Category Archives: Food

Food, History, Security

Secrets of Sriracha

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The NYT gives an in-depth look into the Hot Stuff in a Squeeze Bottle

“I knew, after the Vietnamese resettled here, that they would want their hot sauce for their pho,” a beef broth and noodle soup that is a de facto national dish of Vietnam. “But I wanted something that I could sell to more than just the Vietnamese,” he continued.

“After I came to America, after I came to Los Angeles, I remember seeing Heinz 57 ketchup and thinking: ‘The 1984 Olympics are coming. How about I come up with a Tran 84, something I can sell to everyone?’ ”

What Mr. Tran developed in Los Angeles in the early 1980s was his own take on a traditional Asian chili sauce. In Sriracha, a town in Chonburi Province, Thailand, where homemade chili pastes are favored, natives do not recognize Mr. Tran’s purée as their own.

It’s described as a melting-pot of ingredients for America’s diverse tastes. One thing is for certain, Americans love sauce. The most interesting part of the story is how the family migrated from Vietnam.

To limit potential losses, Mr. Tran split the family into four groups: One group went to Indonesia, another to Hong Kong. A third went to Malaysia, and a fourth to the Philippines.

David Tran traveled on a freighter, the Huy Fong. Everyone ended up in United Nations refugee camps, before the family finally began to regroup.

“I was in Boston,” Mr. Tran recalled. “My brother-in-law was in Los Angeles. When we talked on the phone, I asked him, ‘Do they have red peppers in Los Angeles?’ He said yes. And we left.”

That was the start to a US operation that now generates 10 million bottles a year (2 million go into the non-Asian market) and is found across the country in chain restaurants. The plan today to limit potential losses is a completely different story.

Energy, Food, Security

Degrading Plastic

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A story from last year’s TheRecord.com explains that plastic can now be degraded by natural microbes at an impressive rate. The solution? A high school student figured out he should isolate the most productive strains by testing them on plastic bags.

He knew plastic does eventually degrade, and figured microorganisms must be behind it. His goal was to isolate the microorganisms that can break down plastic — not an easy task because they don’t exist in high numbers in nature.

First, he ground plastic bags into a powder. Next, he used ordinary household chemicals, yeast and tap water to create a solution that would encourage microbe growth. To that, he added the plastic powder and dirt. Then the solution sat in a shaker at 30 degrees.

After three months of upping the concentration of plastic-eating microbes, Burd filtered out the remaining plastic powder and put his bacterial culture into three flasks with strips of plastic cut from grocery bags. As a control, he also added plastic to flasks containing boiled and therefore dead bacterial culture.

Six weeks later, he weighed the strips of plastic. The control strips were the same. But the ones that had been in the live bacterial culture weighed an average of 17 per cent less.

That wasn’t good enough for Burd. To identify the bacteria in his culture, he let them grow on agar plates and found he had four types of microbes. He tested those on more plastic strips and found only the second was capable of significant plastic degradation.

Next, Burd tried mixing his most effective strain with the others. He found strains one and two together produced a 32 per cent weight loss in his plastic strips. His theory is strain one helps strain two reproduce.

The risk of plastic now has to be recalculated.

Food, Security

KFC violates FCC Act

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Here’s a funny news nugget from The Onion: KFC No Longer Permitted To Use Word ‘Eat’ In Advertisements

“KFC’s claim that its fried offerings have ‘that taste you’ll just love to eat’ is in direct violation of federal regulations,” acting FCC chairman Michael Copps said. “The word ‘eat’ is legally permissible only in reference to substances appropriate for human consumption. Any implication that a consumer could or should ‘enjoy’ a KFC Crispy Strip fails to meet these standards, and presents an unlawful deception to consumers.”

[…]

KFC advertisers are reportedly still in negotiations with authorities over whether the word “consumables”—a term that can encompass any product that must be replaced periodically, such as brake pads or swimming pool chlorine—is an allowable substitution for “food.”

Is it consumable time?

Food, History, Security

Cristal Champagne Row in Moscow

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The company Soyuzplodoimport seems to have won the argument against Louis Roederer’s champagne. An article in Moscow News explains the trademark dispute between Kristal Vodka and the Cristal Champagne, but it gives an interesting security story as well.

Legend has it that Tsar Alexander II, fearing traditional green champagne bottles could be used to hide an assassin’s bomb, commissioned a brand in a crystal-clear carafe.

Thus Cristal Champagne, with its distinctive flat-bottomed design, was born – though it failed to save the monarch from an explosive end. He survived four assassination attempts but was killed when his carriage was attacked on the streets of St. Petersburg in 1881.

Another fascinating tidbit in the article is that the top rated champagne in a blind taste test by Knights of the Vine was a Novy Svet 2002 Pinot Noir Rose. It costs just $16, whereas Cristal is around $600.