Request for a Western dish is a hit and Swiss affair

These chicken wings, covered in a slick, sweet soy sauce as dark as black tea, are a Hong Kong speciality. Typically found in old restaurants such as Tai Ping Koon, which were known as 'Western' restaurants until the 1960s, these chicken wings were seen as Western cuisine despite the obvious use of soy sauce. Swiss chicken wings would listed in menus along with dishes such as beef stroganoff, borscht and baked spaghetti Bolognese, although all of these dishes bore little resemblance to the Western versions.

By the same token, asking for Swiss chicken wings in Switzerland, where the name suggests it was from, would probably result in a puzzled look or a blank stare.

Legend has it that one day in Hong Kong, a foreigner went into a restaurant that served the closest thing to Western food he could find. He sat down and asked for the restaurant's signature dish. Chicken wings braised in soy sauce, vinegar and sugar appeared on his table. After polishing off the plate, the waiter asked him how it was, to which he replied, 'It was sweet.'

The waiter, who didn't really understand English, thought he was saying 'It is Swiss'. As the Cantonese word for Switzerland (sui see) sounds very similar to 'sweet', and as the diner had fair skin and blond hair, the waiter immediately made the connection with Switzerland.

Chefs rejoiced, thinking they had somehow ingeniously recreated a Swiss dish. As it was a 'Western' restaurant, they thought it was only right to refer to its foreign heritage. The truth soon emerged, but the catchy name stuck. The dish is still a signature at many of these restaurants, and the popular sauce was used in other dishes such as stir-fried flat rice noodles. Bottles of it can be bought at supermarkets, still labelled 'Swiss sauce'.