Today we celebrate one of the famous dishes in Chinese cuisine, the Chop Suey. This day is observed annually on August 29th.
If you love Chinese food, you are probably familiar with one of their mixed vegetable specialty. This is one of my favorite when I order for Chinese food because I just love vegetables. It is popular in American Chinese cuisine and other countries too.
Chop Suey consists of different types of crunchy vegetable like carrots, water chestnuts, bean sprout, then mixed with cabbage, mushroom, and eggs. They are usually sautéed quickly and mixed with cornstarch to thicken the sauce. Usually, Chop Suey but they can be mixed with a variety of meat like beef, shrimp, chicken or pork. Normally served with rice or it can be mixed with lo mein noodles.
Some believe chop suey was invented in America by Chinese Americans. However, anthropologist E.N. Anderson finds another conclusion. According to Anderson, the word tsap seui means miscellaneous leftovers and hails from Taishan, a district of Guangdong Province.
Many early Chinese immigrants traveled from their home in Taishan to the United States. Another account claims Chinese American cooks who were working on the transcontinental railroad invented chop suey in the 19th century. No one really knows where this Chinese-American dish originated.
Chop Sue is now a staple on many Chinese restaurant menus across the country. Did you know that the Cantonese word for “Chop Suey” is “Odds and Ends”?
So, today, if you love Chinese food, celebrate this day by ordering some Chinese takeout and remember to include Chop Suey on your order. You can also make your own version at home if you love to cook and you are able to gather or vegetables that it needs. Share on social media some photos if you made them using #ChopSueyDay.
1533 Pizzaro Executes Last Inca
Atahuallpa, the 13th and last emperor of the Incas, dies by strangulation at the hands of Francisco Pizarro’s Spanish conquistadors. The execution of Atahuallpa, the last free reigning emperor, marked the end of 300 years of Inca civilization.
High in the Andes Mountains of Peru, the Inca built a dazzling empire that governed a population of 12 million people. Although they had no writing system, they had an elaborate government, great public works, and a brilliant agricultural system. In the five years before the Spanish arrival, a devastating war of succession gripped the empire. In 1532, Atahuallpa’s army defeated the forces of his half-brother Huascar in a battle near Cuzco. Atahuallpa was consolidating his rule when Pizarro and his 180 soldiers appeared.
Francisco Pizarro was the son of a Spanish gentleman and worked as a swineherder in his youth. He became a soldier and in 1502 went to Hispaniola with the new Spanish governor of the New World colony. Pizarro served under Spanish conquistador Alonso de Ojeda during his expedition to Colombia in 1510 and was with Vasco Nunez de Balboa when he discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513. Hearing legends of the great wealth of Indian civilization in South America, Pizarro formed an alliance with fellow conquistador Diego de Almagro in 1524 and sailed down the west coast of South America from Panama. The first expedition only penetrated as far as present-day Ecuador, but a second reached farther, to present-day Peru. There they heard firsthand accounts of the Inca empire and obtained Inca artifacts. The Spanish christened the new land Peru, probably after the Vire River.
(excerpted from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pizarro-executes-last-inca-emperor)
