Kate Connally > wrote:

> That's because there are 2 different chop sueys

> Real chop suey is a Chinese-like dish with ground meat,
> canned bean sprouts (truly awful things), canned mushrooms,
> canned water chestnuts, chopped celery, and some other junk.
> Sort of like a stir-fried dish. Brownish soy-flavored sauce.
> BTW, there were canned versions by La Choy and possibly others,
> but my mother made hers from "scratch" with the above listed
> canned ingredients.

Sort of. At least according to a show I saw on The History
Channel (or maybe Food TV) about the influence of the
Chinese on the American West. It seems that Chop Suey was
invented by Chinese restaurants in the San Francisco area
when they ran low on ingredients for their regular dishes.
Seems they had not anticipated a large demand from non-Chinese
customers. Anyway, Chop Suey was a sort of half-English-half-Chinese
term invented to describe leftovers cooked up with whatever
new ingredients were on hand. They had a bunch of hungry
railroad workers and whatnot asking for food, and being
in business they met the demand as best they could. Turned
out the non-Chinese *liked* it, and came back asking for
more of the same.

> Then there is the "American" chop suey which is just a
> mess of macaroni noodles, ground beef, tomato sauce and
> whatever else people like to put in it. How that conglom-
> eration came to be called chop suey escapes me. I never
> even heard of it until maybe 10 years ago. Where I came
> from chop suey was a vaguely Chinese influenced dish.

Never heard of "American" chop suey, but from the description
it sound like the same sort of concept. Stretch the
ingredients you have to meet the needs of a hungry crowd.

Bill Ranck
Blacksburg, Va.