Anyone Know Who "General Tso" was Anyway?

[Wiley50]

I've been waiting years for the answer

[Canuckistanian]

1. The man knew his chicken

That's for sure.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59302-2002Apr16

[lapfog_1]

2. Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zu%C7%92_Z%C5%8Dngt%C3%A1ng

and, according to legend, his wife created the dish that we all know. A dish which is relatively unknown in China.

[MADem]

3. The WAPO answered your question

He wasn't "Muslim friendly" either.

Who Was General Tso And Why Are We Eating His Chicken?

By Michael Browning
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, April 17, 2002; Page F01

Each evening, thousands of Americans drift into Chinese restaurants or, if they are too lazy to go out, pick up the phone and order one of the most popular dishes on the menu: General Tso's Chicken, a sugary-spicy melange of dark-meat tidbits, deep-fried then fired up with ginger, garlic, sesame oil, scallions and hot chili peppers.

Not one in 10,000 knows who General Tso (most commonly pronounced "sow") was, nor what terrible times he lived through, nor the dark massacres that distinguished his baleful, belligerent career. Setting their chopsticks aside, patting their stomachs, the satisfied diners spare scarcely a thought for General Tso, except to imagine that he must have been a great connoisseur of hot stir-fried chicken.

Who was he?

General Tso Tsungtang, or as his name is spelled in modern Pinyin, Zuo Zongtang, was born on Nov. 10, 1812, and died on Sept. 5, 1885. He was a frighteningly gifted military leader during the waning of the Qing dynasty, a figure perhaps the Chinese equivalent of the American Civil War commander William Tecumseh Sherman. He served with brilliant distinction during China's greatest civil war, the 14-year-long Taiping Rebellion, which claimed millions of lives.

Tso was utterly ruthless. He smashed the Taiping rebels in four provinces, put down an unrelated revolt called the Nian Rebellion, then marched west and reconquered Chinese Turkestan from Muslim rebels.
....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59302-2002Apr16

[Ghost in the Machine]

4. Col. Sanders' superior officer?

:shrug:

General Tso's Chicken.. my absolute favorite Chinese dish... those little hot peppers will fire you up! Have you ever chewed one of them? Hot and spicy, but the burning is short lived and almost pleasant, unlike a finger hot or habanero.

[billyoc]

5. Didn't he invent lead paint? n/t