “Chinese”, because that’s where they assumed the cooks were from.
Well it's not like Japanese or Chinese (or Italian or British or French or Danish or Mexican) chefs stopped inventing new dishes. Tonkotsu ramen was invented in the 1930's. The original Kung Pao Chicken was invented sometime in the mid 19th century, in China. And General Tso's was probably invented in Taiwan and brought to the United States shortly afterward.
Whether a dish is invented in its ostensibly "home" country or by emigrants from that country doesn't actually change the legitimacy of the dish. There's no rule against chefs inventing new dishes, whether they are immigrants or not.
That makes me think of Lomo Saltado. It's a beef and veggie stir fry you can get at Peruvian restaurants and considered a Peruvian dish. It's delicious, one of my favorites. But it was actually invented by Chinese immigrants in Peru. So if you follow those same rules, if General Tsos was made by Chinese immigrants in Taiwan, then in other countries, it would be considered a Taiwanese dish. Or if was actually made it America it would be an American dish. Or is that all wrong and I should be able to get Lomo Saltado from a Chinese restaurant?
Doesn't matter, it's all delicious to me.