NOV 5 — That was a gem of a quip from David Tran who came up with “If it doesn’t smell, we can’t sell” after his Thai sauce factory landed in hot soup in California last week for emanating foul odour into the environment.
I like the wisecrack from Tran so much that in our real simple life we could extend it to perhaps: “Without the stink, it ain’t ikan kering” or “In sour tomyam, the kick will come”. And how about “Get a new high, go for raw petai”? Sometimes we just can’t stop.
Tran, CEO and founder of Huy Fong Foods that produces Sriracha hot sauce, faced a lawsuit in Los Angeles superior court last Monday for allegedly polluting the environment.
According to news reports, city officials said residents had been complaining of burning eyes, irritated throats and headaches because of the smell, and some people lamented that they had to leave their homes to escape it.
One family was forced to move a birthday party indoors after the strong smell overwhelmed the gathering, Irwindale City Attorney Fred Galante told the Los Angeles Times.
I was so attracted to the story because it was the second time in a week that the smell of Asian food, which we take for granted and is so much part of us here, had to come down for a beating in a faraway land.
Just before that, durian was pulled down from its pedestal when an entire row of city centre shops was evacuated in Plymouth, England all because shoppers caught a whiff that came from what we all consider as the king of fruit.
According to the Plymouth Herald, many customers complained of a gas-like smell, and shop owners reported it as an emergency for precaution.
Within minutes, shoppers, office workers and employees of the stores along the street were cordoned off as police, firefighters and staff investigated the “gas leakage.” It was later discovered that the stench came from an Asian grocery store YW Foods behind the street, which had a large durian delivery that day.
Oh my, that is too much. I just think the Mat Sallehs are over-reacting again. As if the world doesn’t know how they themselves fill up the entire stretch of Jalan Alor in Kuala Lumpur or Thong Lor in Bangkok to sniff the great smell of and savour Asian street food at its best — the fried garlic, coriander leaves, asam gelugor, belacan, etc.
And at anytime you stop at the Bukit Gantang rest area on the North-South Expressway you are bound to catch Westerners at the durian stalls.
The latest stories of Sriracha Sauce in Los Angeles and the durian in Plymouth remind me of a similar tale several years ago when London police knocked on the door of a Malaysian newspaper correspondent’s home in Bayswater following complaints by neighbours of nuisance.
The journalist and his family apparently was having a blast in the kitchen cooking laksa, ikan bakar and preparing sambal belacan. The noise from the knocks on the lesung batu (mortar and pestle) to make sambal belacan was one thing, but the aroma emanated from the kuah laksa and ikan bakar must have irked the neighbours even more — probably because they were not invited for a tuck-in.
Luckily for the Malaysian family, they were only cautioned and no legal action was taken against them.
The episodes represent the great divide between East and West when it comes to food and the flavours that go with them. How many times have you brought along instant noodles and packet sambal when travelling West, sometimes — if you are lucky the stuff are not confiscated at all — incurring deep stares from behind the Customs checkout counter?
But the intolerance could be a one-sided affair because we hardly hear of the overpowering smell of Western food getting on the same nerves on Asians. Pickled herring, I am told, is worse than ikan pekasam and jeruk mengkudu put together. And blue cheese. Whoa, it has a smell often described by Asians in words unprintable here.
Whatever it is, we have to take our hats off to David Tran of the Sriricha Sauce fame for the quote that would probably go down as the best marketing tagline for Asian food. Just like “Go for the right tempo, the tempoyak.” And “How do you do, sample our budu.”
* Syed NadzriI is editor-in-chief of The Malay Mail He can be reached at [email protected]
** This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
