There was a time when I might have been excited and even excited to see a bottle of crispy chili at my local Trader Joe's.
Now the millennial grocer has his own brand of alliums fried in chili oil and I can't buy them. The same goes for the boba currently offered at Jack in the Box and Starbucks.
We have entered a strange new world of Asian American cultural capitalism. And judging by the way the Asian-American community has roundly criticized chef David Chang's recent attempt to trademark the term “chili crisp,” we've also entered a new era of Asian-American cynicism.
Once upon a time, an Asian-American hot sauce entrepreneur might have been seen as a heroic pioneer in a white-dominated space, bravely fighting to adequately represent his culture. But do those feel-good narratives still apply as those cultural pioneers age into corporations and institutions? Last month, Chang's company, Momofuku, sent cease-and-desist letters to other companies using the words “chili crunch,” a trademark his company recently acquired.
One of the targeted companies was MiLà, which counts Marvel actor Simu Liu among its investors. At X, Liu quickly challenged Chang to a crispy chili flavor contest where the winner gets the trademark. Although MiLà, which raised $22.5 million in a seed funding round last year, isn't exactly a mom-and-pop store either.
Jing Gao, CEO of a competing company, Fly by Jing, publicly condemned Chang's actions in a newsletter, arguing, rightly, that Chang had attempted to trademark “a descriptive term for a cultural product, one that has existed in the kitchen.” China for hundreds of years. years.” But Times columnist Jenn Harris discovered that Fly by Jing, which recently had a $12 million funding round, had sought its own trademarks for the terms “Sichuan chili crisp” and “Chengdu crunch “.
To address the backlash, Chang released a podcast episode in which he explains that trademark law requires trademark owners to defend their rights to maintain ownership of their trademarks, and that the letters were Momofuku's attempt to comply with that. law. He pledged to stop enforcing the mark, and Gao has since also decided to stop pursuing his marks.
These steps suggest that Chang and Gao value their Asian American critics and their comments. It is important for Asian American business owners to show that they care about Asian American customers. But the heat probably won't subside completely. The cynicism about chili fries predates this recent trademark dispute.
The market has expanded dramatically since the Chinese company Lao Gan Ma introduced its sauce in the 1980s. Chili fries are now as popular on restaurant menus as Sriracha hot sauce once was. A casual online search found more than 40 brands of crispy chili, some from Asian-American entrepreneurs but also products from Williams Sonoma, World Market and even one from this newspaper's Food section. TikTokers recommend mixing it with butter, frying eggs with it, flavoring French fries, and even as an adventurous ice cream topping. It has become the only Asian food product you are most likely to find outside of an Asian neighborhood.
When an aspect of your culture becomes ubiquitous in the mainstream, no matter who you are, I think it's natural to feel a little possessiveness. But I'll probably never find a chili crisp with a brand story that perfectly represents my politics and identity, and I don't expect to. Sometimes a jar of crispy chili is just that. Trying to define your cultural identity through your chili crisp consumption choices takes you to strange places.
On social media, some Asian Americans pledged their support for what they considered the original and authentic crispy chili, Lao Gan Ma's product. But a company with a valuation of $1.7 billion doesn't really need anyone's support , and even less so for Asian Americans.
“At the end of the day, people are just projecting insecurities about Asian identities onto these issues,” said chef Johnny Lee, who could have founded his own sauce company based on the recipe for his popular Hainanese chicken dish, if it was just ginger. It's not that expensive and takes a long time to peel.
Lee closed his Pearl River Deli restaurant last year after he couldn't make the business model work. He wishes Asian American consumers, who demand the most and want to pay the least, wouldn't be so hard on Asian American business owners. If there was more solidarity between consumers and producers, perhaps more of everyone's favorite restaurants would stay open, Lee said.
“I think it's that crabs-in-the-barrel mentality. “If we have to compete with each other, we forget that there are more of them than us,” Lee said.
But some cynicism is needed. It's been a decade since Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked a new generation of conversations about race and identity. These conversations have reshaped Hollywood, spurred police and policy reforms, and inspired a generation of Asian Americans to begin telling their own stories. They have also begun to ring hollow.
Chili oil.
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
Here I must admit that I am uniquely prepared for this cynicism, with an email inbox always full of overtures to well-worn Asian-American narratives. But I can only listen to so many stories about stinky lunchboxes with a generous heart. There's a lingering myopia in our cultural conversations, and perhaps that's why I've noticed fewer Asian Americans participating. Who wants to participate in a conversation where everyone is talking about themselves?
Each year, the fanfare for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month seems to get more elaborate. But what are we celebrating? Asian American professionals are experiencing historic prosperity and wealth, but Asian American communities are ravaged by gentrification. We tell optimistic stories in public and talk behind our hands when we tell hard truths. For me, celebrating AAPI Heritage Month every May is starting to look like a forced smile.
The backlash to the Momofuku trademark dispute at least shows that we're starting to define what solidarity with other Asian Americans means, even if all we've learned is that Asian American business owners shouldn't sue each other. for control of Asian American cultural products.
It is not any company's job to perfectly represent the Asian American community. But it's important that the creators of the pagoda lunch box, thank you bag, and pink donut box didn't try to capture all the profits they generated. Those businesses are worth celebrating, not because of the millions of egg rolls and fortune cookies they sold, but because these products constituted a shared cultural franchise that allowed many different types of Asian immigrants to survive.
We celebrate their businesses because they did not forget the community in their pursuit of profit, and today's Asian American capitalists should remember that.
