General Tso's Chicken
One ridiculous thing i came across when i was touring the US was this dish called 'General Tso's chicken'. Now, it's meant to be chinese, but i've never heard of General Tso's chicken before in my entire life, having eaten chinese foods for umpteen years. Who is General Tso? And the dish is simply just chicken in some sweet/sour sauce. So, why is called General Tso's chicken?


Just as i'm illustrating the idiosyncracy of chinese food in the US, let's have a counter example of british food in Singapore. The venerable Fish and Chips. Now there is a reason why it's called Fish and Chips and not Fish and Fries. In Britain, chips are chunky cut fries, not the skinny type you get at Mac's. Those are fries. Then what about potato chips? Well, they are termed potato crisps in Britain. So you eat a packet of crisps, and have chips with your battered codfish, and eat fries at Mac's. Therefore, technically speaking, fish and chips should come with chunky chips and not the skinny type we see in Singapore.