Condiment Curiosity: Sriracha

You've got a bottle of sriracha in your kitchen, right? That clear squeezy bottle with its crimson contents and cute little lime green pointed hat? Here's how it became an unlikely culinary icon...

The ubiquitous chilli sauce. A modern constant in kitchen cupboards and even a staple on some restaurant tables. How could you even consider avocado on toast without a liberal zig-zag squirt of this fiery fellow? A sauce of Southeast Asian origin, we all know and love it in the present day mostly due to a Vietnamese refugee of Chinese heritage who interpreted Thai inspiration as he fled war to start a new life in America. Don’t worry, we’re here to help you join the dots. It’s time to dive deep in the tingly waters of spicy chilli sauce, sriracha.

Origins of Sriracha (as we know it): David Tran & Huy Fong Foods

Sriracha is synonymous with one man, really, David Tran. He’s the man who put sriracha on the map, and he’s still with us –– 78 years young and still active in the business he founded, Huy Fong Foods, in Los Angeles, California in 1980. Yes, the global domination of sriracha is a wholly Stateside creation and phenomenon.

A deeply personal brand, the rooster symbol on the iconic sriracha bottle relates to Tran’s year of birth in the Chinese zodiac calendar and he named his fledgling company way back in the early Eighties after the Huey Fong freighter he sought refuge on from the Vietnam War in which carried him originally to Hong Kong. He, and thousands of others who fled, spent an entire month anchored on the vessel in the East China Sea until it was eventually permitted to dock due to international pressure. Then, its passengers were split and eventually granted passage to several countries as refugees.

Tran first arrived to the United States on the Atlantic coast in Boston but quickly followed family to the opposite coast and settled in Los Angeles. He wasted no time, he needed to put his skills to use in order to make money. Tran had been growing chillies and making his special sauce back home in Vietnam so he set about doing the same in the States, first producing intentionally for the massive Asian expat community there, as it was so synonymously served with dishes such as phở, but also with an eye on bigger, wider and more long-term aspirations.

Tran’s first (glass) bottles of sriracha were filled by hand, spoonful by spoonful and delivered around Los Angeles’ Chinatown in his blue Chevy through the early Eighties. This is a condiment that’s been around longer than you think –– coming up on 45 years. That would maybe explain why Millennials (born 1981 - 1996) have really been the making of Huy Fong’s sriracha, this cohort reaching adulthood and maturity simultaneously with the longevity of the brand. Fast forward four decades from the first bottle and the Vietnamese refugee who ended up in LA through chance would later become the first hot sauce billionaire in the States.

But… Isn’t it a Thai Thing?

We’re at pains not to limit sriracha’s storyline solely to David Tran, because sriracha is not just Huy Fong Foods and Tran didn’t invent sriracha, contrary to popular belief. He just began bottling a sauce that was already known, similar to Salad Cream (Condiment Curiosity: Salad Cream in case you missed it!) The original mother sauce is attributed to the coastal town of Si Racha in Thailand, about 120km from the capital Bangkok. The chilli sauce was named after the town (which adopted its name from the Sanskrit Śrī Rāja) and the original recipe is attributed to a woman named Thanom Chakkapak and dates back to the 1930’s.