Although some sources posit a Cantonese dish as the true origin of chop suey, others note that what is called “chop suey” in the U.S. is virtually unknown in China and bears little resemblance to its supposed progenitor — so much so that, as Grace Zia Chu, cookbook author and teacher of Chinese cooking, wrote in The Pleasure of Chinese Cooking, when she was riding in Shanghai after World War II she spotted a neon sign that read: “Genuine American Chop Suey Served Here.”