The namesakes: Dishes named after real people

Bananas Foster was named after loyal customer Richard Foster.

There are Malaysian foods with unusual (some even indecent!) names, most of which are descriptive in nature, but we don’t tend to name dishes after real people like other cultures do.

General Tso’s chicken, for example, is named for General Zuo Zongtang of the Qing Dynasty, but it was invented by Taiwanese chefs in the 1970s to appeal to the American palate.