Finally! After weeks and weeks of bad weather, the sun is out again. Whether I was working at my new job or enjoying the sun myself, the past few days have mostly been spent on the terrace with some unbelievable great wines. I can hardly explain how much I have missed the rosy feeling you get after a day on the terrace. But, on the other hand, my guess is you all have missed that feeling so an explanation isn’t needed.
And believe it or not, I’ve already had my first splash of 2021 in the still very cold waters of Overschie. Last Monday I had an amazing natural wine tasting which was organized by Marcel de Cocq. Marcel, thanks again for broadening my wine pallet and the many helpful tips you have provided. See you soon in Utrecht!
During one of the last sunny days, I arranged a meeting with my older sister, who told me quite a remarkable story about a certain food. A thought that often comes up when talking about food was: ‘This sounds like a Foodistory Edit!’ And well, after hearing the story I was convinced it would cover this week’s Edit. The story is quite special and attracted me from my cooking side as well as my marketer side. You will shortly know why. So, let’s dive into it!
A Short Time Ago…
It all began in the year 1945 in a place called Sóc Träng in Vietnam where a boy was born that carried the name of David Tran. His parents both came of Teochew descent which is a Chinese people native to the historical Chaozhou prefecture. Despite his roots, he grew up in the same city he was born in. Which consisted of approximately 140.000 inhabitants. David was born in a middle-class family where he received much love from and didn’t have to worry about money or other adult problems.
A dream was born
There is very little known about the childhood of David Tran except that a dream was born just before he joined the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam where he became a Major. The dream was born when he tasted Heinz ketchup for the first time. David found it too sweet and couldn’t understand the popularity of this weird non-tomato-tasting sauce. Yet, he was amazed by the size of the brand. His dream became to make his own sauce but with another taste, a taste he liked, and then build it as big as Heinz.
When he told his parents about his saucy ambition, well, you can imagine they didn’t react that supportive. “Become a man by joining the army”, his father said, “and your career will start from there.” Right he was, his father…
Start of the dream
Once joined the army he didn’t like the sauce he and his companions got served. The dream of making his own sauce now became reality. For 4 years, he served the South Vietnamese army where he made his own spicy sauce on a very small scale. After his service, he decided to push his dream through and began making his own spicy sauce in collaboration with his brother. His brother owned a farm that grew red peppers, David would ground the peppers and experiment with different sorts of ingredients. This resulted in the first company David Tran owned, called Huy Fong Foods.
Around 1975 Vietnam was under the control of a Communist government. The communists put a lot of pressure on Chinese citizens in Vietnam and if you remember well, David had strong Chinese roots because of his parents. The pressure became David too big and even though he was living his dream he had to leave his country.
To America!
In 1979 he made way to Hong Kong and boarded a big containership with 3,317 other fugitives and made way to the United States. The boat was called Huey Fong, meaning Gathering Prosperity.
David settled in the City of Angels around 1980. Once settled the exact same irritation he had when he joined the army came above, there was no sauce of his liking. And so David again began with making his own sauce and selling it. He used the exact same ingredients as he did in Vietnam but under a new name, Pepper Sa-te. He started selling the bottles from his bike and eventually upgraded to a blue Chevy van. David operated under the same name he used in Vietnam, Huy Fong Foods.
A new sauce was born
But the sales didn’t really grow and so he began experimenting again. This time producing a more soft peppery sauce that embraced the tasting pallets of the Americans. With hybrid jalapeño peppers, vinegar, sugar, salt, and garlic a new sauce was created. This is the sauce that conquered the whole world, Sriracha Sauce.
He named his version of this sauce “Sriracha”, after the coastal town, Si Racha, in Thailand where the base recipe he tweaked originated. With a now perfected recipe, he began selling the Sriracha alongside his Pepper Sa-te.
David also created a new bottle with new looks for this new variation. He attached the label with a rooster on every bottle of sauce he sold. A rooster because he was born in the year of the rooster according to the Vietnamese zodiac. This rooster can now still be found on every bottle of Sriracha.
Realisation of the dream
From this point on the business of David Tran began growing incredibly rapidly. For the first weeks, he mainly sold the Sriracha sauce to Chinese restaurants and families located in Chinatown. Visitors would ask what amazing sauce it was and the chefs would send the visitors through to the Blue Chevy of David.
Around 1982 David purchased a 460 square meter warehouse in LA’s Chinatown. Around this time he also began selling other sauces next to the Sriracha and Pepper Sa-te like Chili Garlic, Sambal Badjak, and Sambal Oulek. But none quite hit the Sriracha level.
Dream fulfilled
The business kept on growing and growing and a few decades later David expanded his business to a production factory of almost 60,000 square meters located in Irwindale. Why Irwindale you may ask? Irwindale is one hour away from the pepper fields. This was of high importance for David because the peppers are processed within a day after being picked and still are.
Now, the people of Irwindale weren’t very happy about David Tran coming to the peaceful place. Since the opening of the large factory, the people of Irwindale had more frequent headaches and watery eyes. In 2013 the City of Irwindale filed a lawsuit against Huy Fong Foods claiming that the odor was a public nuisance. Irwindale dropped the lawsuit in 2014 after an intervention done by Governor Jerry Brown.
Sriracha sauce is nowadays known over the whole of the world. Huy Fong Foods exports millions of liters of Sriracha to almost every country in the world. And the funny thing is, David has never done a campaign or made advertisements about the sauce or his company. David also never owned the patents of the invention over the Sriracha sauce, which means every company is allowed to imitate the sauce and call it Sriracha sauce. Companies like Pizza Hut, Go-Tang, and Tabasco all made their own versions of Siracha sauce and David didn’t mind at all.
Tran states, “We have lawyers come and say ‘I can represent you and sue the companies who imitate it’ and I say ‘No. Let them do it. A bottle of Sriracha in everyone’s hands is my only goal.’