In Home Of Original Sriracha Sauce, Thai Say Rooster Fire is nothing to crow about: Salted: NPR
Sriraja Panich is the name of one of two Sriracha sauces created by the Saowanit Trikityanukul family. The family sold the Thaitheparos, Thailand's leading sauce company brand in the 1[ads1]980s. The brand has struggled to gain a foothold in the United States, where the Huy Fong Rooster brand of Sriracha, created by Vietnamese-American David Tran, ranks supreme.
Michael Sullivan / for NPR
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Michael Sullivan / for NPR
Sriraja Panich is the name of one of two Sriracha sauces created by the Saowanit Trikityanukul family. The family sold the Thaitheparos, Thailand's leading sauce company brand in the 1980s. The brand has struggled to gain a foothold in the United States, where the Huy Fong Rooster brand of Sriracha, created by Vietnamese-American David Tran, ranks top.
Michael Sullivan / for NPR
Sriracha sauce. It's everywhere. Even beer and donuts. The burning chili paste, which was devoted to Vietnamese-American immigrant David Tran, has captured the US market and imagination in the last decade.
But the original Sriracha is actually Thai – and comes from the seaside town of Si Racha, where most residents have & # 39; I even heard about the American brand, which is now being exported to Thailand.
I decided to go to the source to get dirt on the sauce, and sat down with 71-year-old Saowanit Trikityanukul. Her grandmother made Sriracha sauce when David Tran was still a baby, in what was then South Vietnam.
"If the grandmother lived today, she would be 127 years old, says Saowanit, sitting in her garden in Si Racha, (the preferred spelling of the city's name) overlooking Thailand's bay. She remembers helping her grandmother The kitchen as an impatient 9-year-old.
"My job was to mix all the ingredients together. But I wasn't so happy to do that, and I wasn't very attentive. regret it now, she says. "Because I could have learned a lot."
Saowanit Trikityanukul, 71, remembers helping her grandmother make Sriracha sauce when she was a child.
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Saowanit Trikityanukul, 71, remembers helping her grandmother make Sriracha sauce when she was a child.
Michael Sullivan / for NPR
Her grandmother is widely credited for being the first to make and sell the sauce. But Saowanit says it was her great – grandfather, Gimsua Timkrajang, who did it first. Family lore says he traveled extensively on business trips to nearby Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, and noticed that they all had different sauces – sweet, salty, sour – but nothing that combined all three.
"So, my grandfather got an idea that he wanted to make a sauce that went with all Thai foods," she says, "very creamy and different from other sauces."
And he got it. was easy to make it. Saowanit remembers a batch that took weeks, even months, to prepare.
"We had to prepare the ingredients as pickled garlic, so we had to peel garlic to make sure it was well, "she says." And the chilies had to be completely red. And then the salt – my grandmother just wanted to pick the big pieces and cook it, then filter and spin it … and leave it in the sun until it dried. "
The family originally made the sauce just for themselves and their friends. Then Grandma's sister and brother started selling their own versions in Si Racha, where there is harmonious blend of chili, garlic, salt and vinegar appealing to both locals and tourists from nearby Bangkok, but the family never patented the name.
Don't keep it to ourselves, "she says, adding that there wasn't much secret at least – the ingredients were on the side of the bottles for everyone to see. Soon there were dozens of imitators in Si Racha and beyond. Finally, Terminator for Srirachas, David Trans's famous Rooster mark.
"He saw an opportunity and acquired his own business," she says. She does not bury his success, but "why must they use our name?" Champagne is a kind of drink, Sriracha is e n kind of sauce. "
And the American version is very different from what is made here," she says. I have taken half a dozen local favorites for her to try, blindfolded, along with a bottle of American interruptor. She works through the Thai versions. Surprise! The two favorites are those originally made by the grandmother's siblings.
Gimsua Timkrajang, who was sitting in this utate picture, was the first to make Sriracha sauce, according to his grandson. The sauce gets its name from Si Racha, the family beach town in Thailand.
Michael Sullivan / for NPR
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Gimsua Timkrajang, who was seated in this undated image, was the first to make Sriracha sauce, according to his grandchild. The sauce gets its name from Si Racha, the family's seaside town in Thailand.
Michael Sullivan / for NPR
I am still impressed that she can tell them blindfolded. They taste just the same for me. When it comes to the Rooster brand? After a little leaning, she draws a sharp breath.
"It's not tasty," she says, taking a sip of water. "It's not mixed right together. It's just a taste." Saowanit says that a proper Sriracha sauce must be what Thai calls klom klom – the hotness, the sour, the sweet and the garlic mixes seamlessly, no one overwhelming the other. The American version, she says, brings only warmth.
I test her theory at a nearby restaurant where lunchtime crowd pigs into food. They seem surprised to learn that it is an American Sriracha. Tanpatha Punsawat is first on the spoon. "It's hot," she says carefully. "Very hot."
But is it good, I ask?
"That's okay," she says politely. (Resolved translated, her facial expression was "ugh.") Her dining companion, Chuwet Kanja, next tries, rolls the cock around in her mouth. "Not good," he says, making a face. "When I first tasted it, I would gag. For bitter. It's not klom klom ." I give him a spoon of the leading Thai brand. He smiles and gives it a thumbs up. Order restored.
Reactions like these have not stopped the importer Super Ting Tong from bringing Rooster Brand to Thailand. And it appears on more and more tables at exclusive eateries and at supermarket shelves in the capital, Bangkok.
"You know, it's not a success overnight, but it's OK, we're working more with the slow and smooth progress," said Robert Booth, one of the founders of Super Ting Tong, who says the company has imported two container loads. of the Rooster brand to Thailand in the past year and changed .There are about 60,000 bottles – enough to convince the company to order more. Super Ting Tong is a heavy-in-cheek name that roughly translates as "Super crazy" in Thai. And Booth admits the idea of importing Sriracha to Thailand, has been faced with some resistance.
"Sometimes you go into some people who have very strong views on the Rooster brand, not being the original Thai Sriracha , mostly the kind of angry Facebook troll you would expect, Booth says. "But, given the love of spicy sauces and spicy foods in Thailand, I think there's more than enough room to incorporate a new entrant into the market."
Leading Thai producer Thaitheparos, who bought the brand Sriraja Panich from Saowanit Trikityanukul's family over 40 years ago, knows about slow start. It has exported its Sriracha to the United States for more than a decade. It's not been nice.
"We are trying to tell people that we are the original Sriracha from Thailand," says Varanya Winyarat, deputy head of Thaitheparos. "But when the Americans try the Sriracha sauce, they try the Vietnamese-American one first, so they think the taste should be like that."
She is frustrated and may think that her father, who runs the company, will be spending more money on advertising and a new distributor. "We only sell in Asian supermarkets. We have to go ordinary," she says.
"I think I must educate them first what the sauce should taste," she says and adds, "You must educate them about the basics of flavor first. Then I think they would understand."
She's not worried for the American Sriracha to eat in market share here – "Thai people understand the real taste," she almost dismissed.
But she admits that David Trans Rooster's brand has already shattered her hopes of conquering the American market. But Varanya and export leader Paweena Kingpad say the world Sriracha dominance can still be in sight due to strong sales in another global Sriracha superpower: China.
"China is a big market for us – the biggest market, 100,000 bottles a month" Paweena says.
When asked why their brand is doing so well in China, the two women look at each other and smile. "Because Asian people know how to eat," says Varanya, giggling.
Game on, Rooster.
