This is a fascinating article about the history of sriracha sauce in the United States. I had always assumed it was some traditional Vietnamese sauce and only recently available in the United States. But according to this, it's a Thai sauce, produced in the United States by an ethnic Chinese man, who immigrated here from Vietnam in the 80's.
I first encountered it abour eight or nine years ago, when I was first dating my husband and he was living in Chamblee. I'd go visit him and we'd go to the Ranch 99 Market on Buford HWY and I'd gawk at all the crazy Asian stuff and he'd mutter under his breath at the other chinese and pretend he didn't speak Mandarin. The Ranch 99 Market is a crazy place, yo. We'd pick up frozen dumplings, various sauces and serious curry powder there.
Sriracha is the only hot sauce I use at home, other than the odd jar of harissa purchased at a Persian market. I don't say this because I am some kind of hot sauce conniseur, turning up my nose at inferior bottles of fire. I'm not a huge fan of spicy food. I like to taste my meals, not sweat them out. I like sriracha because it has a tolerable level of heat and a well developed flavor of its own. I like to add a little squirt to stir fries or marinades, or fried rice when I cook at home. I'm not terribly creative with it. Apparently there are tons of recipes using sriracha that I never knew about. I'm fine with that. Like I said, not really a hot sauce person. These garlic hot wings sound pretty awesome though.
I do find it very interesting that it's become so wide spread, from something I had to make a special trip for, to something I can grab at the local Publix. That's pretty cool.
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