Sriracha: From the Creator's Mouth

My sorority sister, D, sent an article that was in NY Times article about the delicious sriracha chili sauce. I've been using sriracha for a long time now, on dumplings, wontons, eggs, noodle soups, etc. It's neat to see it getting so popular. You can find it in your regular grocery store instead of having to trek out to the Asian markets like a few years ago. And where popular famed chefs incorporate it into their sophisticated menu and even chain restaurants such as Applebees, P.F. Chang's, Flemmings, have it on their menu.

The best part of this article was that the consumers are able to get some insight as to how the sauce originated. The creator, David Tran, 64, who comes from a Chinese heritage but born in Vietnam, began making chili sauces with the peppers grown by his older brother on a farm in a village north of Saigon. All the different sauces he made, he never gave them a formal name. The only consistency was the rooster on the bottle, which is Tran's zodiac sign.

In 1979, Tran had enough money to send himself and his family to America. The first week of 1980, Tran went to Los Angeles and began making sauce. He did not anticipate the popularity of his take on sriracha. He thought the sauce to be good, was proud of it, but still modest. The name Sriracha is a town in Chonburi Province, Thailand, famed for their homemade chili sauces, do not recognize Mr. Tran’s sauce as their own. Tran says, “I know it’s not a Thai sriracha. It’s my sriracha.”

Over the last decade, a number of imitators have entered the sriracha category; Cock brand sriracha from Thailand, Shark brand from China, Phoenix brand and Unicorn brand from Vietnam. Even with the competition, more than 10 million bottles of sriracha now roll off the line each year. As said earlier, even though the sauce is now popular amongst the general public, the company, Huy Fong, says, "We still sell 80 percent of our product to Asian companies, for distribution through Asian channels. That’s the market we know. That’s the market we want to serve.”

“I made this sauce for the Asian community,” Mr. Tran said.

[image via NY Times]