April 27, 2018 • 31 mins
This Thai-style condiment, popularized in the U.S. by a Vietnamese immigrant, inspires fan loyalty and frustrations alike. Anney and Lauren explore where sriracha comes from, its meteoric pop-culture rise, and the science of why hot sauce burns so good.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Any and I'm
Lauren Vogelbaum. And all of your intro lines are so good,
and then I always wind up being the one who's
who's tasked with delivering them. Yeah, because you're so good
at delivering intro line. Oh well, thank you. This is
food Stuff's hottest episode to date. Yeah, is because we're
(00:33):
talking about saracha saracha. Can you remember the first time
you had saracha? Oh? Oh goodness? Can I know? I cannot.
I think the first time that I realized that it
was becoming very common was maybe about oh, I want
to say six years ago, right around then. Yeah. Maybe wait,
(00:54):
maybe it's been a while a while, maybe it was
more like ten. Maybe I have no idea, you have
no clue what dates are made of eat. Yeah. But
but when I started seeing it in like in like pubs,
oh yeah, like otherwise American or English style pubs, I
was just like, oh, this is this is here now? Yeah,
big time? How about you. I think I tried it.
(01:17):
I tried it pretty recently. Um, and I remember I
think it was our very own Tracy V. Wilson, who
she was talking about how most of her food she
saw as like a conveyance to get sarasha to her
mouth or something, and I was like, well, I gotta
try this, and I very overly, ambitiously. Um, I just
(01:40):
put way too much. It was good, but it's it's
spicy not spicy. Yeah, yeah, and I like tears were
coming out, knows was running, and I remember being sad
this was my first experience, but knowing it was good
and I should return right again. It was my first
(02:00):
sushi with Saby experience. Oh yeah, but not another story,
another episode, yes, say episode. Yeah, so saracha, what is
it for me? Always spicier than I think every single time,
but I do. Yeah, I love this stuff. It's called
rooster sauce pretty commonly because of the rooster logo based
(02:24):
on Hoifang's brand Saracha based on inventors, the inventors zodiac sign. Yeah,
I thought it was an interesting fact um or. It's
also sometimes called hipster catchup. Yeah. It's a condiment or
a sauce made up of red pepper, vinegar, garlic, sugar,
and salts plus maybe a couple of extra preservatives to
(02:46):
prevent microbial growth and to keep it bright red. Right,
And it is spicy about one thousand to two units
on the Scoville scale, tangy a little sweet. The Scoville
scale if you haven't heard of it or if you
are not sure how it works. Ranks, how like spicy
hot things are based on the sensitivity of human taste buds.
(03:08):
If you take a spicy thing and dilute it with water,
eventually you will get to the point where the human
tongue cannot detect the heat anymore. UH. Sparratch's ranking of
one thousand to two five hundreds Goville heat units means
that you would have to dilute it by that many
times in order to make the heat undetectable. So like,
if you have an ounce of saracha, you'd have to
(03:29):
add anywhere from one thousand to two ounces of water
before you wouldn't be able to feel the heat at
all anymore. That's quite a lot of water. I know.
Also fun facts about the Scoville scale. UH. This is
determined these days through much more precise, high performance liquid
chromatography instead of like physical taste testers as it was
back in the nineteen teens when it was invented. I
(03:51):
do not envy those people. I like spice a lot,
but hoof. Yeah. Also the scale does have a bottom.
I think think of something like Bell Peppers pimento perhaps,
but it does not have a top. Carolina Reapers are
among the world's hottest known peppers and have been ranked
it over two million s h U s oh Man.
(04:13):
I think there's a video of Joe McCormick, one of
our coworkers, trying at Carolina Reapers, straight up eating it
and it kind of went all wrong and you feel
bad for him, but it's also funny. Well, it went
wrong in the sense that it's incredibly spicy. You can
tell just by watching said it felt like I think
getting stung by thousands of bees. Oh yeah, oh now
(04:36):
I remember that video. Yeah, but it is um mother
in law was trying to be helpful and it was like,
I'll get you some milk, and she gave him some
milk and he took a sip and it was expired,
like really expired, really bad expired. And then we tried
that ship. Yeah over on the Facebook live show Snack
(04:56):
Stuff that Ben Ball and I and I do, our
producer Ramsey had gotten as one of these Grim Reaper
uh Carolina it's a single chip. It comes at a
single uh package and we had we shared like a
fraction of it, and then after the show was over,
any eight a fraction of it too, And I responded
much more strongly than she did. It was quite spicy.
(05:19):
It was quite spicy. I don't know, you're you're very
Your poker face is great, I learned from Lady Gaga.
The biggest brand of Sarata sauce is the aforementioned Hoifunk
Foods in the United States, and that's the classic bottle
you see with the green with the green cap and
the green rooster logo. Yes. Yeah, it's owned by David
Tran of Vietnamese immigrant The name Sarata itself comes from
(05:41):
hot sauces from sirasha A town and Thailand, and those
chilies are key um, not just for obvious reasons, but
also because they are made. Sarata is made with fresh chilies,
not dry chilies um. And this has presented some obstacles.
According to Tran quote, we can only oh, it's quickly
as our our ability to harvest chilies grows. In sixteen
(06:05):
that came out to onion pounds around forty five million
kilos of fresh chilies. That has to last an entire year,
which well, due to our love of this stuff is
not necessarily a given. And I will touch on this later,
but that's one of the reasons why, Um, you don't
see ads for saracha. They're like, well, we we basically
(06:29):
sell everything that we make already, so yeah, we're doing
what we can. Um, let's look at some numbers. If
we take hot sauce as a whole, the industry is
in the top ten of America's fastest growing and globally,
sales exceed one billion dollars. What yeah Haifunk Foodsota sold
(06:53):
twenty million bottles in sixteen, coming out to around sixty
million dollars. In Los Angeles hosted the first La Saracha Festival.
I hear tell there's a whole saracha menu at Taco
bell Um, but it is or was, I'm not sure
if it's still around, made in house, not the White
Funk brand. If any of you listeners know about that
(07:16):
right there and let us know. Um. One of the
reasons it's so popular is because it is so versatile.
It's good straight but also good for mixing with other
sauces or condiments like mayo. You can add it to
soups like fun use it as a marinade in cocktails.
It was bona Patites ingredient of the year in I
had a Satcha milkshake one time. Yeah, I can't say
(07:39):
that I enjoyed the experience of it. Was it with
like ice cream? Yeah? Like peanuts, like peanut sauce. This
is blowing my mind. Yeah, is this local, local place? Yeah?
It was at Pelucaville. Oh, yes, they have many an
interesting milkshake over there. Yeah, this one might have been
too interesting, too too much for howe Root shows that
(08:02):
Saracha can be used in many, many ways and it
has been absolutely Yes. A lot of copycats are trying
to get in on this game, and the lawyer behind
Saracha's creator reports this means an annual four to five
infringement complaints. Like people, I've seen pictures. The bottle is
very similar designed right, because they they don't actually have
(08:23):
it copyrighted that anyone can make a sauce call it Saracha. Sure,
but you the logo look precisely is what is getting
these copycats in trouble and Tran. The guy behind Saracha
is a very interesting fellow despite being at the helm
of an extremely lucrative brand, the success of which has
(08:44):
led to a cult like following merchandise and a documentary.
He isn't interested in being filthy rich, or that's not
his main goal anyway. He claims to never have raised
throughout his wholesale price, never mind inflation. He says he's
not entirely sure who the distributors are, just that he
has been using the same ten for over ten years,
(09:07):
and that he's only certain that it's sold in the
U S, Canada, and Europe, but he speculates it's sold
in other places. He doesn't know for sure. Um I
would speculate that too, though, I think that's probably a
very good guess. Yes, Sir Racha has never been officially advertised.
Like I mentioned, he's refuted several offers to buy the
company and intends to keep it in the family. His
(09:29):
son and daughter are the president and vice president, respectively,
and he once said, rather than being a billionaire, he
simply wanted to make enough fresh chili sauce so that
everyone who wants Hoifunk can have it. Nothing more. Yeah,
that is not your typical CEO. I think. He also
said he's going to keep making it until no one
(09:51):
wants it anymore, and then they'll stop. I think that's
a long way off based on some of yeah, the
coming details. Yes, I would say probably gonna be making
it for a lot longer. So let's let's look at
some of those details that led to saracha becoming this
huge behemoth of a condiment. Right, but first let's take
(10:14):
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. The history
of saracha goes all the way back to nine thousand BC,
(10:34):
when someone was looking to add a kick to their omelet.
No just kidding. It actually all started with Thomas Jefferson
in France what faku um. The consensus is that the
first person to make saracho was a Thai woman named
Tanam chucka puck over eighty years previous. At first, she
(10:58):
made the stuff mostly for her friends and family, but
eventually she made it available for purchase under the name Siraja.
This version is a bit thinner and tanger than what
most of us are probably used to. You can still
find it in some specialty stores and I believe on
Amazon Prime if you are interested. If we look at
(11:18):
David Tran and Hoifang Foods throughout just specifically. Tran had
been working with chili in Vietnam since nineteen seventy five.
His first hot sauce, pepper sat became came in baby
food jars and he mostly reserved them also for his
family members, and I think he'd like hand delivered them
on a bike. Um Yeah. In nineteen seventy nine, escaping
(11:41):
from increasing persecution of Chinese people by the new Communist
government in Vietnam, he took a freighter by the name
of Haifang to the United States, and later the name
of the freighter would be the inspiration for the name
of his company, H Yeah. Ran arrived to the US
as a refuge. He found the American hot saucing lacking,
(12:04):
so he set out to come up with his own recipe.
He set up shop in Chinatown at near A, Los
Angeles in a five thousand square foot building. In along
with this pepper sautet sauce, he started selling a chili
garlic sauce, some bolo leak, and of course sacha. Various
kinds assemble are my other favorite thing on the planet.
(12:26):
I add them to all the stuff I'm not entirely
sure what those are. To be honest, I saw him
on the website and I'm very interested to try them.
I've got like three different kinds in my house right now.
I'll okay, we'll work this out. Yes, awesome. It's like
a thicker, chunky or kind of chili sauce, kind of
like maybe sausa meats chili sauce, like salsa meets sacha. Yeah, yep,
(12:49):
I'm on board. At first, transceled his creations out of
the back of a van, a blue Chevy van, according
to the hard Phone website, yep, he delivered directly to
Asian restaurants. As sales and profits increased at an unforeseen rate.
(13:09):
Over seven years, Chand moved to a much larger sixty
eight thousand square foot facility and Rosemead, California started developing
his own custom equipment and the company was born. Yes,
by sixty square feet was not enough to satisfy Sarata demand,
(13:29):
and Hoifang moved two doors down to the old Wammo building,
upgrading to seventy thousand square feet. If you don't know
what Wammo was, it was a place that sold Frisbee
slipping sides hula hoops from what is it from Wammo?
I don't know. There was this like parky lady voice
or child voice that was always at the end of
the commercials man, I was so good at hula hooping
(13:54):
and this. I had forgotten about slipping sides until we
did this, And now I'm like nostal check for that side.
Time of my life, I always injured myself. I don't know.
They weren't painful, like there's no cushioning, right, you launch
yourself and you're just pretty much bailly flopping onto hard soil.
(14:16):
But still I missed them. Nonetheless, Nostalgi is funny that way.
Um Trans said of this and the in the documentary
about Saracha. Before that building was filled full with hula hoops,
now filled with chili I love. But even that wasn't enough.
Trans relocated operations to a six fifty thousand square foot
(14:36):
facility in Irwin Dale, California, in two thousand ten, so
it wasn't up and running until a few years later.
The facility could produce three thousand bottles of saracha per hour. Yeah,
and this brings up the Great Saracha Panic of twent thirteen. Oh,
(14:56):
it was very serious. I actually do remember this one.
Yeah yeah, um, it seems and not. Everyone in Irwin
Dale was thrilled with the new Saracha factory and specifically
the smell. A Los Angeles Superior Court ordered the factory
to shut down, to which Tran hung up a sign
that read, in all caps, no tear gas made here. Yeah.
(15:22):
Saracha had to pause operations. Hence, Panic ten Cities contacted Trand,
offering to host the factory. However, moving would not be
so easy. All of the fresh chilies and chili farmers
were in California and he didn't want to have to
lose all of his employees. The solution came in the
form of an upgraded filter for the ventilation system, and
(15:44):
the lawsuit was dropped. In that same year, Trand open
the doors to his factory to the public for the
first time, in his words, to prove they don't make
tear gas inside. It sounds like a very Willy Wonka
esque tour too. I really want to go. Yeah. Apparently
there's there's weird like memorabilia rooms. They have fire hydrants
that are specially branded with the Siacha local Yeah. Um yeah.
(16:10):
In Atlanta. I remember this happening because one of my
favorite local food trucks, Yumbi, they have a Caso Saracha
sauce and as you can guess, it's very popular. Um
And when the saracha panic happened, the customer fan base
freaked out that their sauce habits would be impact and
Umby brought out all the saracha they could find to
(16:34):
to make sure that they would not run out. People
are very serious about this. They are well in there. Yes,
their case of saracha is really tasty, so I understand
it is. It is as offungs Sacha finally started being
distributed in his home country of Vietnam, Oh, where it
(16:55):
is popular, although apparently not not not a complete hit yet.
Is there's a lot of hot sauces on the market
over there, and so you know, so it's kind of
it's a tie style thing in a viet in Vietnam
and all kind of working it out. But for some
people over there, they're like, oh, no, this is the
best thing that's ever happened. More of this. Yes, it
(17:15):
is quite delicious, and I love this story. It's um
it's a good one. It's a good company. History story. Yeah. Yeah, um,
but we do have some science for you up to
and including what's up with that bad smell from the
saracha factory? Yeah, what's up with that? But first we
(17:35):
have one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. So,
as you have probably noticed, a few compounds in hot
(17:57):
peppers are irritants to mammalian mucus membranes. Yep. Oh, things
are starting to fall into place now. Yes, your your
your eyeballs, your your mouth, your sinuses. There are a
couple of things in hot peppers that will irritate any
of them. This is also the science behind why people
(18:18):
get so excited about spicy foods. Really, oh, really, Kept says,
and it's great. Yeah and okay in the case of saracha,
sacha also does have salt and sugar, and those things
also make people kind of excited some of the time,
as we have discussed before. But you know, those are
essential parts of our diet, so our brains reward us
(18:41):
for seeking them out. Spicy hot stuff. Not not really, now,
there are no essential nutrits, and Kept says, and that
I'm personally aware of. And it also, sugar and salt
do not to the same extent injure us. Yeah, not
that immediate burn anyway. But cap sasin does interact with
(19:05):
our nerves and brains in a very interesting way. It
is one of the active ingredients, so to speak, in
hot peppers, which probably evolved to make it in order
to protect their seeds from fungal or or other microbial infections.
Cap sasin and other similar particles sometimes called cap sasonoids,
are antimicrobial. They may also deter the kinds of animals
(19:29):
that eat their fruit without properly spreading their seeds, like birds,
for example, would just swallow the seeds and then spread
them far and wide, where mammals might chew up the
fruit a little bit too much. It kind of masticate
the seeds in the process. So they evolved this this
irritant to many mammals taste receptor nerves. Mm hmmm, all
(19:51):
jokes on you, Yeah, because then humans got here. We're
a little bit masochistic apparently, all right, we've we've talked
on the show, but for about how our taste buds
and other taste receptor nerves work in our mouths and
our sinuses, not just on your tongue. They are in
other places mucous membranes. Yeah, all of those nerves are
set up to react to particular compounds. Some will send
(20:14):
a signal to your brain when they encounter sugar or
other sweet tasting molecules. Others react to salt or something
bitter or sour or savory or spicy. As the brain
collects those signals repeatedly and from enough individual nerves, we
experience whatever flavor those signals add up to. And the
particular nerve receptors that are activated by capsasin our proteins
(20:38):
called trp V one, and these happen to be the
same proteins that tell us when something is physically hot.
Temperatures above about one nine degrees fahrenheit that's forty three
degrees celsius will trigger it. It's also the same nerve
that tells us about electrical voltage. And when these nerves
are activated and send signals to our brain, are brain
(21:00):
interprets the signals as a something is very wrong and
it's causing damage. We're like, ha ha, Well we get
that way for a couple of very particular and excellent reasons.
Because because this this warning triggers a couple of reactions. First,
you experience pain, which is the body's way of telling
you that you know, like you've you've done stuck your
(21:20):
hand in a fire. You should probably pull it out, probably,
But your nervous system also gives you extra resources to
help you cope. It may trigger your fight or flight response,
so you're you're alert. You can react in order to
prevent more damage, like getting away from the fire or
or putting it out perhaps, and your nervous system will
work to lessen the pain. It will release endorphins into
(21:43):
your system to block the pain signals, and dopamine to
calm you down and make you feel like you know
everything's going to be all right. It's been compared to
the rush of euphoria that you get during a runner's high.
Just a serious thing. Yeah, So if you can bear
out that first pain part of spicy foods, that second
part can be pretty nice. There's even been research into
(22:07):
how cap sasan might be used to moderate chronic pain.
Oh yeah, m hmm, I can't wait to do an
episode on to dive deeper into spicy foods. Oh yes, absolutely,
Oh maybe maybe we could get that gem McCormick back
I know he loves talking about that. He does. We
have a lot of spicy food aficionados in the office,
(22:27):
we do. Oh and I can tell you, I can
tell you from firsthand experience about that runners high kind
of kind of feeling, euphoria feeling were One time on
one of Jonathan's Jonathan Strickland's Facebook live shows, he held
a hot sauce eating contest and he had like, I
don't know, maybe like fifteen or twenty bottles lined up
in order of least to most spicy, with the most
(22:50):
including like Carolina Reaper and stuff like that. And uh,
I jumped in after the stuff that bothers my stomach,
but in so right around the like the like Haban
arrow and on. And I guess so I must have
tasted ten or twelve hot sauces just in a row,
and not a lot of them, just like a couple
of drops. But like the thing ended, and my boss
(23:12):
came up to talk to me, and I was like,
I can't talk to you right now because I feel
so high. I was just like bracing myself on the
table and I was not okay. I was not okay
for like maybe half an hour, and it wasn't. I mean,
(23:34):
I don't know, like like the physical It was really funny.
Dylan joined us for for that experience as well. He
was cool as a cucumber. Yaounce about right. Remind me
to never play poker with the two of you because
because both of you, I've I've witnessed eat like the
spiciest stuff that I've ever put in my face, and
you were both like, that's spicy. But on the inside
(23:57):
we were screaming. I was screaming on the outside. Yeah,
but yeah, I'm so interested. I love spicy food, but
I have I've learned that I'm not well. I I
perhaps when I traveled the Asia, I learned that maybe
I am not as strong as I like to think
(24:18):
I am. It's a different kind of spice, it is,
it is, and they're different. One of the things that
I found when I was researching this is that there
are different types of spice will hit you a little
bit differently. Yeah, long versus shortened, Uh yeah, stuff like that.
So whole. Yeah, I'm really excited about looking more into that. Absolutely,
and you do build up a tolerance over time. Yes,
(24:39):
this is true future research, But for now it's time
for listen. Man, you did. I was not expecting that one.
Oh man, yeahs have been all that sauce. I was
(25:00):
chugging for a game in here. Kevin sent us a
blog post that he wrote at the end of one
of my favorite podcast food stuff. Oh thank you. Um.
They mentioned pets with food names and reiterated their request
for photos of those pets. Yes please. The first time
this came up, nothing came to mind. However, this time
(25:21):
it reminded me of a friend from college. I say college,
but I had dropped out of s i UE at
this point and was attending a technical school. Had a boyfriend, Jeff,
who attended Blackburn College and he had several pets with
food names. Jeff had a Gerbil named Chili Dog, an
unusual name for a Gerbil. Later he mentioned his gerbil
name Cheeseburger. I asked how many Gerbils he had, and
(25:44):
his reply was just the one. The first time I
visited Jeff at Blackburn, he had a new Gerbil named Pepperoni.
Jeff had a very high turnover rate of Gerbils. As
a kid, I was unable to keep a Gerbil for
longer than a few months, perhaps a year for a die,
but This was unusually high turnover for a college student.
(26:04):
I finally had to ask what happened to cheeseburger? Fife
was the reply, m M. Jeff pointed to his aquarium,
which I had not realized did not contain fish in
it was a very large snake. The reason all of
his gerbils had food names was because they were all
(26:26):
food for Fiefee. Oh no. While walking down the hallway
of his dorm, Jeff was carrying FEEFI. Jeff turned to me, saying,
hold this. Naturally, my reaction was to hold out my hands.
I did not think this through. I didn't and still
don't like snakes. Jeff places Fiefee in my outstretched hands
(26:48):
and stepped into the bathroom. The cacophony of voices in
my head had one very clear message, drop snake. I
may have been trimbling ever so slightly as I carefully
placed Fifie all the floor and then closely watched us,
she slipped over to and under the baseboard heat register.
Oh yes, this is what I was thinking. I stood
(27:10):
there nervously waiting for Jeff's return and wondering how he'd
retrieve Fifi. When he asked for Fifi was I cleverly
said she wanted down, then pointed to where she was.
He smiled and said she does that a lot. He
just felt around under the register and pulled out Fifi.
What a relief. I only dated Jeff for a few months,
(27:31):
and even though the memories of him are fading, the
day with Fifi will not be forgotten. Yeah. That stick
with me too. Oh goodness, you are you also not
a fan of snakes? Oh no, I love snakes, but
I just feel like that's ah oh no, yeah, almost
losing someone's pet. Yeah, finding out all these devils with
food names or first said surprise snake. Yeah that's beautiful. Yeah, yeah,
(27:55):
thanks for sending that, Kevin. Yes, Travis wrote, I have
in serving with the United States Peace Corps in a
rural village in Java, Indonesia for nearly two years. Let
me tell you, I am fairly certain my body is
eight percent Tempe. At this point. In your Tempe podcast,
you mentioned how popular, widespread, and locally revered Tempe is,
and you are absolutely right. Almost every village or region
(28:18):
has their own special type of Tofu Tahu or Tempe.
Some will have spices in them, others will not. Some
will be that white nougate color. Others will have a
fuzzy green layer of mold growing on it. In my village,
we have three varieties. There are the mass produced sticks
of tempe that sell for about three thousand rupia that's
twenty five cents, and two local temp as, one soybean
(28:40):
and the other peanut that are more like large square
patties that sell for five thousand rupia about thirty five cents.
I personally prefer the local soi tempe, but my partner
hates the moldy flavor. It's usually in such high demand
that we eat the mass produced tempe from Jakarta or
ben Doo. Meals in Indonesia are not uniquely separated like
they are in the West. Yes, they have a morning,
(29:02):
mid day and evening meal, but what they cook for
breakfast is what they eat throughout the day. Since I
don't eat much rice, tempe and boiled vegetables is literally
what I eat three or four times a day every day,
and have done so for two years. I'm pleased to
say that it is so delicious that it remains my
favorite food. Here. Sliced raw tempe is first soaked in
a mix of water salt, and chicken boullyon for about
(29:24):
five minutes before being fried to a crispy golden brown
in a coconut palm oil mix. It is delicious when
it's fresh and crispy, but I usually stir fry it
with some sweet soy sauce and whatever chili sauce is
lying about to give it some added flavor. Another local
delicacy is called some balgorenge tempe, which is basically thinly
sliced tempe strips that have been pan fried with local
(29:46):
chili pastes until dry and then served with rice. Food
is of utmost importance in Indonesian culture and a critical
distinguishing point of pride for local villages because of that,
tempe is a way of life here still in and
also certainly be sharing it with friends and family back
home when my service has ended. Well that brings you
near Atlanta? Yeah you know where to give us a shadow?
(30:09):
Oh my goodness, yes, oh that sounds so delicious and
and it and it ties in to two episodes. Yeah,
two episodes, yes, hotchily sauce, Sir ratcha the very episode
you're listening to and how many meals a day? And
why we do that? Thing. Yeah, I have determined the
(30:30):
more listener mail we've gotten about Tempe, I gotta add
more of it into my diet because it sounds so good. Yeah,
and I really want to try making it. Oh yes,
Oh that's a reason to use a time lapse camera.
Oh yeah, I heard one, all right. Well, hopefully that's
(30:51):
something we'll get to do soon a we stuff project.
In the meantime, if you would like to email as,
you can do so. Our email is food Stuff at
how stuff works dot. We're also on social media. You
can find us on Twitter and Facebook at food Stuff
hs W. We're also on Instagram at food Stuff. We
hope to hear from you. Thank you so much, as
(31:11):
always to our amazing producer Dylan Fagan who reminded me
what the word for time lips cameras are. And thanks
to you for listening, and we hope that lots more
good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Any and I'm
Lauren Vogelbaum. And all of your intro lines are so good,
and then I always wind up being the one who's
who's tasked with delivering them. Yeah, because you're so good
at delivering intro line. Oh well, thank you. This is
food Stuff's hottest episode to date. Yeah, is because we're
(00:33):
talking about saracha saracha. Can you remember the first time
you had saracha? Oh? Oh goodness? Can I know? I cannot.
I think the first time that I realized that it
was becoming very common was maybe about oh, I want
to say six years ago, right around then. Yeah. Maybe wait,
(00:54):
maybe it's been a while a while, maybe it was
more like ten. Maybe I have no idea, you have
no clue what dates are made of eat. Yeah. But
but when I started seeing it in like in like pubs,
oh yeah, like otherwise American or English style pubs, I
was just like, oh, this is this is here now? Yeah,
big time? How about you. I think I tried it.
(01:17):
I tried it pretty recently. Um, and I remember I
think it was our very own Tracy V. Wilson, who
she was talking about how most of her food she
saw as like a conveyance to get sarasha to her
mouth or something, and I was like, well, I gotta
try this, and I very overly, ambitiously. Um, I just
(01:40):
put way too much. It was good, but it's it's
spicy not spicy. Yeah, yeah, and I like tears were
coming out, knows was running, and I remember being sad
this was my first experience, but knowing it was good
and I should return right again. It was my first
(02:00):
sushi with Saby experience. Oh yeah, but not another story,
another episode, yes, say episode. Yeah, so saracha, what is
it for me? Always spicier than I think every single time,
but I do. Yeah, I love this stuff. It's called
rooster sauce pretty commonly because of the rooster logo based
(02:24):
on Hoifang's brand Saracha based on inventors, the inventors zodiac sign. Yeah,
I thought it was an interesting fact um or. It's
also sometimes called hipster catchup. Yeah. It's a condiment or
a sauce made up of red pepper, vinegar, garlic, sugar,
and salts plus maybe a couple of extra preservatives to
(02:46):
prevent microbial growth and to keep it bright red. Right,
And it is spicy about one thousand to two units
on the Scoville scale, tangy a little sweet. The Scoville
scale if you haven't heard of it or if you
are not sure how it works. Ranks, how like spicy
hot things are based on the sensitivity of human taste buds.
(03:08):
If you take a spicy thing and dilute it with water,
eventually you will get to the point where the human
tongue cannot detect the heat anymore. UH. Sparratch's ranking of
one thousand to two five hundreds Goville heat units means
that you would have to dilute it by that many
times in order to make the heat undetectable. So like,
if you have an ounce of saracha, you'd have to
(03:29):
add anywhere from one thousand to two ounces of water
before you wouldn't be able to feel the heat at
all anymore. That's quite a lot of water. I know.
Also fun facts about the Scoville scale. UH. This is
determined these days through much more precise, high performance liquid
chromatography instead of like physical taste testers as it was
back in the nineteen teens when it was invented. I
(03:51):
do not envy those people. I like spice a lot,
but hoof. Yeah. Also the scale does have a bottom.
I think think of something like Bell Peppers pimento perhaps,
but it does not have a top. Carolina Reapers are
among the world's hottest known peppers and have been ranked
it over two million s h U s oh Man.
(04:13):
I think there's a video of Joe McCormick, one of
our coworkers, trying at Carolina Reapers, straight up eating it
and it kind of went all wrong and you feel
bad for him, but it's also funny. Well, it went
wrong in the sense that it's incredibly spicy. You can
tell just by watching said it felt like I think
getting stung by thousands of bees. Oh yeah, oh now
(04:36):
I remember that video. Yeah, but it is um mother
in law was trying to be helpful and it was like,
I'll get you some milk, and she gave him some
milk and he took a sip and it was expired,
like really expired, really bad expired. And then we tried
that ship. Yeah over on the Facebook live show Snack
(04:56):
Stuff that Ben Ball and I and I do, our
producer Ramsey had gotten as one of these Grim Reaper
uh Carolina it's a single chip. It comes at a
single uh package and we had we shared like a
fraction of it, and then after the show was over,
any eight a fraction of it too, And I responded
much more strongly than she did. It was quite spicy.
(05:19):
It was quite spicy. I don't know, you're you're very
Your poker face is great, I learned from Lady Gaga.
The biggest brand of Sarata sauce is the aforementioned Hoifunk
Foods in the United States, and that's the classic bottle
you see with the green with the green cap and
the green rooster logo. Yes. Yeah, it's owned by David
Tran of Vietnamese immigrant The name Sarata itself comes from
(05:41):
hot sauces from sirasha A town and Thailand, and those
chilies are key um, not just for obvious reasons, but
also because they are made. Sarata is made with fresh chilies,
not dry chilies um. And this has presented some obstacles.
According to Tran quote, we can only oh, it's quickly
as our our ability to harvest chilies grows. In sixteen
(06:05):
that came out to onion pounds around forty five million
kilos of fresh chilies. That has to last an entire year,
which well, due to our love of this stuff is
not necessarily a given. And I will touch on this later,
but that's one of the reasons why, Um, you don't
see ads for saracha. They're like, well, we we basically
(06:29):
sell everything that we make already, so yeah, we're doing
what we can. Um, let's look at some numbers. If
we take hot sauce as a whole, the industry is
in the top ten of America's fastest growing and globally,
sales exceed one billion dollars. What yeah Haifunk Foodsota sold
(06:53):
twenty million bottles in sixteen, coming out to around sixty
million dollars. In Los Angeles hosted the first La Saracha Festival.
I hear tell there's a whole saracha menu at Taco
bell Um, but it is or was, I'm not sure
if it's still around, made in house, not the White
Funk brand. If any of you listeners know about that
(07:16):
right there and let us know. Um. One of the
reasons it's so popular is because it is so versatile.
It's good straight but also good for mixing with other
sauces or condiments like mayo. You can add it to
soups like fun use it as a marinade in cocktails.
It was bona Patites ingredient of the year in I
had a Satcha milkshake one time. Yeah, I can't say
(07:39):
that I enjoyed the experience of it. Was it with
like ice cream? Yeah? Like peanuts, like peanut sauce. This
is blowing my mind. Yeah, is this local, local place? Yeah?
It was at Pelucaville. Oh, yes, they have many an
interesting milkshake over there. Yeah, this one might have been
too interesting, too too much for howe Root shows that
(08:02):
Saracha can be used in many, many ways and it
has been absolutely Yes. A lot of copycats are trying
to get in on this game, and the lawyer behind
Saracha's creator reports this means an annual four to five
infringement complaints. Like people, I've seen pictures. The bottle is
very similar designed right, because they they don't actually have
(08:23):
it copyrighted that anyone can make a sauce call it Saracha. Sure,
but you the logo look precisely is what is getting
these copycats in trouble and Tran. The guy behind Saracha
is a very interesting fellow despite being at the helm
of an extremely lucrative brand, the success of which has
(08:44):
led to a cult like following merchandise and a documentary.
He isn't interested in being filthy rich, or that's not
his main goal anyway. He claims to never have raised
throughout his wholesale price, never mind inflation. He says he's
not entirely sure who the distributors are, just that he
has been using the same ten for over ten years,
(09:07):
and that he's only certain that it's sold in the
U S, Canada, and Europe, but he speculates it's sold
in other places. He doesn't know for sure. Um I
would speculate that too, though, I think that's probably a
very good guess. Yes, Sir Racha has never been officially advertised.
Like I mentioned, he's refuted several offers to buy the
company and intends to keep it in the family. His
(09:29):
son and daughter are the president and vice president, respectively,
and he once said, rather than being a billionaire, he
simply wanted to make enough fresh chili sauce so that
everyone who wants Hoifunk can have it. Nothing more. Yeah,
that is not your typical CEO. I think. He also
said he's going to keep making it until no one
(09:51):
wants it anymore, and then they'll stop. I think that's
a long way off based on some of yeah, the
coming details. Yes, I would say probably gonna be making
it for a lot longer. So let's let's look at
some of those details that led to saracha becoming this
huge behemoth of a condiment. Right, but first let's take
(10:14):
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. The history
of saracha goes all the way back to nine thousand BC,
(10:34):
when someone was looking to add a kick to their omelet.
No just kidding. It actually all started with Thomas Jefferson
in France what faku um. The consensus is that the
first person to make saracho was a Thai woman named
Tanam chucka puck over eighty years previous. At first, she
(10:58):
made the stuff mostly for her friends and family, but
eventually she made it available for purchase under the name Siraja.
This version is a bit thinner and tanger than what
most of us are probably used to. You can still
find it in some specialty stores and I believe on
Amazon Prime if you are interested. If we look at
(11:18):
David Tran and Hoifang Foods throughout just specifically. Tran had
been working with chili in Vietnam since nineteen seventy five.
His first hot sauce, pepper sat became came in baby
food jars and he mostly reserved them also for his
family members, and I think he'd like hand delivered them
on a bike. Um Yeah. In nineteen seventy nine, escaping
(11:41):
from increasing persecution of Chinese people by the new Communist
government in Vietnam, he took a freighter by the name
of Haifang to the United States, and later the name
of the freighter would be the inspiration for the name
of his company, H Yeah. Ran arrived to the US
as a refuge. He found the American hot saucing lacking,
(12:04):
so he set out to come up with his own recipe.
He set up shop in Chinatown at near A, Los
Angeles in a five thousand square foot building. In along
with this pepper sautet sauce, he started selling a chili
garlic sauce, some bolo leak, and of course sacha. Various
kinds assemble are my other favorite thing on the planet.
(12:26):
I add them to all the stuff I'm not entirely
sure what those are. To be honest, I saw him
on the website and I'm very interested to try them.
I've got like three different kinds in my house right now.
I'll okay, we'll work this out. Yes, awesome. It's like
a thicker, chunky or kind of chili sauce, kind of
like maybe sausa meats chili sauce, like salsa meets sacha. Yeah, yep,
(12:49):
I'm on board. At first, transceled his creations out of
the back of a van, a blue Chevy van, according
to the hard Phone website, yep, he delivered directly to
Asian restaurants. As sales and profits increased at an unforeseen rate.
(13:09):
Over seven years, Chand moved to a much larger sixty
eight thousand square foot facility and Rosemead, California started developing
his own custom equipment and the company was born. Yes,
by sixty square feet was not enough to satisfy Sarata demand,
(13:29):
and Hoifang moved two doors down to the old Wammo building,
upgrading to seventy thousand square feet. If you don't know
what Wammo was, it was a place that sold Frisbee
slipping sides hula hoops from what is it from Wammo?
I don't know. There was this like parky lady voice
or child voice that was always at the end of
the commercials man, I was so good at hula hooping
(13:54):
and this. I had forgotten about slipping sides until we
did this, And now I'm like nostal check for that side.
Time of my life, I always injured myself. I don't know.
They weren't painful, like there's no cushioning, right, you launch
yourself and you're just pretty much bailly flopping onto hard soil.
(14:16):
But still I missed them. Nonetheless, Nostalgi is funny that way.
Um Trans said of this and the in the documentary
about Saracha. Before that building was filled full with hula hoops,
now filled with chili I love. But even that wasn't enough.
Trans relocated operations to a six fifty thousand square foot
(14:36):
facility in Irwin Dale, California, in two thousand ten, so
it wasn't up and running until a few years later.
The facility could produce three thousand bottles of saracha per hour. Yeah,
and this brings up the Great Saracha Panic of twent thirteen. Oh,
(14:56):
it was very serious. I actually do remember this one.
Yeah yeah, um, it seems and not. Everyone in Irwin
Dale was thrilled with the new Saracha factory and specifically
the smell. A Los Angeles Superior Court ordered the factory
to shut down, to which Tran hung up a sign
that read, in all caps, no tear gas made here. Yeah.
(15:22):
Saracha had to pause operations. Hence, Panic ten Cities contacted Trand,
offering to host the factory. However, moving would not be
so easy. All of the fresh chilies and chili farmers
were in California and he didn't want to have to
lose all of his employees. The solution came in the
form of an upgraded filter for the ventilation system, and
(15:44):
the lawsuit was dropped. In that same year, Trand open
the doors to his factory to the public for the
first time, in his words, to prove they don't make
tear gas inside. It sounds like a very Willy Wonka
esque tour too. I really want to go. Yeah. Apparently
there's there's weird like memorabilia rooms. They have fire hydrants
that are specially branded with the Siacha local Yeah. Um yeah.
(16:10):
In Atlanta. I remember this happening because one of my
favorite local food trucks, Yumbi, they have a Caso Saracha
sauce and as you can guess, it's very popular. Um
And when the saracha panic happened, the customer fan base
freaked out that their sauce habits would be impact and
Umby brought out all the saracha they could find to
(16:34):
to make sure that they would not run out. People
are very serious about this. They are well in there. Yes,
their case of saracha is really tasty, so I understand
it is. It is as offungs Sacha finally started being
distributed in his home country of Vietnam, Oh, where it
(16:55):
is popular, although apparently not not not a complete hit yet.
Is there's a lot of hot sauces on the market
over there, and so you know, so it's kind of
it's a tie style thing in a viet in Vietnam
and all kind of working it out. But for some
people over there, they're like, oh, no, this is the
best thing that's ever happened. More of this. Yes, it
(17:15):
is quite delicious, and I love this story. It's um
it's a good one. It's a good company. History story. Yeah. Yeah, um,
but we do have some science for you up to
and including what's up with that bad smell from the
saracha factory? Yeah, what's up with that? But first we
(17:35):
have one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. So,
as you have probably noticed, a few compounds in hot
(17:57):
peppers are irritants to mammalian mucus membranes. Yep. Oh, things
are starting to fall into place now. Yes, your your
your eyeballs, your your mouth, your sinuses. There are a
couple of things in hot peppers that will irritate any
of them. This is also the science behind why people
(18:18):
get so excited about spicy foods. Really, oh, really, Kept says,
and it's great. Yeah and okay in the case of saracha,
sacha also does have salt and sugar, and those things
also make people kind of excited some of the time,
as we have discussed before. But you know, those are
essential parts of our diet, so our brains reward us
(18:41):
for seeking them out. Spicy hot stuff. Not not really, now,
there are no essential nutrits, and Kept says, and that
I'm personally aware of. And it also, sugar and salt
do not to the same extent injure us. Yeah, not
that immediate burn anyway. But cap sasin does interact with
(19:05):
our nerves and brains in a very interesting way. It
is one of the active ingredients, so to speak, in
hot peppers, which probably evolved to make it in order
to protect their seeds from fungal or or other microbial infections.
Cap sasin and other similar particles sometimes called cap sasonoids,
are antimicrobial. They may also deter the kinds of animals
(19:29):
that eat their fruit without properly spreading their seeds, like birds,
for example, would just swallow the seeds and then spread
them far and wide, where mammals might chew up the
fruit a little bit too much. It kind of masticate
the seeds in the process. So they evolved this this
irritant to many mammals taste receptor nerves. Mm hmmm, all
(19:51):
jokes on you, Yeah, because then humans got here. We're
a little bit masochistic apparently, all right, we've we've talked
on the show, but for about how our taste buds
and other taste receptor nerves work in our mouths and
our sinuses, not just on your tongue. They are in
other places mucous membranes. Yeah, all of those nerves are
set up to react to particular compounds. Some will send
(20:14):
a signal to your brain when they encounter sugar or
other sweet tasting molecules. Others react to salt or something
bitter or sour or savory or spicy. As the brain
collects those signals repeatedly and from enough individual nerves, we
experience whatever flavor those signals add up to. And the
particular nerve receptors that are activated by capsasin our proteins
(20:38):
called trp V one, and these happen to be the
same proteins that tell us when something is physically hot.
Temperatures above about one nine degrees fahrenheit that's forty three
degrees celsius will trigger it. It's also the same nerve
that tells us about electrical voltage. And when these nerves
are activated and send signals to our brain, are brain
(21:00):
interprets the signals as a something is very wrong and
it's causing damage. We're like, ha ha, Well we get
that way for a couple of very particular and excellent reasons.
Because because this this warning triggers a couple of reactions. First,
you experience pain, which is the body's way of telling
you that you know, like you've you've done stuck your
(21:20):
hand in a fire. You should probably pull it out, probably,
But your nervous system also gives you extra resources to
help you cope. It may trigger your fight or flight response,
so you're you're alert. You can react in order to
prevent more damage, like getting away from the fire or
or putting it out perhaps, and your nervous system will
work to lessen the pain. It will release endorphins into
(21:43):
your system to block the pain signals, and dopamine to
calm you down and make you feel like you know
everything's going to be all right. It's been compared to
the rush of euphoria that you get during a runner's high.
Just a serious thing. Yeah, So if you can bear
out that first pain part of spicy foods, that second
part can be pretty nice. There's even been research into
(22:07):
how cap sasan might be used to moderate chronic pain.
Oh yeah, m hmm, I can't wait to do an
episode on to dive deeper into spicy foods. Oh yes, absolutely,
Oh maybe maybe we could get that gem McCormick back
I know he loves talking about that. He does. We
have a lot of spicy food aficionados in the office,
(22:27):
we do. Oh and I can tell you, I can
tell you from firsthand experience about that runners high kind
of kind of feeling, euphoria feeling were One time on
one of Jonathan's Jonathan Strickland's Facebook live shows, he held
a hot sauce eating contest and he had like, I
don't know, maybe like fifteen or twenty bottles lined up
in order of least to most spicy, with the most
(22:50):
including like Carolina Reaper and stuff like that. And uh,
I jumped in after the stuff that bothers my stomach,
but in so right around the like the like Haban
arrow and on. And I guess so I must have
tasted ten or twelve hot sauces just in a row,
and not a lot of them, just like a couple
of drops. But like the thing ended, and my boss
(23:12):
came up to talk to me, and I was like,
I can't talk to you right now because I feel
so high. I was just like bracing myself on the
table and I was not okay. I was not okay
for like maybe half an hour, and it wasn't. I mean,
(23:34):
I don't know, like like the physical It was really funny.
Dylan joined us for for that experience as well. He
was cool as a cucumber. Yaounce about right. Remind me
to never play poker with the two of you because
because both of you, I've I've witnessed eat like the
spiciest stuff that I've ever put in my face, and
you were both like, that's spicy. But on the inside
(23:57):
we were screaming. I was screaming on the outside. Yeah,
but yeah, I'm so interested. I love spicy food, but
I have I've learned that I'm not well. I I
perhaps when I traveled the Asia, I learned that maybe
I am not as strong as I like to think
(24:18):
I am. It's a different kind of spice, it is,
it is, and they're different. One of the things that
I found when I was researching this is that there
are different types of spice will hit you a little
bit differently. Yeah, long versus shortened, Uh yeah, stuff like that.
So whole. Yeah, I'm really excited about looking more into that. Absolutely,
and you do build up a tolerance over time. Yes,
(24:39):
this is true future research, But for now it's time
for listen. Man, you did. I was not expecting that one.
Oh man, yeahs have been all that sauce. I was
(25:00):
chugging for a game in here. Kevin sent us a
blog post that he wrote at the end of one
of my favorite podcast food stuff. Oh thank you. Um.
They mentioned pets with food names and reiterated their request
for photos of those pets. Yes please. The first time
this came up, nothing came to mind. However, this time
(25:21):
it reminded me of a friend from college. I say college,
but I had dropped out of s i UE at
this point and was attending a technical school. Had a boyfriend, Jeff,
who attended Blackburn College and he had several pets with
food names. Jeff had a Gerbil named Chili Dog, an
unusual name for a Gerbil. Later he mentioned his gerbil
name Cheeseburger. I asked how many Gerbils he had, and
(25:44):
his reply was just the one. The first time I
visited Jeff at Blackburn, he had a new Gerbil named Pepperoni.
Jeff had a very high turnover rate of Gerbils. As
a kid, I was unable to keep a Gerbil for
longer than a few months, perhaps a year for a die,
but This was unusually high turnover for a college student.
(26:04):
I finally had to ask what happened to cheeseburger? Fife
was the reply, m M. Jeff pointed to his aquarium,
which I had not realized did not contain fish in
it was a very large snake. The reason all of
his gerbils had food names was because they were all
(26:26):
food for Fiefee. Oh no. While walking down the hallway
of his dorm, Jeff was carrying FEEFI. Jeff turned to me, saying,
hold this. Naturally, my reaction was to hold out my hands.
I did not think this through. I didn't and still
don't like snakes. Jeff places Fiefee in my outstretched hands
(26:48):
and stepped into the bathroom. The cacophony of voices in
my head had one very clear message, drop snake. I
may have been trimbling ever so slightly as I carefully
placed Fifie all the floor and then closely watched us,
she slipped over to and under the baseboard heat register.
Oh yes, this is what I was thinking. I stood
(27:10):
there nervously waiting for Jeff's return and wondering how he'd
retrieve Fifi. When he asked for Fifi was I cleverly
said she wanted down, then pointed to where she was.
He smiled and said she does that a lot. He
just felt around under the register and pulled out Fifi.
What a relief. I only dated Jeff for a few months,
(27:31):
and even though the memories of him are fading, the
day with Fifi will not be forgotten. Yeah. That stick
with me too. Oh goodness, you are you also not
a fan of snakes? Oh no, I love snakes, but
I just feel like that's ah oh no, yeah, almost
losing someone's pet. Yeah, finding out all these devils with
food names or first said surprise snake. Yeah that's beautiful. Yeah, yeah,
(27:55):
thanks for sending that, Kevin. Yes, Travis wrote, I have
in serving with the United States Peace Corps in a
rural village in Java, Indonesia for nearly two years. Let
me tell you, I am fairly certain my body is
eight percent Tempe. At this point. In your Tempe podcast,
you mentioned how popular, widespread, and locally revered Tempe is,
and you are absolutely right. Almost every village or region
(28:18):
has their own special type of Tofu Tahu or Tempe.
Some will have spices in them, others will not. Some
will be that white nougate color. Others will have a
fuzzy green layer of mold growing on it. In my village,
we have three varieties. There are the mass produced sticks
of tempe that sell for about three thousand rupia that's
twenty five cents, and two local temp as, one soybean
(28:40):
and the other peanut that are more like large square
patties that sell for five thousand rupia about thirty five cents.
I personally prefer the local soi tempe, but my partner
hates the moldy flavor. It's usually in such high demand
that we eat the mass produced tempe from Jakarta or
ben Doo. Meals in Indonesia are not uniquely separated like
they are in the West. Yes, they have a morning,
(29:02):
mid day and evening meal, but what they cook for
breakfast is what they eat throughout the day. Since I
don't eat much rice, tempe and boiled vegetables is literally
what I eat three or four times a day every day,
and have done so for two years. I'm pleased to
say that it is so delicious that it remains my
favorite food. Here. Sliced raw tempe is first soaked in
a mix of water salt, and chicken boullyon for about
(29:24):
five minutes before being fried to a crispy golden brown
in a coconut palm oil mix. It is delicious when
it's fresh and crispy, but I usually stir fry it
with some sweet soy sauce and whatever chili sauce is
lying about to give it some added flavor. Another local
delicacy is called some balgorenge tempe, which is basically thinly
sliced tempe strips that have been pan fried with local
(29:46):
chili pastes until dry and then served with rice. Food
is of utmost importance in Indonesian culture and a critical
distinguishing point of pride for local villages because of that,
tempe is a way of life here still in and
also certainly be sharing it with friends and family back
home when my service has ended. Well that brings you
near Atlanta? Yeah you know where to give us a shadow?
(30:09):
Oh my goodness, yes, oh that sounds so delicious and
and it and it ties in to two episodes. Yeah,
two episodes, yes, hotchily sauce, Sir ratcha the very episode
you're listening to and how many meals a day? And
why we do that? Thing. Yeah, I have determined the
(30:30):
more listener mail we've gotten about Tempe, I gotta add
more of it into my diet because it sounds so good. Yeah,
and I really want to try making it. Oh yes,
Oh that's a reason to use a time lapse camera.
Oh yeah, I heard one, all right. Well, hopefully that's
(30:51):
something we'll get to do soon a we stuff project.
In the meantime, if you would like to email as,
you can do so. Our email is food Stuff at
how stuff works dot. We're also on social media. You
can find us on Twitter and Facebook at food Stuff
hs W. We're also on Instagram at food Stuff. We
hope to hear from you. Thank you so much, as
(31:11):
always to our amazing producer Dylan Fagan who reminded me
what the word for time lips cameras are. And thanks
to you for listening, and we hope that lots more
good things are coming your way.
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Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.