However, the anthropologist E. N. Anderson traces the dish to tsap seui (杂碎, "miscellaneous leftovers"), common in Taishan, Guangdong (Toisan) – the home of many early Chinese immigrants to the United States.

Another story is that Li wandered to a local Chinese restaurant after the hotel kitchen had closed, where the chef, embarrassed that he had nothing ready to offer, came up with the new dish using scraps of leftovers.

"[8][9] In 1888 Wong wrote that a "staple dish for the Chinese gourmand is chow chop svey [sic], a mixture of chickens' livers and gizzards, fungi, bamboo buds, pigs' tripe, and bean sprouts stewed with spices.

[11] An article in The Illustrated American on Chinese cuisine in 1897, reproduces a menu from Ma Hung Low's restaurant on Mott Street in New York's Chinatown quarter which includes the dish "Beef Chop Suey with Bean Sprouts, Water Chestnuts and Boiled Rice."

For example, in the classic novel Journey to the West (circa 1590), Sun Wukong tells a lion-monster in chapter 75: "When I passed through Guangzhou, I bought a pot for cooking za sui – so I'll savor your liver, entrails, and lungs.