More about Sriracha!

(photo by Robert Yager, New York Times, 2009)

I had an orientation at a new job this weekend, teaching math at an art school. Two other folks at the orientation will be teaching in the culinary department. I brought up Sriracha and both of them nodded their approval. "Do you use it on everything?" I was asked.

I admitted I hadn't tried it on raisin bran yet.

Searching online, the New York Times did a 2009 story about my favorite brand, manufactured by Huy Fong foods in Rosemead. Here are some fun facts from the story

• The name Sriracha is a town in Thailand.
  
• The folks at Huy Fong foods are ethnic Chinese Vietnamese immigrants, and they readily admit Thais might not even recognize the stuff.
  
• They are currently selling 10 million bottles a year of the stuff, mostly to the Asian American market, but that is changing.
  
• Wal-Mart carries it, so it is all over the place.
  
• The rooster is on the bottle because the originator of the sauce was born in the Year of the Rooster.
• Several chefs in fancy restaurants around the country use it in recipes. My favorite quote from a chef recognizes that it is not a particularly spicy hot sauce. "It burns your body, not your tongue." says chef Bryan Caswell.
  
• It is also being used at chains like P.F. Chang's and Applebee's.
  
• The Tran family is both pleased and amazed at the loyalty of the fans of their most popular product. The story documents two Facebook pages devoted to Rooster Sauce (known on this blog as "prison sauce", thank you very much), a guy who had a picture of the bottle tattooed on his leg, and some girls who went to a Halloween party dressed as bottles.

And I close this brief listicle of facts with the aphorism I first heard from my father:

You learn something new every day, if you are not careful.