I'm Monica Eng, and back when we could still dine in restaurants, I answered a question

about foods that were invented in Chicago, and I found a bunch.

Some of my faves were the Hibarito and Yiros.

Today, we're going to add a postscript to an old question because we found a new Chicago

dish, Gampong Chicken Wings.

It's a local treat created through a series of quirky historical

incidents, and you can still get it during the COVID-19 crisis. Here's celebrity chef, Candice

Nelson, describing a version in Los Angeles. So you bite through this crisp, deliciously sweet,

and spicy crust to this tender, delicate, moist chicken meat.

The dish looks like a chicken lollipop, with all the wing meat smushed to one end of the bone.

The whole thing gets deep fried and slathered into sweet, spicy garlic sauce.

So how did it emerge in Chicago?

Well, about 40 years ago, a unique group of immigrants arrived.

They came from Korea, but they were ethnically Chinese, like they spoke Chinese at home.

Once in Chicago, they opened restaurants serving a kind of Chinese food specifically for Koreans.

So Chinese Koreans serving Korean-tinged Chinese food. Got it?

They opened up a bunch of these spots in Albany Park, and that's where chef Xingzong

Kau had a place called Peking Mandarin on Lawrence. And there, he took a traditional, dry-fried

chicken dish called Gampongi, and he made it with just wings. Why wings? Because

Chinese love wings. They prize them. But here in the 80s, they were so cheap that some folks

actually threw him away. And that bugged chef cow, according to his nephew, Roger.

My uncle said this is too wasting, so he started to find something to not

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