What’s In a Name?

Andy is focused on The Baton Rouge Sparklers girls’ soccer team today. Was their “frilly” name part of the reason they never became a powerhouse? Sort of like the University of California Santa Cruz Banana Slugs aren’t known for the rough and tumble sports teams? While Andy is talking sports names, I’d like to talk about a name as it relates to a favorite sauce, keeping AnnD’s Corner focus on food.

What is that favorite sauce? SRIRACHA!

While friends and family have been traveling to Sweden and Mexico and Thailand and England and…and…and….we have been spending our splurge money on SRIRACHA sauce! Maybe you haven’t heard or read about the big drama surrounding the absence of sriracha from your store’s shelves. But mind you – it isn’t sriracha that’s missing. You can find all kinds of brands to buy. It’s Huy Fong Sriracha that’s missing on your grocer’s shelves.

When we first noticed the issue, we didn’t panic. After all, we had about a 6 oz remaining in the 17 oz bottle in our fridge. And when that was gone surely we could find a similar taste in another brand. It turns out the answer is a resounding “no!” Most are way too vinegary or hot or simply don’t taste anywhere near the same. Even the “Underwood Ranches New Limited Dragon Sriracha made from the Red Jalapeno Peppers that started the Sriracha Movement!” is a disappointment.

The history of Huy Fong Sriracha is interesting and maybe explains what’s happening.

But first, a little about the name! Sri Racha (or Si Racha) is a town on the east coast of the Gulf of Thailand, about 75 miles from Bangkok. In the 1930’s a woman from that town developed a hot sauce, which she named after her home town. That sauce eventually became Thailand’s best-selling chili sauce; flavor-wise it was somewhat similar to Tabasco – thin and vinegary.

The sriracha that we know and love was developed by David Tran. Tran arrived in L.A. from Vietnam in the 1970’s and began making a sauce, a riff on that Thai sriracha. The familiar rooster on the label was chosen because Tran was born in 1945, the Year of the Rooster.

In 1988 Tran joined up with Underwood Ranches and began marketing the product. Underwood, also based in SoCal, grew the jalapeno peppers for Huy Fong. At one point Underwood was growing 100 million pounds of peppers a year for them – all in Southern California.

But things fell apart in 2016 when first Huy Fong brought a suit against Underwood over payment issues and then Underwood countersued and won. Huy Fong was ordered to pay Underwood $23 million.

Huy Fong then started contracting with Mexican growers for their jalapenos – and therein (apparently) lies the shortage problem. Mexico, as with the rest of the world, is being impacted by climate change and the jalapeno crop, according to Huy Fong, has not been good this year or last. There may be some debate about that, since some hot sauce producers indicate there is no jalapeno shortage.

According to a New Mexico scientist quoted in The Guardian (yes, even England is noting this shortage), Jalapeños are “a challenging crop to grow. Jalapeños are really labor intensive, requiring people to de-stem them by hand before they go for processing.” That same article states that the water shortage in the Colorado River is fueling the problem, since these peppers are an irrigated crop.

Huy Fong says they can’t tell when production will return to normal. That’s why we took out some of our life’s savings and bought 2 big bottles – whose authenticity may be questioned – from the You-Know-Who company. But if you’d rather travel, go ahead and invest your money in that – and then try making your own sriracha sauce and/or using some of the other varieties available. lmk what you think. And if you’re wondering how to use your sauce, Bon Appetit published a list of their 31 Best Sriracha Recipes. We tried their very basic Sriracha Chicken Salad and enjoyed it:

Mix equal amounts plain Greek yogurt and mayo; add Sriracha and rice vinegar to taste. Toss with shredded chicken, carrots, scallions, and peanuts. (note: for 1/4 c yogurt and 1/4 c mayo, I added 1/2 tsp Sriracha and 2 tsp rice vinegar, 1 T lime juice – and 1/2 tsp salt.)

If you’re wondering about our addiction to sriracha, we add it to omelets, quesadillas, burritos, noodle salads, pho, okonamiyaki, tuna salad, shakshuka, baked beans…you name it. Anything that needs hot sauce will be enhanced with sriracha. But only Huy Fong Sriracha, IMHO. Here’s hoping our $$$-64 ounces worth are the real thing.