SEATED IN THE CHONBURI PROVINCE of Thailand is Sri Racha, a seaside municipality known for its tropical beach landscape, exotic tiger zoo, delectable seafood restaurants, and affinity for hot chile pastes. Loosely pronounced “see-RAH-chuh,” the district is part burgeoning industrial metropolis and part quaint fishing village. Situated about sixty-five miles southeast of Bangkok and with its own port, Sri Racha has attracted many large factories, situated here to avoid the high rent and heavy traffic of the capital city. Besides accommodating the hustle and bustle of big business, Sri Racha has a population of approximately 171,000 and hosts a moderate amount of tourist travel, which helps keep its deeply rooted old Siam culture alive despite the influx of modern machinery.
Clusters of jetties, piers, and dilapidated pontoons protrude out from the shore and into the Gulf of Thailand, keeping hotels, seafood stalls, and other vendors afloat. Tourists staying a night in town or just passing through en route to some of the eastern seaboard’s island destinations, such as Koh Loi or Koh Si Chang, are treated to some of the best fresh seafood money can buy. There isn’t a large vegan or vegetarian constituency in Thailand, but some people do choose to follow a plant-based diet, known as jeh. While some adhere to it simply as a regime without animal products, in its strictest form the practice also prohibits strongly flavored foods such as onions, garlic, and chiles. (Yikes!) Plus, consumption of alcohol is also a no-no. (Double yikes!)
With many of Sri Racha’s residents being immigrant workers from China, Japan, and Korea, the town’s restaurants and cuisine have morphed over time to reflect the potpourri of cultures present. But one item that has satiated the people of Sri Racha for many years hasn’t changed a bit, and it has managed to remain at the center of the area’s eclectic cuisine.
Nám prík Sriracha, a glowing red paste consisting of nothing more than piquant peppers, garlic, vinegar, sugar, and salt, reigns supreme here. The noticeable but certainly not overpowering heat of the chiles and robust pungency of the garlic fuse in the sauce as the vinegar begins pickling and marrying them together. Thai cuisine has traditionally focused on a delicate harmony of four sensations: spicy, salty, sour, and sweet, all of which are gracefully represented in the celebrated crimson condiment, creating the perfect accent for the traditional local fare. Bottled versions, such as Sriracha Panich, became available and gave way to an export market, boosting the sauce’s popularity in neighboring countries such as Vietnam, a key step in its voyage to becoming an American obsession.
The Sriracha known to most Americans certainly isn’t a far cry from the Thai original, but there are marked differences, and that’s just fine with David Tran, creator of the now ubiquitous Tu’o’ng Ó’t Sriracha, or as it is affectionately called by many, “rooster sauce.” Tran, who himself was born in Vietnam and is of Chinese ancestry, came to America in the late 1970s as a refugee seeking asylum from the postwar regime. While in Vietnam, Tran had begun growing and selling chile peppers in an attempt to earn a living, but he quickly found that it was a losing proposition due to the low prices paid for fresh chiles. Rather than scrap the plan altogether, he began making chili sauces, which could command a higher return.
After the war, many immigrant groups were viewed as outsiders by the new administration, leaving Tran and his family little choice but to abandon their business and flee their home. Boarding a crowded Taiwanese freighter dubbed Huy Fong, Tran left for the United States. After he spent months in a transit camp in Hong Kong, the United States allowed him entry into Boston. Soon thereafter, he moved to Los Angeles and started working there.
Using fifty thousand dollars of family savings after being denied a bank loan, Tran started his chili sauce business in 1980, naming it Huy Fong Foods after the ship that carried him out of Vietnam. With a Chevrolet van, a fifty-gallon electric mixer, and a small shop rented on Spring Street in LA’s Chinatown for seven hundred dollars a month, he began selling a spicy Vietnamese-style condiment he called Pepper Saté Sauce to local Asian restaurants and markets. Seeing moderate levels of success, he rolled out several more products, including his Tu’o’ng Ó’t Sriracha in 1983.
Made with bright red jalapeños and utilizing garlic powder rather than fresh garlic, Tran’s Sriracha had a more upfront, in-your-face taste that distinguished it from its Thai counterpart. It was bolder and thicker, too. The plastic squeeze bottles, emblazoned with a proud rooster (representing the year of Tran’s birth in the Chinese zodiac) and topped with a bright green lid, stood out on restaurant tables and store shelves. The flavor of the sauce was a natural match for Asian cuisine. People outside the Asian community soon took note, gladly embracing a new addition to the drab ketchup, mustard, and mayo condiment trifecta to which many Americans had stoically become accustomed.
By 1986, Tran’s operation had outgrown its Chinatown outpost. He moved it to a 68,000-square-foot facility in Rosemead, part of California’s San Gabriel Valley, which had its own Asian immigrant community, a perfect market for the sauce. Never advertised, Tu’o’ng Ó’t Sriracha’s continued success came solely from its tasty reputation and word of mouth. Coming in at around three dollars for a 17-ounce bottle, the hot sauce was an easy sell to visitors and tourists passing through LA, who often took a bottle or two back home, either for themselves or for friends who had a taste for something spicy.
In 1996, Huy Fong Foods expanded once more, purchasing a shuttered Wham-O factory to facilitate greater production. Most recently, in 2012, the company began a monumental relocation to a forty-million-dollar, 630,000-square-foot build-to-suit factory in Irwindale, California. Their continued success comes as no surprise now that Sriracha has become a pantry staple for many people. With production now exceeding twenty million bottles a year (and the new factory affording them the ability to quintuple that!), it’s safe to say that Sriracha has earned its rightful place on tables—and now in cooking pans—across America.