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What’s Thai, red, makes your mouth water,  and is extremely hot?

What’s Thai, red, makes your mouth water, and is extremely hot?

There are symbols of Thailand that immediately spring to mind whenever the kingdom is mentioned. You can’t think about the country for long without elephants entering the picture. The glorious face-wide smiles that gave the country its nickname is what does it for some, the oh-so fabulous ladyboys do it for others. You need barely say the word ‘Thailand’ before many start drooling at the thought of a steaming plate piled high with their favorite Thai dish, while others immediately start to giggle over the ubiquitous street stalls selling a variety of fried insects. The bar boys, bar girls, happy endings, and no holds barred sex shows are what resonate for many, while the more salubriously inclined picture gold covered Buddhas, majestic temples, and the Grand Palace. These visions are what those of us who readily argue that Disneyland is not in fact the happiest place on earth reminiscence about. But as pleasant as those memories may be, short of a photo album of your most recent trip, when you are back home all you have are your thoughts to tide you over until your next visit. Unless you are like me and that fiery hot cock is what sets your memories ablaze. And your taste buds afire.

Nam jim Sriracha, or sot Sriracha, is a popular condiment, a staple you’ll find on the table when eating just about anywhere in Bangkok. My first introduction to the spicy sauce was – like for many first-time visitors to the Kingdom – accidental. There was a slightly faded unlabeled plastic squeeze bottle on the table at lunch one day, more orange in color than the traditional red container that holds catsup elsewhere in the world, but then I’d already noticed Thais tend to put their own little twist to what should be the common and ordinary – like paper napkins that are a quarter the size you find anywhere else on the planet – so no problemo. I squeezed out a healthy pool of the goop onto my french fries and dug in. Yikes! It was the gastronomical surprise equivalent of finding out the lady you picked up the night before is really a boy. And just like many punters who have found themselves addicted to a whole new world when that happens, I too immediately became hooked on Thailand’s chili sauce and its perfect blend of sweet, sour, and heat – with a wonderfully stimulating incendiary kick. My friend Ann, to whom I passed the bottle sans warning, was not quite as appreciative.

For a newbie to Thailand, eating Thai food amongst the locals can be confusing. You can’t help but wonder why there is a bowlful of white sugar on the table when you sit down for your first meal of pad thai. Watch the locals and you’ll know. And as dubious as you may find the custom to be, a liberal dousing of that sugar on your plate will teach you what pad thai is really all about. As long as you didn’t forget to sprinkle a few spoonfuls of chopped peanuts on top too. There is no question about how to use sriracha sauce, You put it on everything. No self-respecting Thai will chow down on an omelette, noodles, or anything that has been grilled and deep-fried without adding a few good squirts of sriracha.

This is what heaven looks like.

This is what heaven looks like.

The new tastes you are introduced to when visiting a foreign land often leave a lasting impression. One your taste buds want to experience again and again. Short of immediately booking a return ticket to that locale, you can do without and dream of the day when you can drool in person once again. Or you can fly home with what you hope is a large enough stock until you have the chance to fly back and get more.

Every trip I make to Bali I load up an empty suitcase with Bali coffee; there is no other way to get that inch thick layer of mud at the bottom of your coffee cup than going to the source. On my first visit to Cambodia I fell in love with amok – tried to convinced myself I shouldn’t eat the exact same thing every day for both lunch and dinner and then negated that concern when I found out you can have the dish made with fish, pork, chicken, or beef – and stocked up on small pre-mixed spice packs to create the same taste sensation back home. Trying to smuggle in a few cases of Thai chili sauce isn’t quite as easy. If the Customs agent is a fellow sriracha addict, it may be confiscated.

Fortunately a quick visit to the Asian food aisle at my local supermarket took care of my Thai chili sauce withdrawal problem. They did not stock any orange squeeze bottles of the stuff, but one glance at the clear glass bottle sporting a feisty rooster as its logo was all it took. The name sounded Thai, the indecipherable calligraphy on the bottle suggested a SE Asian origin, and the angry, liquidy red-orange paste looked just like what had become my favorite topping for any dish. As soon as I hit home I dug out a spoon and mainlined a healthy dose of the stuff. It tasted like world peace.

Huy Fong’s Sriracha Hot Chilli Sauce is available at your closest Asian grocery store. And Walmart.

Huy Fong’s Sriracha Hot Chilli Sauce is available at your closest Asian grocery store. And Walmart.

Huy Fong Foods’ tangy Sriracha Hot Chilli Sauce is not the exact same thing you get in Thailand. A bit spicier, with more garlic and a little sugar, it is a close second. And despite what many assume, it is not a product of Thailand either. It’s made in California from pureed and aged ripe jalapenos, salt, vinegar, garlic powder, and sugar. The now famous red rooster can be found at most supermarkets in the U.S., and is a ubiquitous condiment at every Thai and Vietnamese restaurant in the States. In 2010 it was named Ingredient of the Year by Bon Appétit magazine attesting to the country’s top chefs’ love affair with the tangy sauce. Even Lay’s Potato Chips has come out with a sriracha-flavored version of their popular snack food.

And as many have learned, sriracha is more addictive than crack.

Some fans profess the only things you shouldn’t put sriracha on are your eyeballs and genitals. True aficionados only agree on the eyeball part of that short list. Google ‘sriracha recipes’ and you are in for a gastronomical treat with thousands of concoctions your little heart could never have dreamed of. Check out this one for Sriracha ice cream sandwiches and you’d swear the merit you’ve gained from letting all this caged birds fly free in Thailand is paying off early. And if the red cock gets you really hot and bothered, you can buy Sriracha water bottles, aprons, hats, t-shirts, and even boxer shorts to add a little Thai-inspired spice to your best buddy’s best buddy.

If setting fire to your taste buds is your thing, you know hot sauces are a dime a dozen. It seems a week doesn’t pass that someone somewhere hasn’t brought a new one to market in hopes of capitalizing on America’s love affair with heat. But Huy Fong’s Sriracha is different; it’s not just a condiment that immediately reminds you of what you had to eat the night before while taking your morning constitutional. The company’s version of the chili sauce indigenous to Sri Racha – a seaside town in Chonburi Province south of Pattaya where homemade chili pastes are favored and from whence Huy Fong’s version gets its name – is not even hot when you put it in your mouth. At first it is just a complex, earthy kind of chili-pepper flavor, thick, robust and almost like tomato sauce. It’s more of a chili-relish than a traditional hot sauce.

Fiery poetry in motion @ Huy Fong Foods’ plant in Southern California. .

Fiery poetry in motion @ Huy Fong Foods’ plant in Southern California. .

But then somewhere between swallowing and digesting, it hits you. Your eyes water, your nose begins to run, and you start stealing every glass of water in sight. A few minutes later that burn starts to set in on your tongue. Permanently. A few minutes after that you begin craving another hit from that clear plastic bottle with the green cap and text in five languages surrounding the cocky rooster logo that will haunt your dreams. And David Tran, an ethnic Chinese man born in Vietnam is to blame. Well, the 1984 Olympic Summer Games held in Los Angeles is partially responsible too.

“After I came to America,” says Tran, “after I came to Los Angeles, I remember seeing Heinz 57 ketchup and thinking: ‘The 1984 Olympics are coming. How about I come up with a Tran 84, something I can sell to everyone?’” Knowing that the hordes of Vietnamese who’d settled in the area would want a hot sauce for their pho – a beef broth and noodle soup that is the de facto national dish of Vietnam – Tran wanted to cash in on that need, but also wanted a product he could sell to more than just the Vietnamese.

Back in Vietnam Tran had made his living from making sauces from peppers that he sold to small shops and restaurants around his village just north of Saigon. The most popular was an oil-based sauce he sold as a dip for the small morsels of beef found in bowls of pho; it was more popular as a sauce for roasted dog. Though he never named his spicy concoctions, he decorated each cap with a rooster, his astrological sign. Keeping his trademark fowl for his American brand of the sauce, and hoping to appeal to a wider, multicultural dining audience Tran used five languages – Vietnamese, Chinese, English, French and Spanish – on the bottles’ labels. Huy Fong’s Sriracha is not quite the version found in Thailand, nor is it a match for the spicy sauces of Tran’s home country, rather it is a conglomeration of ethnic chili purees aimed at pleasing American palets too. “I know it’s not a Thai sriracha,” says Tran. “It’s my sriracha.”

hot cock 5

Tran likes to tell people that all he did was grind peppers, add garlic, and bottle it. That’s like saying Muhammad Ali was just a good dancer in the ring. His simple and yet complex condiment is an American success story, even if it does taste like SE Asia. And fans of the Red Cock are legion; more than 10 million bottles of sriracha now roll off of Huy Fong’s production line each year. The product’s popularity has given birth to an industry of competitors, a dash of karma with a nod to Asia’s well-known affinity for producing knock-offs of any successful brand of anything. Grocery store shelves are now filled with imitators, some from Vietnam, some from China, and yes, even some from Thailand. All bearing its company’s namesake animal at the center of the bottle, some copying Huy Fong’s signature scripts, many topping off their bottles with Huy Fong’s distinctive green cap.

I fell in love with Thailand’s version of sriracha a good twenty years ago, then happily settled for – and became addicted to – Huy Fong’s Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce for use back home. And have since realized it is a gateway sauce to an even spicier jones. Today I sneer at the wimpy sriracha Huy Fong produces and head straight for the company’s Chili Garlic Sauce – a thicker, more garlicky, and twice as spicy chutney-like product that easily spoons into any dish you are making. Substituting it when mixing a Cocky Rooster – an Asian riff on the Mexican beer with hot sauce michelada – will cure whatever ails ya. It also goes great with chicken, or as I like to think of it: a little chicken added to your chili garlic sauce ain’t bad. Except when I’m in Thailand. Then, before taking a seat at a local restaurant I just make sure one of those orangey, off-colored squeeze bottles is present. Because then I know all is right with the world.

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