Peng Chang-kuei

Peng was born on September 26, 1919, in Shaping-xiang, Changsha County, Hunan Province, Republic of China. In 1933, Peng became the apprentice of Cao Jinchen (曹藎臣), the fourth-in-line personal chef of the late Tan Yankai, a Hunan statesman and the former Premier of the Republic of China. He cofounded Banyating (半雅亭) restaurant in Chongqing. After the Second Sino-Japanese War, he returned to Changsha. He was married for the first time (he remarried twice in Taiwan). Before the communist takeover of Hunan in September 1949, he parted ways with his mother, wife, and children to follow the Kuomintang's retreat to Taiwan. ==Career in Taiwan and New York==

In 1952, Peng found the Hunan restaurant Yuloudong (玉樓東) in Taipei, but it was destroyed by fire a few years later. He returned to Taiwan in the 1980s to open a chain of Peng Yuan restaurants, later opening a branch in his hometown of Changsha. == General Tso's Chicken ==

In 2008, Peng was interviewed by Jennifer 8. Lee for the documentary The Search for General Tso (2014). In the documentary, Peng recalled in 1952 he was invited by the Republic of China Navy to be in charge of a three-day state banquet during Admiral Arthur W. Radford's visit of Taiwan. An alternative story proposed by Taiwanese food writer Zhu Zhenfan (2009) claimed Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of President Chiang Kai-shek, paid a late visit to Peng's restaurant when Peng ran out of ingredients. Chiang was served an improvised dish, General Tso's chicken, by Peng. The earliest news account on Peng was on November 13, 1968, and 15-24 January 1969 under the identical news heading "彭長貴的故事", published by Economic Daily News (經濟日報) in Taipei. It is not clear whether his stories about his invention of the Tso's chicken were featured in those 1968-1969 news report. ==Personal life==

Peng was married twice. His first was in Taiwan in 1950 during which he had a son (b. 1953) but divorced shortly after. His married a second time in 1961 and had a son and a daughter. ==Notes==