Let’s get one thing straight: Sriracha is not a fad. Yes, some of the love affair with the hot sauce is a bit over-the-top, but anything that tasty has staying power. And when you think Sriracha, you think Huy Fung Foods Sriracha. If you’ve ever wondered what you’re looking at when you pick up a bottle of the spicy condiment, here’s everything Decoded.
- 1. Green Cap: Huy Fong Foods chose the color green to represent the freshness of their chiles.
- 2. Sriracha: Sriracha is the type of sauce, not the brand name. It comes from the seaside province of Si Racha in Thailand where it was first invented over 80 years ago by Thanom Chakkapak who made it for her family and friends before being talked into making it commercially.
- 3. Tương ơt: Tương is a word applied to many different condiments, but mostly it refers to fermented soybeans. Tương ơt happens to mean chili sauce.
- 4. Rooster: David Tran’s astrological sign
- 5. 滙豐食品公司: HSBC Foods
- 6. Huy Fung Foods: Started by David Tran in 1980 after he immigrated from Vietnam. The original idea was to make a version of Sriracha that could be sent to Asian restaurants in Los Angeles. The company’s name comes from the boat that carried David Tran and thousands of other refugees out of Vietnam.
- 7. Sauce: The recipe for David Tran’s Sriracha has remained unchanged since 1983.
- 8. 是拉差香甜辣椒酱: Sriracha Sauce
- 9. Parve: One of the three kosher categories for foods. Means the food doesn’t contain meat or dairy, and it wasn’t prepared with them.
- 10. Address: To meet the demand for their Sriracha, Huy Fong Foods moved from Chinatown to Rosemead in 1987.
