‘General Tso’s Chicken’ is the most famous Hunanese dish in the world.
Legend says one of the most notable Taiwanese chefs Peng Chang-kuei invented this dish in the 1950s while serving a group of U.S. defence personnel & named it after a 19th century Chinese military leader. However it didn’t become popular until then-President Richard Nixon made his famous visit to China in 1972 & it soon became a favourite of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who often visited Chang-kuei’s restaurant in NYC.
Fun Fact: despite its international reputation, there is no record of this dish in the classic texts on Hunanese food and cooking – vast majority of Hunanese people have still never heard of General Tso’s chicken, yet it is now being adopted as a “traditional” dish by some influential chefs & food writers in Hunan itself. Perhaps it would have been embarrassing to admit that the most famous “Hunanese” dish in the world was a product of the exiled nationalist society of Taiwan?