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Friday, September 14, 2012

Where did Kung Pao Chicken come from?

Gong Bao Ji or Kung Pao Chicken-thrills consumers from East and West alike with its complex spicy-and-savory flavors, smooth, hearty texture, and balanced blend of earthy colors. It's an important marker of local and international identity.


Westerners associate Gong Bao firmly with China, and it remains an important symbol of the Sichuan province cooking style. Food identity doesn't happen overnight; cuisine-connoisseurs slow-cooked Gong Bao's meaning over centuries as historical attitudes and situations changed around the dish.

Gong Bao Ji's hot, complicated flavors almost mimic the conflicted time period when the dish started. During the late Qing, the imperial dynasty still controlled China, but foreign forced border-openings and the opium trade generated social unrest and hatred...

Read the rest of the article here.