The turn of the 20th century saw the emergence of Chop Suey joints as hip and affordable places for young urbanites to spend a night out. Like most popular Chinese dishes in the United States, this particular mélange of meat, egg and vegetable wasn’t actually Chinese. In the 1920s American eaters were shocked when they learned that “the average native of any city in China knows nothing of chop suey”…Translated from the original Chinese, Chop Suey means “Odds & Ends,” more colloquially known as “leftovers.”
From A Very Brief History of Chinese Food in America By Emelyn Rude on time.com (2016)
