We are Jennifer 8. Lee and Ian Cheney, filmmakers behind "The Search for General Tso," a new documentary about American Chinese food. Ask us anything.

Do you like Starbucks?

Starbucks is awesome for its wifi. I love the fact that you can go there in essentially any American city and get a place to plug in your laptop to do work.

Random fact. The first time I went to North Dakota, in 2003 for a reporting trip, it was the only state in the country without a freestanding Starbucks. It was very interesting being in a pre Starbucksian society.

How authentic is Chinese food in America? Are things like Sesame Chicken and Sweet and Sour Pork common in China?

It depends what you mean by "authentic?" There is Chinese food in America that is what Chinese people in China eat (Pro tip: if there is jellyfish on the menu, it's a restaurant for Chinese people). However, much of what is served in the 50,000 Chinese restaurants in America is not recognizable to Chinese people in China. So dishes like beef and broccoli, chop suey, egg rolls (different from spring rolls), General Tso's chicken and fortune cookies are more native to the United States than to China. It's part of a phenomenon called indigenous foreign cuisine (burritos and spaghetti and meatballs belong to this category).

So sesame chicken and sweet and sour pork have analogs in Chinese, but look pretty different. No pineapple in the Chinese version of sweet and sour pork!

American Chinese food is a recognized cuisine in and of itself. They serve it in South Korea, in the old Green Zone in Baghdad, and even in China itself.

Also note, there is also Indian Chinese food, Korean Chinese food, Jamaican Chinese food, Peruvian Chinese food, Mauritian Chinese food, etc. Chinese food evolves everywhere.

Thanks for doing this AMA. Have you noticed that American Chinese food tends to vary from region to region, i.e. Does it differ in the Midwest vs. the Northeast?

Yes. Definitely. There are regional variations of Chinese food everywhere.

Some examples:

New England: Fried rice in New England tends to be brown, while it's yellow in Miami and lower down. In Boston, dumplings are called "peking ravioli" (Italian roots). They serve Italian bread sometimes instead of rice (that confused me so much when I first saw it).

We saw cajun Chinese food in New Orleans — Sichuan alligator and sweet and sour chicken.

And interesting dishes like chow mein sandwich (carb on carb) in Southeastern New England, and the St. Paul sandwich (egg foo yung on white bread) in St. Louis.

General Tso's Chicken is more prevalent in the East than in California (because that has territory taken by Orange Chicken).

Plum sauce vs. duck sauce is common in different areas.

The other weird thing is that Chinese take out boxes in the western half and the eastern half of the U.S. are oriented in different directions, with the wire running down long way vs. short way. Only in Houston do they mix. Even though 2/3 are made by the same company (Foldpak).

Yes. Definitely. There are regional variations of Chinese food everywhere.

Some examples:

New England: Fried rice in New England tends to be brown, while it's yellow in Miami and lower down. In Boston, dumplings are called "peking ravioli" (Italian roots). They serve Italian bread sometimes instead of rice (that confused me so much when I first saw it).

We saw cajun Chinese food in New Orleans — Sichuan alligator and sweet and sour chicken.

And interesting dishes like chow mein sandwich (carb on carb) in Southeastern New England, and the St. Paul sandwich (egg foo yung on white bread) in St. Louis.

General Tso's Chicken is more prevalent in the East than in California (because that has territory taken by Orange Chicken).

Plum sauce vs. duck sauce is common in different areas.

The other weird thing is that Chinese take out boxes in the western half and the eastern half of the U.S. are oriented in different directions, with the wire running down long way vs. short way. Only in Houston do they mix. Even though 2/3 are made by the same company (Foldpak).

Serious question. Is your middle name 8 as in the number? Been curious ever since I read your book.

Yup. I did a piece in The Boston Globe in 1996 (which ran on August 8!) that talks about it.

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The documentary draws a lot from the research from my book on Chinese food in America, called The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, which was published in 2008 by Twelve (part of Hachette). One chapter of my book was called The Long March of General Tso (the original name of the book), so when Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis emailed me about The Search for General Tso, I knew we were sympatico.

General Tso is arguably the Chinese figure that is second only to Confucius in familiarity to Americans (arguably about Mao Zedong), but people know very little about him. Chasing the man behind the chicken opened up a whole window into Chinese food in America.

Growing up, I didn't know that General Tso's chicken wasn't, in fact, a Chinese dish at all. Only when I talked to Chinese restaurant owners in America, did I realize they didn't know this dish from China.

In the last decade, we've seen boba, ramen, and Korean fried chicken take the world by storm. What do you think is the next big Asian food craze to hit America?

Well, I assume you are already counting Korean tacos as past, if you have Korean fried chicken.

Korean tacos is actually fascinating to me, because when I was writing my book in 2006-7, I wondered why Korean was the only main Asian cuisine that really hadn't hit mainstream (versus Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Thai, and Vietnamese). It's really really good (especially the BBQ meets), but the names of the dishes were quite strange from an American perspective — bulgolgi and kalbi. So I was excited to see that Kolgi food truck in LA merged it with Mexican food to make it a phenomenon that it deserved to be. Watching Korean Mexican food flare across the states in food trucks tells you how much it resonated.

But to answer your question. I think banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches on French baguettes) are on the uprise. I even found bad banh mi in Phoenix, which is a sign that something has gone mainstream — where there are sad copycats of the original versions. Here is a good NYT piece on banh mi

I think we all know the answer to this question. It's DUMPLINGS!

Okay Porter. I hear you. Next time we are both in New York City, we should go to Dumpling Galaxy in Flushing.

What's your favorite Chinese food dish ?

I really like Western Chinese food, or Muslim Chinese food, which features lamb and Middle Eastern influence. There is a dish called liangpi, which is available at Xian Famous Food, which is a chain in New York City. It's a spicy sour cold "noodle" dish that is unlike much of what Americans are used to.

Why doesn't Asia (including China) cut up a chicken like westerners? In any authentic chicken dish found there, it looks like the chicken stepped on a land mine.

So Americans don't like to be reminded that the food on their plate ever swam, walked, flew, or ran. So they don't do animal body parts. Everything looks like it arrived via immaculate conception in a styrofoam tray in Whole Foods.

In contrast, China and countries that food cultures that extended way before refrigerator, embrace the totality of the animal: cow tongue, duck blood, pig hooves, chicken feet. In part because of scarcity and needing to get the most out of animals.

The original General Tso's chicken way back when actually had the skin and bones intact in it!

So you actually have this interesting phenomenon where American prefer white mean in chicken, and Chinese find it bland, while Chinese like legs and feet, which are cheap in America. So you have smuggling efforts that get these animal parts from the West and try to import them into China, often on boats via Hong Kong. Here is a a weird example of one gone wrong

So Americans don't like to be reminded that the food on their plate ever swam, walked, flew, or ran. So they don't do animal body parts. Everything looks like it arrived via immaculate conception in a styrofoam tray in Whole Foods.

In contrast, China and countries that food cultures that extended way before refrigerator, embrace the totality of the animal: cow tongue, duck blood, pig hooves, chicken feet. In part because of scarcity and needing to get the most out of animals.

The original General Tso's chicken way back when actually had the skin and bones intact in it!

So you actually have this interesting phenomenon where American prefer white mean in chicken, and Chinese find it bland, while Chinese like legs and feet, which are cheap in America. So you have smuggling efforts that get these animal parts from the West and try to import them into China, often on boats via Hong Kong. Here is a a weird example of one gone wrong

Is there a converse to American Chinese Food -- as in Chinese American Food? Maybe a sequel!

Fun idea — how American food is interpreted in China? One thing we saw a lot of in China was KFC. It's really popular there! And there have been some scholarly articles written about KFC's spread in China, I think from Harvard Business School. So...clearly fried chicken is a worldwide phenomenon!

Yes, in fact, KFC is very often considered a high end cuisine in China. It's served at weddings for example.

And there are parallels between the figures:

In American, General Tso, like Colonel Sanders, is known for Chinese and not war. In China, he's known for war and not chicken.

Hi Jenny! How are you? Remember to send out an investor update.

Have been doing them orally for various reasons. Working our way down the list. Will email you.

Ok. I am ordering chinese food in the meantime.

Yes. Please do. I have places to recommend.

Is there a "best" way to tell a story in a documentary?

Ian will be able to answer this better than I ever would, since this is his third (?) feature length documentary, as well as other projects he had.

So three rules of storytelling 1) Beginning, middle and end. 2) Introduce a tension that is resolved. 3) Protagonist, sometimes that can you (the author), or the audience.

So what I observe: in documentary film (much more so than with feature — "fictional" — film ), the movie is really "written" in the editing process.
You are assembling a suspenseful narrative arc through what you sew together (and what you leave out).

Two of my favorite documentaries to see editing at work to see this is Control Room and [The Case Against 8] (http://thecaseagainst8.com/(

Often you have hundreds of hours of footage, so going through an finding the arc with narrative tension can be hard.

We were lucky in that we had a "quest" that drove us forward. But we are actually telling two stories in one.

Another thing that Ian and Freddie did really well. The doc is only 71 minutes, which feels just right, and doesn't drag. I've found that many many documentaries are all 15 minutes too long.

I haven't seen your film yet but I am very interested. Does it touch on the phenomenon of Chop Suey at all, or did you keep your research mostly to recent history?

I have done a lot of research on pop culture of the early-mid 20th century. Chop Suey Parlors were the Chipotles and Starbucks of that era---they were cheap, trendy and ubiquitous. I am curious if their incredible popularity had any effect on modern American's perception of and embrace of Chinese food?

Our documentary does touch on chop suey, and my book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles has a whole chapter on it. And Professor Yong Chen also released a new book Chop Suey USA: The Story of Chinese Food in America .

Chop suey, which means "leftovers" in Cantonese, is essentially the biggest culinary joke that one culture has played on another. Americans were convinced it was the national dish of China, when it was no such thing. Instead, it was invented for the American palate, using the formula that has been used over and over again: the familiar (chicken, beef, pork) and the exotic (snow peas, water chestnuts, and bean sprouts), packaged together and served to the public.

Chop suey played a huge role in the assimilation of Chinese American immigrants in the late 1980s-early 1970s, in giving them a way to make a living in small towns and large cities coast to coast.

Thanks everyone for our scheduled live AMA.

We're often to eat Chinese food! (Though in different states. Ian is in Hawaii)

We'll be back to answer a few straggler questions later.

Hi Jennifer,

I absolutely loved your TED Talk. Opened up my eyes to all the various 'Chinese' food around the world. Do you know about the American Chinese restaurant in Shanghai?(7:40).

Also, are you planning to do more research on other dishes?

Thanks for the AMA. Cheers.

Thanks for the shoutout on the TED talk, I'm amazed how it still as a lot of legs. I did the talk in July 2008, my friend Jason Wishnow cleverly put it up on Christmas day that year, and it's been going for over six years!

At this point I'm running a mobile startup app called [Rooster] (readrooster.com), so no more research on dishes for books. But every so often I'll discover something truly surprising after the fact. Like the Irish Chinese dish called three-in-one — curry, french fries and fried rice combined TOGETHER. Super popular, especially when drunk.

Wait! I do have a question! Egg drop soup. How did that come about?

And, ever read the theory that it may have been a Chinese cook on Western railroads that invented chili?

Egg drop soup is a legit Chinese dish, where it's called 蛋花湯 (or egg flower soup). It's actually one of the first things that I learned to cook as a 10 year old.

However, the American version is way more yellow (Chinese restaurant suppliers even have a special food coloring that comes in these big jugs), and thicker (corn starch). Also those crunchy noodles, not so Chinese.

Never hear of chili. I've heard of a similar legend involving chop suey however.

Hi, Do you have any advice for someone who will be working on their first documentary soon? :~)

Again, this is Ian over me.

But my tiny piece of advice: Sound. Sound. Sound. Someone told me this many years ago at Sundance, and it's true.

Audiences will forgive you for shaky camera and bad lighting, but they will not forgive you for bad sound. This is often a problem in Kickstarter videos.

Hi, Jenny! I loved The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, so I'll definitely check the documentary out. If you're still taking questions:

• How often do you eat out or get takeout from Chinese restaurants in a month?
  
• What are your favorite Chinese food cookbooks and/or blogs?
  

I don't actually get takeout from Chinese restaurants...all that often. Maybe once every two months? I go to Chinese restaurants a lot in various cities, but don't usually get takeout. One I like is La Vie en Szechuan on East 33rd in NYC. You know it's a good place when there are Chinese people waiting on line in the cold.

Fuchsia Dunlop has lovely books. I've done a lot of events with her. More thoughts on cookbooks coming. I'm getting kicked out of the cafe at midnight.

So..

About that pronunciation..

Never mind I'm not even going to go there.

OR MAYBE I WILL

"Tee-Sew, or just "so"?

Or even more confusing, "Tuh-so"

I can't convey how to pronounce the Chinese name in text. But the interwebs has great audio sample of how it should be pronounced.

But in relation to the chicken dish, it's a very malleable pronounciation, like the recipe itself.

Does the documentary focus on "General Tso" specifically, or is it more about the phenomenon of American Chinese food in general?

The documentary has dual narrative — the quest to solve the mystery of the man behind the chicken dish, as well as the story of Chinese immigration to America. This turns out to be an incredibly hard feat to pull off in editing, and I give extreme credit to Freddie Shanahan, our editor, and Ian for weaving those two pieces together in a smooth and forward-moving narrative. The original cuts didn't quite interweave them tightly, but the final cut is fantastic.

What was the turning point in the US for Chinese entrepreneurs to start running Chinese restaurants?

After Chinese/Taiwanese/Cantonese people, what is the next ethnic group that owns the most Chinese restaurants in the US?

Hi Lenny! Hope you enjoy the leftover whole wheat pasta from dinner.

When Chinese immigrants first came to America, they didn't run Chinese restaurants. In fact, they had more or less "normal" jobs — railroads, agriculture, and cigar factories was a very popular job. The problem with that was they were competing with "white" Americans for those jobs. So imagine the tension with outsourcing we have today, but domestically. People would boycott businesses (like bakeries) that employd Chinese.

So there was a ton of violence against Chinese in the 1860s-1890s — shootings, lynchings, beatings, shootings — basically ethnic cleansing. Driven Out: The Forgotten War against Chinese Americans by Jean Pfælzer, which is a good primer.

This all cumulated in the Chinese Exclusion Act which started in 1882 and rolled into place over 20 years. First time that the concept of "illegal immigration" was introduced to the Chinese.

And when the Chinese first came here, Americans thought these strangers on their shores ate dogs, cats, rats. In fact, The New York Times, in 1883, ran an article that asked in all seriousness: Do the Chinese eat rats?

They thought it was strange to eat with sticks. And tofu was like "bean cheese." So Americans were totally not into Chinese food at that point.

So after all that violence, the Chinese immigrants essentially flocked to two areas for survival: laundries and restaurants. These were cleaning and cooking, both women's work, so thus not threatening to the American male.

We see chop suey emerging in popular mentions around 1896 in New York City, and it just took off like fire from there.

YO /u/jenny8lee, Starry Kitchen/Nguyen Tran here. Met ya at the screening here in LA (really loved the doc, so much fun and my chef/wife+I learned a ton too!)

You mention you ate all sorts of General Tso's BUT.. I never asked you:

Fave rendition of General Tso's Chicken that you tried either while filming the documentary OR just in general and WHY?!?!

I answer it around. But basically the Chef Peng version. But I had travelled half the world to have it.

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I still think the best General Tso's chicken I had was by Chef Peng in Taipei, the original version. But that's also might be because because I had traveled half way around the world to find it!

Oh no, I love General Tso's, is it fake Americana cuisine?

Well, you have to see the film, or at least the trailer or the TED talk. But yeah, General Tso's chicken is like not a dish that Chinese people in China know.

I was a regular reader back when you wrote for the times, and always wondered - what's the story of your middle digit? Anything to do with the film of the same name?

Nothing to do with the film Jennifer 8. Eight is good luck in Chinese! (4 is bad luck, since it sounds like the word for death).