By L.V. Anderson, Slate
David Tran. Image from movie trailer.
Huy Fong Foods has never advertised its best-selling product, the jalapeño-garlic-sugar purée called sriracha. Documentary filmmaker Griffin Hammond has filled that void with his new 33-minute, Kickstarter-funded paean to the condiment, Sriracha , which is streaming now for $5 on Vimeo.
Hammond’s primary purpose is to profile the founder of Huy Fong Foods, David Tran, a Vietnamese refugee of Chinese descent whose California-made version of the Thai sauce has captured hearts nationwide. He also briefly explores the origins of sriracha and interviews lots of Americans who love sriracha. This might make for a fascinating case study of how cult followings turn into mainstream crazes—if Hammond had enough critical distance from his subject matter to analyze it.
Don’t get me wrong; I like sriracha, and I learned a lot from watching Sriracha. I didn’t know, for instance, that Huy Fong Foods is named after the ship that Tran boarded as a refugee after the fall of Saigon, or that Tran uses a rooster in the company logo because he was born in the year of the rooster. I didn’t know that the sauce originated in a small coastal town southeast of Bangkok called Si Racha, where the condiment is served with omelets and local seafood. I didn’t know that chugging sriracha is a popular pastime among bros with YouTube accounts, although it shouldn’t have surprised me. Hammond does a great job of explaining the differences among Huy Fong’s basic sambal oelek (which contains red jalapeños, vinegar, and salt), their chile-garlic sauce (which has added garlic), and their sriracha (which has added garlic and sugar and is puréed). As an educational endeavor, Sriracha is totally worthwhile.
But it would be more worthwhile if it weren’t constantly trying to convince the viewer of how awesome sriracha is. The film opens with a slow, stately piano and strings composition—reminiscent of the score of an Oscar-bait-type historical drama—playing over footage of sriracha being manufactured.
Read the full article by L.V. Anderson from Slate.
