Chop suey

Chop suey (杂碎； lit. mixed broken pieces) is a dish in the style of pseudo-Chinese cuisine, which was said to be invented in New York on August 29, 1896 by cooks of the Chinese diplomat Li Hung-Chang, who certainly had brought his own cooks with him and ate no Western food even at banquets in his honor. The hoopla about the visit makes all such claims doubtful, but Li Hung-Chang's visit gave a boost to Americanized, largely Cantonese cuisine. John Mariani says (in The Dictionary of American Food and Drink) the Mandarin words for chopped up odds and ends are "tsa sui." A rival claim for the invention of Chop Suey places it in California, where Chinese cooks ran cooktents for American miners.

It is not an authentic Chinese dish, and is considered typical American Chinese cuisine to the point of being the topic of a song in the musical Flower Drum Song.

Chop Suey is mostly a bland stir-fry vegetable dish, with bits of beef or pork, in a lightly-thickened sauce, with a dash of soy sauce. Typical ingredients for chop suey are usually local vegetables, cooked to American-style softness, but tend to include: bok choy or its Western equivalent celery, broccoli, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, sliced Chinese water chestnuts, green pepper, onion, and Chop Suey!" is also the title of a song by System of a Down.