So, my summer class in Nanjing wrapped up today. I'll be busy over the next couple of days with grading, and finishing up things here in Nanjing before moving on to the next spot (more on that later). But, before I get so swamped that I can't put anything out, I wanted to make a quick post about a really fun documentary that just happens to be line with a lot of what this blog is about.
When you're famous enough to be referenced on The Simpsons in an era that was still (debatably) its prime, you know you're a big deal. So, when none other than C. Montgomery Burns name-checked General Gao/Tso/Tzo/Gau/Tao/Tsao/So/Chau/Cho (you get the point) Chicken in the episode "A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love" it was a sure sign that the dish was an American icon. But what the hell is General Tso's Chicken anyway? Are we safe in assuming that like Chicken Tikka Masala and Taco Salad that the dish is the product of cultural fusion and tailoring a cuisine to suit the tastes of a foreign consumer? And who is General Tso anyway? Was he real, like Colonel Sanders? Or is he a fabrication, like Captain Crunch?
(SPOILERS: Much to my surprise, he's real. And it's Zuo. Not Tso. 左宗棠, or Zuo Zongtang).
Enter the documentary film, The Search for General Tso. The film, which showed at Sundance, and the Tribecca Film Festival this year, takes on these questions, and many others about the history of Chinese food (and Chinese immigrants) in the United States. The result is a really fun story about representation of culture, the immigrant experience, food as diplomacy, and a lot more. Given how much I've been blogging and thinking about how culture is presented to an outside audience (see my posts here, here, and here) I thought making a pitch for this documentary made perfect sense. It also deals a lot with not only Chinese history, but American history as well-- both of which I've been thinking a lot about lately.
In any case, check out the trailer below. If you like what you see, the full film (which is only about an hour in length), is on Netflix.