Tuong Ot Sriracha: It's American!

Now I KNOW you've tried Tuong Ot Sriracha with your food. You know, the Rooster Hot Sauce? In fact it does not matter whether you are a connoisseur of fine foods (Jean-Georges Vongerichten uses it) or a fan of American fast food (Applebees uses it too), you most likely have tried this sauce. I always thought it was Thai sauce.

Survey says...."Wrong!"

Started up by David Tran in Los Angeles, it has become the ubiquitious sauce for all purposes.

Here's a little write-up from the New York Times about it:

"For Mr. Tran, of Chinese heritage but born in Vietnam, neither sriracha-spiked hollandaise nor sriracha-topped tacos with kimchi translate easily.

“I made this sauce for the Asian community,” Mr. Tran said one recent afternoon, seated at headquarters, near a rooster-shaped crystal sculpture.

“I knew, after the Vietnamese resettled here, that they would want their hot sauce for their pho,” a beef broth and noodle soup that is a de facto national dish of Vietnam. “But I wanted something that I could sell to more than just the Vietnamese,” he continued.

“After I came to America, 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?’ ”
What Mr. Tran developed in Los Angeles in the early 1980s was his own take on a traditional Asian chili sauce. In Sriracha, a town in Chonburi Province, Thailand, where homemade chili pastes are favored, natives do not recognize Mr. Tran’s purée as their own.

Multicultural appeal was engineered into the product: the ingredient list on the back of the bottle is written in Vietnamese, Chinese, English, French and Spanish. And serving suggestions include pizzas, hot dogs, hamburgers and, for French speakers, pâtés.

“I know it’s not a Thai sriracha,” Mr. Tran said. “It’s my sriracha.” "

Full article