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Food

The Man Who Invented General Tso's Chicken Has Died

Chinese chef Peng Chang-kue first whipped up his chicken masterpiece back in 1952. He died Tuesday at the age of 98.

Chinese chef Peng Chang-kue—the guy who created General Tso's Chicken—has joined the of the world has , long listbeloved peoplelost in 2016Taiwan Newsreports.

The chicken dish can be traced back to 1952, when Peng first whipped up the golden ginger-garlic delight for a US Naval admiral named Arthur W. Rutherford. Rutherford asked Peng what the meal was called, and, in a stroke of inspiration, the chef decided to name it after respected Hunan war general Tso Tsung T'ang. The rest is history.

In 1973, Peng brought the recipe stateside and founded Peng's Garden Hunan Restaurant in New York City. Not too long after that, General Tso's got a rave review in the New York Times, deeming it a "stir‐fried masterpiece." Someone even made a documentary about the dish in 2014, The Search for General Tso, which talks about the origin story of the chicken masterpiece and the effect it has had on taste buds all across the world.

According to the Taiwan News, Peng died on Tuesday of pneumonia at the age of 98.

Photo via Flickr user Jason Lam