【A Fair Haired Woman Who Spins And Pulls Out】

It's been a rough week for food pioneers. First the creator of the Big Mac passed away,A Fair Haired Woman Who Spins And Pulls Out and now General Tso's chicken inventor Peng Chang-kuei died at age 98, reports Taiwan News.

A photo posted by Seiyu Hosono (@seiyuhosono) on Dec 1, 2016 at 9:08am PST

SEE ALSO: McDonald's Big Mac inventor dies at 98

The sticky, spicy dish is widely credited to the chef, who was trained from age 13. Taiwan News reports, "After WWII, he was put in charge of running Nationalist government banquets, and in 1949 he fled to Taiwan after the Nationalist forces were defeated by the Communists in the Chinese Civil War."

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The chef said in an interview that he created General Tso's chicken in 1952 when he was cooking for U.S. Seventh Fleet commander Admiral Arthur W. Radford. Apparently, the dish was created to ensure his guests wouldn't tire of his repertoire, and Peng named the dish on the fly, honoring famous Hunan military leader, General Tso.

It's worth noting that in another interview, Peng Chang-kuei says he can't remember exactly when he first cooked the iconic dish. In the same interview, he also says, "The original General Tso’s chicken was Hunanese in taste and made without sugar,[...] But when I began cooking for non-Hunanese people in the United States, I altered the recipe."

Mashable Trend Report Decode what’s viral, what’s next, and what it all means. Sign up for Mashable’s weekly Trend Report newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

In 1973, Peng Chang-kuei opened Peng's (the restaurant has since closed and the chef returned to Taipei in the late 1980s) in New York City and one of the first published references to the dish appears in 1977. New York Timesfood critic Mimi Sheraton called General Tso's chicken, " a stir‐fried masterpiece, sizzling hot both in flavor and temperature."

The beloved dish is the subject of a 2014 documentary that traces the roots and diaspora of General Tso's chicken.

The dish is beloved worldwide and Twitter is mourning the death of this iconic chef.

First the inventor of the Big Mac dies at 98. Now the inventor of General Tso's dies...at 98. Who will be the third? https://t.co/qIZ8VfeFG6

— Chris Averill (@applecore6ca) December 2, 2016

The inventor of General Tso's chicken died. 2016 can't get worse.

— Shane Boyce (@getboyce) December 2, 2016

Peng Chang-kuei leaves behind a successful Hunan-style restaurant chain in Taiwan and a legion of people devoted to the recipe he made famous.

If you've never seen "The Search For General Tso" (available on Netflix) I recommend it. One amazing insight into Chinese-American history. https://t.co/msPl43QtUd

— Alexander Price (@aprice1828) December 2, 2016

---

Featured Video For You

---

Here's a little info behind that cranberry sauce you are slabbing on your Thanksgiving feast

---

• Life
• Deals
• Entertainment
• Science
• Games
• Tech
• Digital Culture
• Social Good

• At the Columbia University Strike
• Sleek self
• Apple needs to make it easier to manage subscriptions on iOS
• Elizabeth Warren proposes 'public option for broadband'
• Revolutionary Redux
• Turns out your office printer is a huge cybersecurity risk
• 7 critical conclusions from the major U.N. climate land report
• Samsung deleted ads that mocked iPhone for its lack of headphone jack
• Foul Shot
• For Season 3, 'GLOW' stays in Vegas while everyone changes

• Meteorologists highlight Earth’s stark, dramatic warming trend
• How to find and support Black
• The best way to learn a language: Tips and apps to get you fluent
• Pornhub streams documentary on Russian corruption. Yes Pornhub.
• Twitter's audio tweets reveal a bigger accessibility problem
• President Trump admits his executive order is a ban and somewhere, his lawyers are crying
• 'Lord of the Rings' star Sir Ian Holm dies at 88
• Facebook faces boycott push from NAACP, ADL, and other civil rights groups
• 'Dads' Review: Apple TV+ documentary doesn't offer anything original
• Facebook buys street level mapping startup Mapillary

• We Are All at the Table Together
• Why Samsung's Galaxy Note 10 and 10+ don't have headphone jacks
• Barack Obama emotionally reflects on highs and lows of his presidency
• Turkey's president praised Trump for lashing out at CNN
• Literature Shrugged
• Someone came up with a clever Tinder move to ensure responses
• The Killers are no longer feuding with Panda Express on Twitter
• Apple needs to make it easier to manage subscriptions on iOS
• Condo-Maximum
• Sleek self

• Watch NASA video of total lunar eclipse from space
• Indians upset over calendar featuring PM Narendra Modi on the cover
• Lady Gaga's foundation to fund projects in Dayton, El Paso, and Gilroy
• Jennifer Holliday cancels Trump inauguration performance, apologizes to LGBT community
• The Listening Con
• Now Putin is causing drama for Uber drivers in Russia
• ‘Games of Thrones’ and ‘Harlots’ actor Alfie Allen wants James Bond to kill him next
• Single mom builds a house from the ground up using YouTube tutorials
• Let’s Do It, Pruitt!
• These are the 5G