Sticky rice cake chile paste ( ciba lajiao) is made by soaking dried chiles - a wrinkled local variety - in hot water, then pounding them with garlic and ginger: the stickiness of the paste explains its curious name. Like the Sichuanese, the people of Guizhou famously adore spicy food, but their favorite chile preparation is unique to the region. During the chile season, carpets of bright scarlet chiles are laid out to dry on old stone bridges, while women nearby sell slabs of stinking tofu packed in rice straw. As a young scholar, he taught in an academy (which is now a Ding Baozhen museum, complete with an imposing statue of the man). In his 1937 novel “The Great Wave,” the acclaimed Chengdu writer Li Jieren mentioned Ding’s penchant for chicken and suggested his favorite recipe was an adaptation of a dish from his home province, Guizhou: “While he was in Sichuan … the Sichuan governor Ding Baozhen, a native of Guizhou, liked to eat the stir-fried chicken with chiles cooked by people in his hometown.” This, perhaps, is the best clue as to the true origins of the dish.ĭing grew up in rural Guizhou, in Zhijin county, formerly known as Pingyun. Ocean Star Restaurant on Atlantic Boulevard in Monterey Park opened its massive dining room in 1982. The dish was clearly established before the Cultural Revolution, because a cookbook published in 1972, at the height of the movement, includes the recipe as we know it today - although, because of the fanatical political correctness of the time, it is purged of association with an imperial bureaucrat and simply named “scorched chile chicken cubes ( hula jiding),” with a discreet note mentioning it was “originally” known as “kung pao chicken.”įood Column: The vanishing old-school Chinese restaurants of the San Gabriel Valley There is no kung pao chicken in the earliest official Sichuan cookbook, published in 1960 (although, curiously, the book includes “kung pao pig’s kidneys” made using exactly the same method). It’s not clear when the dish appeared on the local food scene. The layering of flavors and stimulating, but not overpowering, chile heat are typical of Chengdu cooking. In today’s Chengdu, kung pao chicken is made by tossing cubes of breast meat in a hot wok with dried chiles, Sichuan peppercorns, white spring onion, ginger, garlic, crisp peanuts and a glossy sauce mixed to a particular degree of sweet-and-sour known as “lychee-flavored” because of its resemblance to the fruit. Ding adored it and insisted the dish be served whenever he had important guests, who - in a fascinating quirk of history - included General Zuo Zongtang, the real General Tso. While in Jinan, it explains, Ding became known as a gastronome, employing in his kitchens two leading Shandong chefs, who whipped up a chicken dish using the local baochao cooking method (fast or “explosive” stir-frying).
The restaurant is home to a small exhibition that includes a portrait of Ding in his imperial regalia and an account of the history of kung pao chicken. However his memory is honored in a local restaurant: Shunquan Lou, which occupies the former home of Ding’s concubine, an elegant courtyard house by a canal in the center of town. Like many imperial officials, particularly those who specialized in squashing peasant rebellions, he was not viewed kindly by the communist government led by Mao Zedong, the mastermind of one of China’s most successful peasant revolts.ĭing’s memorial temple in Jinan has long since vanished his family mausoleum was razed during the Great Leap Forward in 1958 his official mansion was demolished in the early 2000s during the city’s redevelopment. Today, there’s little public acknowledgment of Ding in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province.
Most sensationally, in 1869 he arrested and later executed a presumptuous eunuch from the Forbidden City, a tale that entered popular legend. In 1867, he was appointed governor of northeastern Shandong province, where he became known as a forward-thinking man who strengthened coastal defenses and fostered modern industry.
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