Cashew Chicken, Springfield's Accidental Invention

In nineteen sixty-three, a Chinese American chef named David Leong was cooking at a restaurant in Springfield, Missouri and discovered that his Cantonese menu was not moving. His customers were midwesterners with midwestern tastes. They wanted fried things and gravy.

David Leong looked at what he had in his kitchen, looked at what his customers wanted, and invented a new dish. Springfield-style cashew chicken takes deep-fried chicken pieces and serves them over rice with a thin oyster-sauce-based gravy and whole cashew nuts. It is nothing like the cashew chicken served in Chinese American restaurants elsewhere in the country, which is typically stir-fried with vegetables in a thicker sauce.

Springfield cashew chicken is its own thing, and it was built specifically for a Springfield palate. Leong opened Leong's Tea House, which became one of the most popular restaurants in Springfield's history. The dish spread through the city.

By the nineteen seventies and eighties, Springfield had more Chinese restaurants per capita than almost any comparable American city, most of them serving variations of the dish that Leong had invented. The cashew chicken was on every menu. David Leong died in twenty twenty, at ninety-nine, having watched his accidental invention become a regional institution and a Springfield cultural touchstone.

The dish is now documented in food journalism, culinary history writing, and at least one Oxford Companion to American Food entry. Springfield did not set out to invent a regional cuisine. A chef in a small Missouri city just tried to stay in business.