AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The Chinese American dish chop suey is a holiday classic.
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UNIDENTIFIED CAST: (Singing) Chop suey. Chop suey. Good and bad...
CHANG: This Broadway show tune dates back to the 1950s, when chop suey was a more common menu item. Eventually, it became a Chinese restaurant staple for Jewish people and others who don't celebrate Christmas if they dined out on Christmas Day when many other restaurants were closed. NPR's Neda Ulaby has more.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: What is smelling so amazing in the kitchen of Miranda Brown?
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MIRANDA BROWN: Bell peppers cooking with some garlic.
ULABY: Brown is a professor of Chinese history at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She became interested in the history of chop suey a few years ago and offered to make it.
BROWN: It's a dish that is chopped offal.
ULABY: Offal - the gutsy stuff - O-F-F-A-L. For many years in this country, we've thought of chop suey as a mishmash of stir-fried ingredients, Brown says. But what first made chop suey chop suey was organ meat.
BROWN: Lung, liver, tripe, kidneys.
ULABY: Rich in flavor and nutrients. Offal was once more commonly enjoyed than it is today.
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ULABY: As she stirs livers into the bubbling wok on her stove, Brown says the texture of offal is, at least for some, part of its appeal.
BROWN: It can be chewy, buttery, rubbery. For some people, that's really kind of exciting - bouncy.
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ULABY: And this dish bounces back in history much further, she says, than you might expect.
BROWN: We have references to chop suey, (speaking Chinese), in Mandarin in Ming Dynasty texts. So "The Journey To The West," which is a famous novel, has a reference to chop suey, (speaking Chinese).
ULABY: That novel from 400 years ago, is still adapted into TV shows and movies in China, like one from 2013...
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, speaking Chinese).
ULABY: ...Where a character enjoys a lavish banquet. In real life, Brown says chop suey was part of ceremonial meals in Imperial China.
BROWN: And so you will find it on fancy banquet menus. A version of the dish was even eaten at the Ching Court.
ULABY: When Chinese immigrants to the U.S. in the 1800s wanted to build relationships with local officials, Brown says, they held similar banquets. Three-hundred-course meals that would be written up in newspapers...
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ULABY: ...Peking duck, bird's nest soup, chop suey.
BROWN: All the bling foods that were popular when you had to make a good relationship with a person who had a lot of say about your life.
ULABY: Although the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 heavily restricted immigration, Chinese restaurants spread rapidly across the United States. Chop suey became a favorite.
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ULABY: In 1926, Louis Armstrong recorded a song called "Cornet Chop Suey." The dish became a beloved ambassador to what had been to many an unfamiliar cuisine.
BROWN: It was exotic, involved a little bit of adventure, and it is a name that people can pronounce.
ULABY: In the movie "A Christmas Story," set in the 1940s, a white, working-class family celebrates Christmas at a Chinese restaurant in Indiana. Its sign says Chop Suey Palace. But within decades, Brown says...
BROWN: It fell from grace, you know, in a very big way. I grew up in San Francisco and never encountered it on a menu in the '80s.
ULABY: By then, chop suey was widely seen as inauthentic, no longer the tempting organ meat melange that had once impressed aristocracy. Professor Miranda Brown cooks from her own mixed heritage, half white and half Chinese. Chop suey, she says, reflects a people's resilience and adaptation.
BROWN: Foods evolve. I mean, I always think, like, if I met my great great grandparents, would they recognize me? Would they see elements of their faces in mine, and I would guess not.
ULABY: Something similar happened with Chinese food in America, she says.
BROWN: When a dish leaves, a hundred years later, it has evolved a lot.
ULABY: Miranda Brown thinks it's time for chop suey's next evolution in the form of a comeback.
Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Singing) Chop suey. Chop suey. Living here is very much like chop suey. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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