You can find Sriracha in braised brisket sandwiches. You can find it in buttered shrimp. And you can find it on the diner counter to toss into your scrambled eggs.
But this week, it’s the news.
The maker of the spicy red jalapeño foodie fuel is at the heart of an ugly legal battle unfolding in a Ventura County courtroom. The combatants: On this side of the squeeze bottle we have Huy Fong Foods, the Irwindale maker of the pepper-based sauce. On the other we have Underwood Ranches, the Ventura-based growers of the peppers.
The dispute has been described as a family feud, a multimillion-dollar smackdown over a contract dispute that is playing out like a messy food fight in front of a 12-member jury.
It’s not the first time Sriracha has been taken to court. Back in November 2013, a judge “ruled in favor of the city of Irwindale, where Sriracha recently relocated, saying sauce maker Huy Fong Foods must stop any operations that could be causing the odors and make unspecified changes to mitigate them,” according to the Associated Press.
Then in May 2014, the city of Irwindale dropped a lawsuit against Sriracha after neighbors complained about the smell, saying it was a public nuisance. “City officials said Huy Fong Foods had finally demonstrated a specific written commitment to solving the smell issues,” said a report by the AP.
While those jurors in the current trial consider the evidence and come up with their verdict, let’s take a moment to sing the praises of this humble hot sauce.
Why do we love you, Sriracha?
Let us count the ways.
One: You are a fun-facts-spewing beast.
We need to go no further than Griffin Hammond’s 33-minute documentary “Sriracha” to feast on some of the food-lovers folklore that oozes from this iconic red-bottled potion. The film is a paean to Sriracha, including facts about the origins of the sauce, the factory where it’s whipped into shape, and a trip to Thailand and the city the sauce is named after. The fun facts are almost too fun to be true, according to a 2013 story in the L.A. Times, starting with the discovery that the Huy Fong Foods Sriracha factory in Southern California used to be owned by Wham-O, the maker of Frisbees and Slip ‘n Slides. “Before that building filled full with hula-hoop,” Huy Fong Foods founder David Tran says in the film. “Now filled with chile.”
Two: You are hot, but not too hot to handle.
While Sriracha gets it heat kick from red jalapeños and a boost of vinegar, it’s somehow a sweet heat versus one that numbs your tongue. On the Scoville scale, which was developed to measure the level of heat in chiles, Sriracha weighs in at 2,200, according to a story in Taste of Home magazine. Tabasco sauce, by contrast, stands at 3,750 (wow!), while cayenne pepper gets a startling 50,000 (FIRE!).
Three: You are an Instagram goddess.
With 830,535 posts and counting, #Sriracha is a darling of social media. Let’s let a few of the images tell the story:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Byp7W2aHzy3/
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bym4PCon7Ga/
Four: You grow on us.
While Sriracha is made in Southern California, its roots actually lay in Thailand. According to a report in Mashed.com, a woman named Thanom Chakkapak from the seaside community of Sri Racha invented a hot sauce in the 1930s that was intended to be a condiment to add to seafood. She called it Sriraja Panich and it became a big commercial success in her country. But it’s quite different than the Sriracha we find on our grocery shelves in America. “The Thai version is made with garlic, prik chi faa peppers, vinegar, sugar, and salt which is fermented in casks for at least three months before being bottled, and has a more liquid consistency only barely thicker than Tabasco,” says the report. “American Sriracha is little known in Thailand, and many Thais who try it find it excessively spicy, overpowering, and alien to their tastes, as well as packed with MSG, preservatives, and thickeners. They look askance at American habits of covering food with Sriracha until it completely takes over the flavor. However, many Thais who have lived overseas admit to learning to like the American sauce on its own merits.”
Five: You inspired Marteen and he inspires us all.
R&B singer/songwriter Marteen Estevez, known by his stage name of Marteen, put his love for Sriracha into his 2017 music video by the same name. Actually, his love is for a girl he calls Little Racha, singing, “when you come around, you spice it up.”
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