发明“左宗棠鸡”的国民党厨师彭长贵逝世

Peng Chang-kuei, the Taiwanese chef who invented General Tso’s chicken, a dish nearly universal in Chinese restaurants in the United States, died on Wednesday in Taipei. He was 98.

名菜“左宗棠鸡”(General Tso's Chicken)的发明者、台湾厨师彭长贵本周三在台北过世，享年98岁。左宗棠鸡是美国的中餐馆里常见的一道菜。

The death was reported by The Associated Press.

美联社报道了他的死讯。

The British food scholar Fuchsia Dunlop has called General Tso’s chicken — lightly battered pieces of dark chicken fried in a chili-accented sweet-and-sour sauce — “the most famous Hunanese dish in the world.”

英国美食学者扶霞(Fuchsia Dunlop)说左宗棠鸡是“世界上最著名的湘菜”。这道菜是把深色的鸡块裹上薄薄一层面粉，用带辣味的酸甜酱烹炒而成。

But like many Chinese dishes that have found favor with Americans, General Tso’s chicken was unknown in China until recently. Nor was it, in the version known to most Americans, Hunanese, a cuisine defined by salty, hot and sour flavors.

但是就像很多美国人喜欢的中国菜一样，左宗棠鸡直到最近才在中国变得知名起来。而且它也不是大多数美国人以为的湘菜。湘菜的特色是咸、辣、酸。

Mr. Peng, an official chef for the Nationalist government, which fled to Taiwan after the 1949 revolution in China, said he created the dish during a four-day visit by Adm. Arthur W. Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1955. On the spur of the moment, he assigned it the name of a Hunanese general, Zuo Zongtang, who had helped put down a series of rebellions in the 19th century.

彭长贵是国民党政府的全职厨师，1949年中国革命后，国民党政府逃到台湾。在1955年台湾海峡危机期间，彭长贵在参谋长联席会议主席、海军上将亚瑟·W·雷德福(Arthur W. Radford)为期四天的访问中发明了这道菜。受时局启发，他给这道菜用湖南将领左宗棠的名字起名，左宗堂曾参与过19世纪的一系列平乱活动。

“Originally the flavors of the dish were typically Hunanese — heavy, sour, hot and salty,” Mr. Peng told Ms. Dunlop, the author of “Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook” (2007), which is devoted to the cuisine of Hunan. “The original General Tso’s chicken was Hunanese in taste and made without sugar.”

“最初这道菜的味道是典型的湘菜——重油、酸、辣、咸，”彭长贵告诉扶霞;后者曾写过介绍湘菜为主的《改良中国食谱》(Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook)(2007年)一书。“最初的左宗棠鸡是正宗湘菜味道，是不放糖的。”

The dish made its way to New York in the early 1970s after Chinese chefs in New York, preparing to open the city’s first Hunanese restaurants — Uncle Tai’s Hunan Yuan and Hunam — visited a restaurant that Mr. Peng had opened in Taipei. They adapted the recipe to suit American tastes.

20世纪70年代初，这道菜传到了纽约，当时纽约一些中国厨师参观了彭长贵在台北开的一家餐馆之后，准备在纽约开第一批湘菜馆——Uncle Tai’s Hunan Yuan(湘园)和Hunam(湖南)。

“We didn’t want to copy chef Peng exactly,” Ed Schoenfeld, an assistant to the restaurant’s owner, David Keh, told the website Salon in 2010. “We added our own spin to dishes. And so our General Tso’s chicken was cut differently, into small dice, and we served it with water chestnuts, black mushrooms, hoisin sauce and vinegar.” The chef was Wen Dah Tai.

“我们不想完全复制彭师傅的食谱，”Uncle Tai’s Hunan Yuan的老板戴维·凯(David Keh)的助手艾德·舍恩菲尔德(Ed Schoenfeld)2010年曾这样对Salon网站表示。“我在这道菜中加入了自己的创新。所以我们的左宗棠鸡不一样，是切成鸡丁，然后跟荸荠、香菇、海鲜酱和醋一起炒。”这里的主厨是戴文达(Wen Dah Tai，音)。

At Hunam, the chef Tsung Ting Wang — who was also a partner with Michael Tong in another prominent Chinese restaurant in Manhattan, Shun Lee Palace — put a Sichuan spin on the dish. He crisped up the batter and sweetened the sauce, producing a taste combination that millions of Americans came to love. He called it General Ching’s chicken. But as the dish traveled, the General Tso name adhered.

在Hunam餐厅，主厨王春庭(Tsung Ting Wang，音)则为这道菜注入了一种四川风味。他还和迈尔克·董(Michael Tong)一起在曼哈顿经营着一家知名中餐馆顺利宫(Shun Lee Palace)。王春庭把面糊炸得酥脆，酱料调得更甜一些，打造出一种逐渐得到数百万美国人青睐的风味。它称之为General Ching’s chicken。但随着这道菜流传开来，人们还是使用General Tso这个说法。

Both restaurants were awarded four stars, the highest rating, by Raymond Sokolov, the restaurant critic of The New York Times.

两家餐厅都获得了《纽约时报》餐厅评论家雷蒙德·A·索科洛夫(Raymond Sokolov)的四星评价，也就是最高的评级。

In 1973, with Hunan fever raging, Mr. Peng came to New York and, with Mr. Keh, opened Uncle Peng’s Hunan Yuan on East 44th Street, near the United Nations. Mr. Peng discovered, to his consternation, that his creation had preceded him, and that the child was almost unrecognizable.

1973年，随着湖南菜的风靡，彭长贵随凯来到纽约，在东44街靠近联合国总部的地方开设了彭叔湘园餐厅(Uncle Peng’s Hunan Yuan)。他惊奇地发现，自己创造的菜品先于他抵达了这里，而且这些后来的演绎几乎让他无从辨认。

“New Yorkers didn’t realize he was the real thing, and some treated him like he was copying,” Mr. Schoenfeld said.

“纽约人不知道他做的才是正宗的，有些人对待他的方式就好像他在抄袭别人，”舍恩菲尔德说。

The tangled history of the dish was explored in 2014 in a documentary, “The Search for General Tso,” directed by Ian Cheney.

伊恩·切尼2014年制作的纪录片《寻找左宗棠》(The Search for General Tso)对这道菜错综复杂的历史进行了探索。

Peng Chang-kuei was born in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, in 1918. His family was poor.

彭长贵1918年出生于湖南省会长沙一个贫苦的家庭。

At 13, after running away from home, he began serving an apprenticeship under the celebrated Hunanese chef Cao Jing-shen. Formerly a family chef to Tan Yan-kai, prime minister of the Nationalist government in the late 1920s, Mr. Cao had opened the restaurant Jianleyuan in Changsha.

13岁的时候，他离家出走，开始在湖南名厨曹荩臣手下做学徒。曹荩臣原本是上世纪20年代国民政府行政院院长谭延闿的家厨，当时已经在长沙开了自己的餐厅健乐园。

In the 1930s, after the Japanese invasion, Mr. Peng moved to Chungking, the temporary Nationalist capital, where he began to gain renown. After World War II, he was installed as the government’s head banquet chef. He emigrated to Taiwan in 1949, leaving his wife and two sons behind, and continued to cater official functions.

在30年代，日本入侵之后，彭长贵搬到了国民政府的临时首都重庆，在那里开始出名。二战结束后，他被任命为政府的国宴厨师长。1949年，他移居台湾，继续为官方提供服务，将妻子和两个儿子留在了大陆。

He is survived by a son, Peng Tie-Cheng. Complete information on other survivors was not available.

他的儿子彭铁诚仍然健在。目前没有有关其他身后人的完整信息。

New York proved to be a fraught experiment, as Mr. Peng’s restaurant soon closed. “Doom trailed Uncle Peng,” the food critic Gael Greene wrote in New York magazine in 1973. “The pressures of Manhattan restaurant reality were too much for the brilliant teacher.”

事实证明，纽约是一个艰难的尝试，彭长贵的餐厅很快就关张了。“厄运追随着彭叔，”美食评论家盖尔·格林(Gael Greene)1973年在《纽约杂志》(New York magazine)上写道。“曼哈顿餐馆的现实压力，对这位杰出的老师来说有些过大。”

Undaunted, Mr. Peng borrowed money from friends and opened Yunnan Yuan on East 52nd Street, near Lexington Avenue, where Henry A. Kissinger, then the secretary of state, became a faithful customer.

不愿服输的彭长贵向朋友们借钱，在东52街靠近列克星敦大道(Lexington Avenue)的地方开了一家新的餐厅滇园(Yunnan Yuan)。时任美国国务卿的亨利·A·基辛格(Henry A. Kissinger)成了那里的忠实主顾。

“Kissinger visited us every time he was in New York, and we became great friends,” Mr. Peng told Ms. Dunlop. “It was he who brought Hunanese food to public notice.”

“基辛格每次来纽约都会到店里来，我们成了好朋友，”彭长贵告诉扶霞。“是他让湘菜获得了大众的注意。”

General Tso’s chicken began to assume celebrity status when Bob Lape, a restaurant critic, showed Mr. Peng making the dish in a segment for ABC News. The station received some 1,500 requests for the recipe.

餐厅评论家鲍勃·莱普(Bob Lape)在ABC新闻频道的节目中播放了彭长贵烹饪左宗棠鸡的画面后，令这道菜声名大噪。这家电视台收到了大约1500个询问菜谱的请求。

Encouraged, Mr. Peng reopened his old restaurant as Peng’s, bringing his signature dish with him. Reviewing the restaurant in the The Times in 1977, Mimi Sheraton wrote, “General Tso’s chicken was a stir-fried masterpiece, sizzling hot both in flavor and temperature.”

受到鼓舞的彭长贵重开了那家旧餐馆，改名彭家餐厅(Peng’s)，并把这道招牌菜带了过去。米米·谢拉顿(Mimi Sheraton)1977年在《时报》评价这家餐厅，“左宗棠鸡是一道经典的炒菜，在风味和温度上都堪称火辣。”

He left the restaurant in 1981 and opened Peng’s Garden in Yonkers, then returned to Taiwan in the late ’80s and opened the first in a chain of Peng Yuan restaurants there. The menu featured General Tso’s chicken. It was listed on the menu in Mandarin as Zuo Zongtang’s farmyard chicken, and in English as chicken à la viceroy.

1981他离开这家餐厅，在扬克斯开设了彭园(Peng’s Garden)，然后在80年代末返回了台湾，在那里开设了彭园湘菜馆(Peng Yuan，英文名与扬克斯的店不同——译注)连锁店的第一家店。菜单上的主打菜品就是左宗棠鸡。这道菜在菜单上的中文名字是左宗棠鸡，英文则写为chicken à la viceroy(直译为总督鸡——译注)。

In 1990 he opened a branch of his restaurant in the Great Wall Hotel in Changsha, but it was not a success.

1990年，他在长沙的长城宾馆开设了一家分店，但不太成功。

As Hunanese chefs adopted General Tso’s chicken, the dish entered a strange second career. In a sweeping act of historical revisionism, it came to be seen as a traditional Hunan dish. Several Hunanese chefs have described it in their cookbooks as a favorite of the 19th-century general’s.

随着湖南厨师都开始做左宗棠鸡，这道菜迎来奇怪的第二春。在一大片修正历史的行动中，它开始被视作一道传统湖南菜。有几位湘籍厨师在自己的烹饪书里说这道菜是那位19世纪的将领最喜欢的菜。