The Brief

Chop suey was once a classic Chinese American dish enjoyed on December 25 — a day when most other restaurants were closed — by Jews and other non-Christians.

These days, we tend to think of chop suey as a mishmash of stir-fried ingredients that emerged from immigrant communities in the United States. But its roots run deep, says Miranda Brown, a professor of Chinese history at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She wrote a 2021 article called "The Hidden, Magnificent History of Chop Suey" for the website Atlas Obscura.

"It's a dish that is chopped offal," she says. "Lung, liver, tripe, kidneys."

Yes, originally chop suey was primarily made of organ meats. Brown is quick to note that offal is flavorful, rich in nutrients, and was enjoyed widely until a few generations ago, thanks, in part to industrial meat packaging processes.

"It can be chewy, it can be buttery, it can be kind of rubbery," Brown says of offal's distinctive textures. "For some people, that's really kind of exciting. Bouncy!"

The origins of the dish itself bounces back hundreds of years, she says, to imperial China.

"We have references to chop suey in Ming Dynasty texts," she notes. "The Journey to the West, which is a famous novel [from the 16th century], has a reference to chop suey. You will find it on fancy banquet menus. A version of the dish was even eaten at the Qing court."

When Chinese immigrants to the U.S. in the mid-1800s wanted to impress local officials, Brown says, they held banquets similar to ones back home, with 300-course meals that would get written up in local newspapers, in articles marveling over delicacies such as Peking duck, chop suey and bird's nest soup.

"All the bling foods that were popular when you had to [build] a good relationship with a person who had a lot of say about your life," Brown says.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 restricted immigration heavily, but Chinese restaurants still spread rapidly across the United States. By the early 1900s, chop suey had become a cultural phenomenon, a beloved ambassador dish to what had been an unfamiliar cuisine to many Americans.

Louis Armstrong recorded a song in 1926 called "Cornet Chop Suey." The 1958 musical Flower Drum Song dedicated an entire number to it. And in the movie A Christmas Story, set in the 1940s and based on the writings of Jean Shepherd, a white, Midwestern, working-class family celebrates Christmas at a Chinese restaurant called the Bo Ling Chop Suey Palace.

"It was exotic," Brown says. "It involves a little bit of adventure, and it is a name that people can pronounce."

But by the late 20th century, chop suey had fallen out of fashion. Brown says she never saw it on menus in her home city of San Francisco in the 1980s, when she was growing up. By then, Americans had deepened their appreciation of Chinese food, thanks in large part to popular cookbook author, PBS host and restaurateur Cecilia Chiang.

Before she died in 2020 at the age of 100, Chiang told NPR she thought it was hilarious how so many Americans had believed that the contemporary versions of chop suey were authentic. "They think, oh, chop suey is the only thing we have in China," she said in a 2017 NPR interview. "What a shame!"

"I think for her, it had just evolved to the point where it was no longer recognizable," says Miranda Brown, whose own mixed heritage is half white, half Chinese. "Foods evolve. I always think, if I met my great-great-grandparents, would they recognize me? Would they see elements of their faces in mine or my daughter's? And I would guess not. Something similar happened with Chinese food in America. When a dish leaves, a hundred years later it has evolved, a lot."

And perhaps it's about time, Brown says, for chop suey's next evolution: to make a comeback.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Take accountability and move forward.

Those were the two points Los Angeles Fire Chief Jaime Moore hit repeatedly when speaking with LAist’s Larry Mantle this week.

On taking accountability, Moore said hazardous conditions and decisions made before the Palisades Fire erupted a year ago meant “our firefighters never had a chance” to arrest the fire that killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of structures.

On moving forward, he emphasized that reform is already in the works.

“Things have changed since the Palisades Fire, and we're going to continue making big changes in the Los Angeles Fire Department,” said Moore, who was selected for the LAFD top job by Mayor Karen Bass in November.

Here are three takeaways from the interview, which aired on AirTalk on Tuesday.

1. Staffing decisions hampered fire response

The LAFD uses a so-called pre-deployment matrix to set firefighter staffing levels ahead of high-risk weather.

According to the department’s after-action report, however, staffing levels on the day the Palisades Fire began fell short of the LAFD standard for extreme weather conditions. The National Weather Service had warned of low humidity, high winds and dry vegetation, what it calls a “particularly dangerous situation.” It’s the highest level of alert the agency can give.

Despite the high risk, the LAFD report said the decision not to deploy more firefighters in advance was in part made to save money.

Moore said Monday that the department has updated its policies to increase staffing for especially hazardous conditions, but he said he doesn’t believe additional resources would have stopped a fire of the magnitude that leveled the Palisades.

To suppress that kind of fire, he said, the department would need to pre-deploy resources across the city’s vast geography — to places like Baldwin Hills, Franklin Canyon, the Hollywood Hills, the Palisades, Porter Ranch and Sunland-Tujunga.

Moore said the department has already made new policies to call for more resources when the Weather Service issues a “particularly dangerous situation” alert.

2. LAFD is mostly an urban firefighting department

Moore referenced a key finding of the after-action report regarding a lack of training in wildland firefighting, which contributed to confusion and struggles to effectively utilize resources during the fire.

Wildland fires pose a number of challenges that are different from what firefighters face in urban environments. Those include the need to coordinate a large number of resources over vast areas, all while dealing with fast-moving flames that can rapidly tear through dry plants and structures.

The department found in its report that fewer firefighters were trained in fighting these wildland fires in recent years and that “leaders struggled to comprehend their roles.”

Some leaders in the department had “limited or no experience in managing an incident of such complexity,” the report said. And some reverted to doing the work of lower positions, leaving high-level decision-making positions unfilled.

“What we're doing now is really furthering that training and reinforcing that education with our firefighters so that they could be better prepared,” Moore said on AirTalk.

3. Changes to the after-action report

Early versions of the after-action report differed from the version released to the public in October, a fact that was first reported by the Los Angeles Times. The Times also reported that Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, who wrote the report, wouldn’t endorse the final version because of the changes.

Moore acknowledged to the L.A. Board of Fire Commissioners at a Jan. 6 meeting that the report had been watered down.

“It is now clear that multiple drafts were edited to soften language and reduce explicit criticism of department leadership in that final report,” Moore told the commissioners. “This editing occurred prior to my appointment as fire chief, and I can assure you that nothing of this sort will ever again happen while I am fire chief."

Some changes were small but telling. A section titled “Failures” later became “Primary Challenges.”

Moore told LAist that changes between versions “ made it easier for the public to understand,” but an LAist review found the edits weren’t all surface-level.

In the first version of the report, the department said the decision not to fully pre-deploy all available resources for the particularly dangerous wind event “did not align” with their guidelines for such extreme weather cases. The final version said that the initial response “lacked the appropriate resources,” removing the reference to department standards.

The department also removed some findings that had to do with communications.

One sentence from the initial version of the report said: “Most companies lacked a basic briefing, leader’s intent, communications plan, or updated fire information for more than 36 hours.” That language was removed from the final report.

LAist has asked the Fire Department for clarification about why these assertions were removed but did not receive a response before time of publication.

Olympic organizers announced Tuesday that registration to buy tickets will run through March 18, with sales beginning in April. LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover said that locals will get the first bite at the apple.

The registration period opens 7 a.m. Wednesday.

" Our host city communities here in Los Angeles and Oklahoma City will have the opportunity to be a part of a local presale," Hoover said outside the Coliseum while surrounded by Olympic athletes from Games past. "With our thanks and as part of our commitment to making sure that those who live and work around the games, where the games will take place, can be in the stands and cheer in 2028."

Olympic organizers also provided more details on ticket prices for the first time. One million tickets will sell for $28 a pop and around a third of tickets will be under $100, according to LA28 Chair Casey Wasserman.

That means the majority of tickets to the Olympic Games will run into triple digits. If the World Cup is any indication, some tickets could get astronomically pricey.

Interested fans can go to LA28.org to register. Those who are selected will get an email with a time slot to purchase tickets.

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors took a step toward banning ICE from unlawfully operating on county-owned property and to post signage designating those spaces as “ICE Free Zones.”

The board unanimously approved the motion at Tuesday’s meeting, directing staff to draft the policy.

The draft could include requirements for county employees to report to their supervisor if they see unauthorized immigration activity on county property.

The city of Los Angeles passed a similar order last July, which strengthened protocols that prohibit ICE from operating on city-owned property. The agenda staff report points to an “ICE Free Zone” ordinance passed by the city of Chicago in October.

Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Hilda Solis co-authored the motion.

Horvath said the county will not allow its property to be used as “a staging ground for violence caused by the Trump administration."

Solis added that their action as a board could have a ripple effect on other city councils and local governments.

“Even though it's taken us this long to get here …I think it's really important for our communities to understand what we're saying is you don't have the right to come in and harass people without a federal warrant,” Solis said. “And if you use our property to stage, then you need to show us documentation as to why.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in an X post that the county cannot exclude federal agents from public spaces.

"Anyone who attempts to impede our agents will be arrested and charged, including county employees," Essayli said in the post. "We have already charged more than 100 individuals for similar conduct."

Since June, ICE raids have ramped up across the nation, heavily targeting certain immigrant communities like those in Los Angeles.

The motion directs the draft to include language that prohibits all types of ICE operations on county land, including staging and mobilizing without a warrant.

The motion cites an incident on Oct. 8, when county officials say federal agents raided the Deane Dana Friendship Park and Nature Center in San Pedro, arresting three people and threatening to arrest staff.

The motion also requires that the county post 'Ice Free Zone' signage on all of its properties.

Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center of Human Rights and Constitutional Law, told LAist the policy is enforceable under Fourth Amendment case law.

“You have to make sure that when you post that signage … that means that you routinely, or semi-routinely, assess who's coming in to the property, so that you can control access,” Perez said. “But if ICE shows up with a warrant, with a subpoena, then all bets are off, and they can enter into the property and do what they need to do.”

Perez said the county has moved “incredibly” slow on this issue.

“It's embarrassing that the county is moving six months later, given how we've been facing violent, aggressive, invasive and illegal raids now for so long here in Southern California,” Perez said, adding that local governments have not been fast or creative enough in protecting immigrant and refugee communities.

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, one of the region’s largest immigrant advocacy groups, supports the motion.

"We do not want our county resources being used for federal immigration enforcement activities, which disrupt, uproot, and terrorize our communities,” Jeannette Zanipatin, policy director for CHIRLA, said in a statement. “It is important for all public spaces to be really safe for all residents.”

County staff have 30 days to draft a plan to implement the new policy.