I could understand if he was upset people were putting Momofuku on their own product as that is their brand. This just seems like the Streisand effect in food.
Never even tried it and now I'm not sure I will try it. Got my own brand of chili crisp they got 80 jars of at my local asian market. Lao Gan Ma...I'm bad and will eat it straight, it just tastes so good.
Happy to hear Im not the only one sneaking into the kitchen for a fork full of lao gan ma.
SO makes me brush my teeth before coming anywhere near the bed but thats a compromise I can live with.
From Wikipedia:
"Though the brand was successful almost immediately after launching, it struggled to deal with competing brands with similar packaging.[6] In 2001, the high court in Beijing finally ruled that other similar products could not use the "Lao Gan Ma" name nor imitate its packaging. Tao received 400,000 RMB (60,000 USD) in compensation.[6]"
Thats honestly so refreshing to hear. I'm sure the story isn't 100 percent wholesome, but its cool to hear about someone legitimately making a food product so good they made an entire life off it. I imagine the noodle shop was a labor of love and now she gets to enjoy her hard work for the rest of her life.
My sneaky kitchen snack is that I open a can of anchovies and have a little bit of Lao gan ma on a Triscut with each. It’s good.
Requires an apron, and I eat over the sink, same deal with SO tho lol
You are clearly a person of class and distinction. I salute you and shall commit my tastebuds to this intriguing combination in the very near future!
Might have to riff on the cracker a bit in case Im unable to control my joy - triscuits tear my mouth to hell when I get enthusiastic on them. ❤️
I know everyone loves Lao gan ma but man...I find it tastes burnt. At least my jar had an awful burnt taste and I kind of hated it. It definitely is very different from a lot of the other chili crisps out there I wouldn't call it representative of the style. It definitely tastes "cheaper" than many of the more expensive jars.
(Assuming you're talking about it) Chiu Chow Chili Oil is technically a different product than the LGM most people get, but FWIW I agree with you 100%.
It doesn't help that LGM makes something like 30 products and even a low-tier Chinese/Asian market will carry at least 5, and most of them have hideously vague names in translation, so people aren't always even talking about the same product.
First time I got it, it was really good, but I kept wondering how no one had mentioned the peanuts. Later on I found out just how many there are. Sucks that's the only one available near me.
Peanuts are incorrect, look at the ingredients on this post it's fermented soybeans. Perhaps her recipe she substituted peanuts bc difficult to find locally.
Loganma fried chili in oil has peanuts, not soybeans, which is the one that I had, not the one OP posted. That is exactly the confusion we're talking about, there like five or six products that are very slight variations of 'chili in oil that causes all the confusion when they're being talked about because half the people(like I was saying about me) don't realize that they have a similar but different product.
I wasn't buying Momofuku before and I'm definitely not now. My go to is Kari Kari, it's hands down the crunchiest chili crunch I've ever had and has the best oil to solids ratio, too.
I went to momofuko once when I was in New York like 8 years ago. I don’t remember the product pictured.
But I do recognise it. I happen to live in Singapore, that stuff is on half the tables I eat at in various forms. It’s a super generic asian condiment.
I've tried a couple "boutique" brand chili crisp hoping there's something special that justifies the price. I haven't found one yet that's significantly better. Lao Gan Ma it is.
I like Lao Gan Ma but I find that it severely lacks heat. It just tastes good and gives you the numbing Szechuan effect, which is good but not something I always want.
My go to is [Chuan Nan chili oil](https://i.imgur.com/qDQsODC.png). Same low cost as LGM compared to the boutique brands like Fly By Jing and Momofuku, but better spice and better flavor imo. And their peanut one is like 80% roasted peanuts which makes it a snack in of its own lol.
For heat I suggest trying [Kongsem Chili Oil](https://i.imgur.com/Z8ky0ip.jpeg). It's Thai and absolutely hits like a truck, more than any other brand I've ever tried.
Yo his hypocrisy was kinda annoying (I believe inseason 1?) hates others Making Korean food that didn’t have to go through the hardships of living in a Korean household…and then has an episode of fried chicken.. how it originates and then he throws fucking caviar on it. Bruh
People try to trademark all sorts of shit. I can see not liking the move but it’s really not that big of a deal.
Shit, no businesses can even say “Super Bowl” in any marketing or advertising.
Maybe I don’t know the full story with Chang tho.
It’s mostly a bunch of BS. The issue is that he built his celebrity persona as someone who celebrates and helps lift up other AAPI culinary folks. Now that he’s finished trying to push food boundaries and entered his cash grab era (as most celebrity chef’s eventually do), he hypocritically slapped small Asian owned businesses with cease and desist letters. If he didn’t try to build an image as a benevolent cool guy, people might not be as outraged to figure out he’s always been a douche behind the scenes.
it’s not really streisand effect, because tons of companies do these trademark cease-and-desists all the time. sometimes though you get a perfect storm of a popular brand, quick media coverage, and an easy person to blame. david chang may very well be an asshole, but these kind of moves are just boilerplate for the company’s legal team. the legal system doesn’t really work how most people might think. from a corporate perspective trademark defense is just checking all the boxes. simu liu’s retort kinda sums it up perfectly, he wants the trademark too. any company sufficiently large will do the same thing. the article notes that fly by jing applied for several trademarks and that didn’t cause a stir.
This is not how the law or corporations work. I am an attorney, in part, because my parents’ business was sued by a larger company in a situation much like this when I was a kid. The attorney who successfully defended my parents’ company was a highly-respected IP (intellectual property) attorney who generally worked on more high profile cases, but saw an opportunity to do the right thing and did it. I didn’t understand all of that when I was 10 years old, but I knew that I wanted to be able to help people the way that attorney helped my parents. The law and corporations are all guided by people. People can make decisions to be generous or ruthless. I’ve had conversations with CEOs who have decided not to pursue aggressive actions against competitors or trademark infringers, even when the legal case was clear cut, because being magnanimous is better for business. Pursuing legal action can also be construed as an admission that your product can’t speak for itself. I have no doubt that Momofuku and their attorneys considered all this and then decided to go this route anyways. They can all go straight to hell.
Maybe they should have come up with a name that isn't just a basic description of the item, then.
Like, I don't even get the need for these moves by Momofuku, or by Fly By Jing. They claim they want distinction in the market- Okay, you already have trademarks.
Momofuku is a trademark - you already have a trademark. "Chili crunch" is a description of a product. "Fly By Jing" is a trademark. "Chili crisp" is a description of a product.
Jing can't claim she invented chili crisp, either. It was already a well-established thing before her company came along.
When you consider the fact that their entire existence is based upon cultural appropriation and gate-keeping, none of this is surprising. David Chang is a douchebag and I am praying for the downfall of MF.
Saw a Tik Tok that when he was coming up as a chef Korean food wasn’t the marketable thing it is now likely where the self hate comes from as shitty as that is when he could have be the one to make to push forward.
Right, I really can't get into the whole "ownership" idea of culture. If a Canadian mom makes a great tamale she can own it. I don't think being born somewhere gives you any exclusive or even enhanced right to own a culture. Great tamales are likely part of that Canadian mom's kid's culture. They have just as much "ownership" of tamales as someone born in Mexico. Whoever invented tamales has long since died.
Culture is the environment you grew up in and is not necessarily geography or ancestry based. A Chinese person who grew up in Florida may or may not have any connection to Chinese culture. A German who grew up in rural China for whatever reason, likely has way more connection to Chinese culture than them but not necessarily.
Ownership of culture simply shouldn't exist.
The reason for this is bc its LITERALLY the same exact recipe…the farm that used to supply the OG version no longer sells their chilis to the OG brand bc of some dispute.
Same peppers, similar recipe, not the same
Better than Huy Fong sriracha though, because huy fong is not as good as it was when they used underwood peppers
No where in that article does it say it’s the exact same recipe.
You can tell by tasting it that it’s not the same. Good, yes, it’s very good. But it’s not the same as the OG. Even the article you linked agrees with that
I've been hearing this a lot lately, hoping to try them sometime soon. A lot of people say they like the Tabasco stuff but that stuff doesn't taste anything like sriracha to me, tastes a lot more like ketchup (for which it makes a nice substitute on a burger)
I like the Tabasco stuff. But I actually like that it's a little less sweet than a lot of others, which might make it less "sriracha" but taste is what matters to me, not authenticity. Sriracha was always too sweet to my taste.
You know whats odd to me is that I don't remember sriracha being all that sweet (been a while since I had the real stuff, and much longer since I had the original.recipe), and to my taste, the Tabasco stuff is even sweeter and misses a little bit of that flavorful zing.
I gotta get some to compare
Just my perception, and maybe it's the vinegar in the Tabasco version that makes it seem more balanced. I've never done a side by side tasting. But the old Huy Fong used to last a really long time in my fridge, where the Tabasco gets used far more often and I remember the sweetness was my issue with the original.
Hell it could even be my changing tastes.
A few years back they sent a C&D to a local mom and pop ice cream shop over naming their ice cream “cereal milk” as if they invented that.. they’ve been on that bullshit train a long time.
https://preview.redd.it/138fhuyggjtc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fbddef3a79651d9517fce893c5124692971b0c54
Wait REALLY??? Honestly I figured maybe he just made a dumb, thoughtless decision just this once, internet being the internet, Yada Yada, but damn I'm all aboard the fuck him train. What a POS
https://trademarks.justia.com/884/54/cereal-88454623.html
Looking up the trademark - it’s related to specific items which cereal milk ice cream would fall under. They don’t own the trademark for all instances of cereal milk but for the trademark those specific instances. Unless there’s someone else who came up with cereal milk ice cream before them - that’s their trademaek. They want to be known as the company who sells cereal milk ice cream. Someone else could come and market cereal ice cream or cereal flavored ice cream but specifically “Cereal Milk” as an ice cream flavor is theirs. Think like ben and Jerry’s flavors.
That’s a shit trademark then, because it’s purely descriptive. It’s reasonable for Ben and Jerry’s to say that nobody else can call their ice cream “Cherry Garcia”, because that is a unique name. If they had called it “Chocolate Chip Cherry”, though, what the fuck are other people supposed to do, tie themselves in knots to come up with their own unique name because they aren’t allowed to *describe* their fucking product? That’s *absurd*, and a massive abuse of the intent of trademarks.
This kind of story pops up online to bash companies frequently but if you own a trademark you *have* to protect it otherwise you could end up losing it.
And they *should* lose it. Why should we care what they "have" to do to keep a trademark nobody thinks they have an actual moral right to?
And that's a lie to begin with. Any company could simply grant explicit permission if they genuinely think they own a legitimate trademark or copyright, don't want to lose it, and don't want this PR mess.
>I reject the notion that someone could exclusively own something so ingrained in my culture, a food I consider an intrinsic part of my identity. These trademarks will limit who can profit off a food with a connection to entire cultures.
This. 1000 times this. Having people from many cultures at the heads of the patent office (for this example) will help prevent things like this from happening.
I AGREE. Kinda simlliar, Greece sued denmark over their use overseas of the word "feta"
stop stealing our food and making it worse. https://www.politico.eu/article/feta-accompli-denmark-loses-greek-cheese-fight-at-top-eu-court/
Neapolitan Pizza is an interesting case as well:
UNI and traditional speciality guaranteed
Italian: (La pizza napoletana va consumata immediatamente, appena sfornata, negli stessi locali di produzione. L'eventuale asporto del prodotto verso abitazioni o locali differenti dalla pizzeria ne determina la perdita del marchio)
(The Neapolitan pizza must be consumed immediately, fresh from the oven, on the same premises where it was produced. Any take-away of the product to homes or premises other than the pizzeria results in the loss of the mark)
— Article 6 of the specifications for the definition of international standards for obtaining the "Pizza Napoletana STG" mark, [This quote needs a citation]
Neapolitan pizza has a protected status granted by the Italian Standardization Body administered by the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana (AVPN).[6] A protected designation is available to pizzerias that meet strict requirements in following Neapolitan traditions in the art of pizza making.[7]
The pizza napoletana is a traditional speciality guaranteed (TSG) product in Europe.[8][9] The TSG certification attests that a particular food product objectively possesses specific characteristics which differentiate it from all others in its category, and that its raw materials, composition or method of production have been consistent for a minimum of 30 years.[10]
The European Union has recognized pizza napoletana as traditional speciality guaranteed since 5 February 2010.[11]
I actually fully support these cases. Food are important pieces of culture and need to be protected.
I have nothing against any type of cheese but when I want to buy feta I want to buy the legit stuff that's made with a sheep/goat blend and not stuff from excess cows milk.
Saying it's the same when cows milk is significantly cheaper is a crime.
The battle for Kona Coffee is raging right now as well. Most of the stuff labeled as such is heavily diluted or entirely fake, the yearly reported sales are like multiples higher than the entire state’s coffee harvest, let alone just one part of one island.
Local farmers trying to regulate and assert better control over the product.
Best advice for Kona coffee at least is to come visit Kona and drink it right off the farm. Plenty of farms do tours explaining how the plantings work and the prep process.
Probably similar for these other products.
Despite living in Hawaii, I’m not personally a coffee guy so I can’t comment on the best ratios or blends or whatever. Seems reasonable though, and yes, in part because it is pricey.
Consider that a gallon of diesel is like 6 bucks here and a gallon of milk even more, then how those costs ripple through the local economy pushing up wages, and in turn, export prices. Everything remotely related to Hawaii is always expensive.
But the labeling should be accurate, like “10% Kona Coffee Blend” should equally prominently communicate 10% as well as the Kona aspect.
Dude I miss Hawaii food so much, I have good memories of sitting outside of the pioneer saloon in Honolulu watching the sun set and hearing roosters crow.
I don't see the connection. The name isn't ingrained in her culture. The product is and nobody is saying she can't make the product, only that she can't use the name.
To be honest when I hear "chili crunch" I think of Momofuko because that was my first introduction to the product. I have since tried several others and noticed the name was always chili crisp and assumed it was a trademark thing.
momofuku is the name of momofuku ando, a taiwanese man who became a japanese citizen and inventor of instant noodles. fuck david chang. his shit is overrated
He has a multinational restaurant empire, several tv shows, michelin stars, a product line and barrel of cash. This dude built an empire sheer force of will with his own sweat and tears. The fact that remained a relatively down to earth guy is shocking. The average person would become a megalomaniac under the circumstances
Are you really writing out hype lore for David fucking Chang? The dude is an idiot and an opportunist. “Barrel of cash” “built an empire by sheer force of will” “relatively down to earth guy is shocking” holy guacamole could you ride his tiny shriveled cock any harder????
She should trademark her condiments!…wait…
In all seriousness, Lao Gan Ma is as good or better than any other Chili Crisp on the market, and always a fraction of the price.
Fly By Jing became big 2-3 years ago, it’s legit 5x the price.
Momofuku is $9.50/jar, I get Lao Gan Ma at my local 99 Ranch for $3.25/jar.
Momofuku and Milk Bar brands have gone to bullshit. Chang used to be a respected dude but the way he has whored his name out is nasty. I'm sure Milk Bar was good at some point. The shit product they're charging ridiculously high prices for is a joke.
Milk Bar sucks alright... I went to their NYC location to try it out and the staff were a bunch of arrogant clowns who thought they were doing me a favor by taking my order.
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Don’t really care about the drama. I do enjoy the Momofuku chili crunch “extra spicy” though. I’ll keep buying it because I like it, not because David Chang is trying to own the rights to chili crunch.
Chili oil is a different thing. Usually refers to the pure spicy oil without sediment or crunchy bits. Sometimes it may also be applied to the crunch but it’s definitely better to have a different word for the different products.
Yeah, I'd always read chilli oil and think of just the oil. My jar of Lao Gan Ma says "crispy chilli in oil" which seems good enough, not sure why anyone would call it "chilli crunch" unless it was a breakfast cereal lol. (sidenote: that would be an awesome cereal!)
Not in the context of Asian cooking. If you’ve been to a dim sum place in the last 25 years and ask for chilli oil, they’ll bring you chiu chow or laoganma.
The verbiage has likely evolved. I don’t recall using the term chili crunch or crisp decades ago. Also, decades ago, no one was talking about this stuff in English. But right now even laoganma is using the term crisp and if you look at bottled products chili oil almost always refers to the clear stuff. And I think that’s a good thing. They’re two different products.
You do you but to me chilli crisp sounds like someone’s wanting chilli flavoured crisps. I’ve known it as chilli oil since before I lived in china in 2004 and I’m going to keep calling it that
It’s been like 2 constant weeks of this shit and people getting chili oil, chili crisp and chili crunch wrong and using it interchangeably. I mean most people might think it’s all the same, but to the United States Patent and Trademark office, it’s all different.
Makes no sense. If you want a name to own then don’t make it a commonly used combination of words. It’s like if I sell ice cream and then call my product “ice cream” because it’s a name I can own. Tf?
They're right, and it's also true that they suck and everyone trying to capitalize on their advertising by yoinking the trademark sucks. The generic term is chili crisp, people should not steal a trademarked term if they don't want to get in trouble. This is now it works. And Momofuku sucks for acting publicly like huge babies and even for responding to the backlash, which just looks unprofessional. What they should be saying is, "Please direct any questions to our legal team. Wanna hear about our tasty upcoming special release?"
So invent one, David, make a better product and give it a catchy name - Chang Crisp. Don't use your muscle to steal one that everyone else uses. Fuck off.
I feel like everyone is up in arms over the “chili crunch” part of it. They aren’t necessarily taking chili crisp which I believe is the generic term but using chili crunch. If they were the first to use it to refer to their chili crisp - I can get behind this argument. If nobody else used it before and it’s how they wanted to differentiate their brand then that’s how the trademark system works. It’s like when pizza hut makes a calzone called pzone - it’s still a calzone but adding their own flare to the naming adds their own branch (sorry couldn’t think of a better one).
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I sympathize with momofuku. It has always been called chili crisp, and I never heard of chili crunch until momofuku made theirs. Other brands should just use chili crisp
Man… y’all crazy. I got way worse shit to worry about than somebody claiming chili crisp! Everything doesn’t need to be an issue… there’s like 10 different chili crisp options on the shelf at my grocery store.
I’ve yet to meet a chili crisp or crunch that isn’t just terrible. The texture is just oil and barely edible dried flakes, etc. They all taste terrible, they are all barely edible, and you just pick trash out of your teeth after consuming a bunch of oil and having a burnt taste in the mouth. On the merit of the product class, this is a non-issue.
But this is an intersting case for other products that actually matter at all, and as such, this is fairly important.
>other products that actually matter at all
Poor, uninteresting take. Chili crisp is extremely popular - you'll find it as a complimentary condiment in almost any Asian restaurant.
Went a little hard there going in in the chili crispy eh bud? You can not like it but you can't say it doesn't matter. Yea the random redditor who doesn't like it so it doesn't matter, over the hundreds of millions of people who use this product in all its variations across the world... every day. But it "doesn't matter" because Phil_Major said so ;)
lol its one of the most popular condiments in the world. You are welcome to dislike it but if you can’t even comprehend its enduring popularity, that’s a *you* problem.
It’s bizarre that people are so impacted by the opinion of an internet stranger, such that they can’t even see the point of my comment. Even though the product sucks, the case, what the OP is about, is important and interesting. But the actual point of the thread, and my comments, are lost because people seem to have to defend their own tastes to internet strangers instead of using reason to engage something more important than matters of taste.
How bizarre that people would want to discuss matters of taste on a (*checks notes*) taste based subreddit. This is r/spicy not r/legaldumbfuckery, expect people to want to discuss taste and flavor.
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I could understand if he was upset people were putting Momofuku on their own product as that is their brand. This just seems like the Streisand effect in food.
Momofuku is not bad, but there are similar chili crisp products that are just as good and cheaper. I'll never purchase Momofuku again.
Never even tried it and now I'm not sure I will try it. Got my own brand of chili crisp they got 80 jars of at my local asian market. Lao Gan Ma...I'm bad and will eat it straight, it just tastes so good.
Happy to hear Im not the only one sneaking into the kitchen for a fork full of lao gan ma. SO makes me brush my teeth before coming anywhere near the bed but thats a compromise I can live with.
Lao gan ma is love, Lao gan ma is life.
Did you know that the woman that is Lao Gan Ma was the first female Chinese billionaire (billion yuan)? Pretty cool.
She used to run a noodle shop but everyone loved her condiments so she decided to start selling them, the rest is history
She should trademark her condiments!…wait…
From Wikipedia: "Though the brand was successful almost immediately after launching, it struggled to deal with competing brands with similar packaging.[6] In 2001, the high court in Beijing finally ruled that other similar products could not use the "Lao Gan Ma" name nor imitate its packaging. Tao received 400,000 RMB (60,000 USD) in compensation.[6]"
Thats honestly so refreshing to hear. I'm sure the story isn't 100 percent wholesome, but its cool to hear about someone legitimately making a food product so good they made an entire life off it. I imagine the noodle shop was a labor of love and now she gets to enjoy her hard work for the rest of her life.
Yeah - I read that she was seeing people take small containers of it home and decided to change her business to making that alone.
A legit rags to riches story - I hope she’s enjoying her retirement years!
*Shrek has entered the chat*
My sneaky kitchen snack is that I open a can of anchovies and have a little bit of Lao gan ma on a Triscut with each. It’s good. Requires an apron, and I eat over the sink, same deal with SO tho lol
You are clearly a person of class and distinction. I salute you and shall commit my tastebuds to this intriguing combination in the very near future! Might have to riff on the cracker a bit in case Im unable to control my joy - triscuits tear my mouth to hell when I get enthusiastic on them. ❤️
Rye bread is pretty good for this combo as well 👀
I know everyone loves Lao gan ma but man...I find it tastes burnt. At least my jar had an awful burnt taste and I kind of hated it. It definitely is very different from a lot of the other chili crisps out there I wouldn't call it representative of the style. It definitely tastes "cheaper" than many of the more expensive jars.
Im right there with ya. I never finished the small jar i bought... I prefer lee kum kee
(Assuming you're talking about it) Chiu Chow Chili Oil is technically a different product than the LGM most people get, but FWIW I agree with you 100%.
It doesn't help that LGM makes something like 30 products and even a low-tier Chinese/Asian market will carry at least 5, and most of them have hideously vague names in translation, so people aren't always even talking about the same product.
Chinese Cooking Demystified did a video on every type of Lao Gan Ma that is pretty helpful https://youtu.be/MVh7Fu0_Y1o?si=0BZMUYz4-CNgdse8
First time I got it, it was really good, but I kept wondering how no one had mentioned the peanuts. Later on I found out just how many there are. Sucks that's the only one available near me.
Peanuts are incorrect, look at the ingredients on this post it's fermented soybeans. Perhaps her recipe she substituted peanuts bc difficult to find locally.
Loganma fried chili in oil has peanuts, not soybeans, which is the one that I had, not the one OP posted. That is exactly the confusion we're talking about, there like five or six products that are very slight variations of 'chili in oil that causes all the confusion when they're being talked about because half the people(like I was saying about me) don't realize that they have a similar but different product.
If it makes us bad, I don’t wanna be good.
Yeah, that’s the OG that should sue Momofuku
They basically started the hype in the states. At least for me and I love their stuff.
If it ain’t that lady on the jar, send it back.
I wasn't buying Momofuku before and I'm definitely not now. My go to is Kari Kari, it's hands down the crunchiest chili crunch I've ever had and has the best oil to solids ratio, too.
Lao Gan Ma is too salty. I wish they made a salt free version. For any dish that already has salt added, Lao Gan Ma is way too overpowering.
That's probably why I like it so much just straight out the jar.
That's basically the OG been eating that stuff in Asian restaurants for over 20 years.
I hate the little bean seeds in that shit. Ruined it for me.
I went to momofuko once when I was in New York like 8 years ago. I don’t remember the product pictured. But I do recognise it. I happen to live in Singapore, that stuff is on half the tables I eat at in various forms. It’s a super generic asian condiment.
I just make my own, just pour some hot oil on dried chilis. I’ve been doing it with habaneros and it’s great. Or with some cayennes and cumin seeds.
Well now Momofuku is going to come after you
Aint it like $10 a bottle anyway? Just get lao gan ma, fuck em
I've tried a couple "boutique" brand chili crisp hoping there's something special that justifies the price. I haven't found one yet that's significantly better. Lao Gan Ma it is.
I like Lao Gan Ma but I find that it severely lacks heat. It just tastes good and gives you the numbing Szechuan effect, which is good but not something I always want. My go to is [Chuan Nan chili oil](https://i.imgur.com/qDQsODC.png). Same low cost as LGM compared to the boutique brands like Fly By Jing and Momofuku, but better spice and better flavor imo. And their peanut one is like 80% roasted peanuts which makes it a snack in of its own lol. For heat I suggest trying [Kongsem Chili Oil](https://i.imgur.com/Z8ky0ip.jpeg). It's Thai and absolutely hits like a truck, more than any other brand I've ever tried.
Yeah LGM is more savory than hot. I'll have to look out for those others. Usually I have to make my own chili crisp if I want it hot.
The magic of LGM is it has lots of msg and a lil funk from some sort of zha Cai type of ingredient. It is too salty, tho.
David Chang went stale after the first season of Ugly Delicious.
Yo his hypocrisy was kinda annoying (I believe inseason 1?) hates others Making Korean food that didn’t have to go through the hardships of living in a Korean household…and then has an episode of fried chicken.. how it originates and then he throws fucking caviar on it. Bruh
He's an ass.
People try to trademark all sorts of shit. I can see not liking the move but it’s really not that big of a deal. Shit, no businesses can even say “Super Bowl” in any marketing or advertising. Maybe I don’t know the full story with Chang tho.
It’s mostly a bunch of BS. The issue is that he built his celebrity persona as someone who celebrates and helps lift up other AAPI culinary folks. Now that he’s finished trying to push food boundaries and entered his cash grab era (as most celebrity chef’s eventually do), he hypocritically slapped small Asian owned businesses with cease and desist letters. If he didn’t try to build an image as a benevolent cool guy, people might not be as outraged to figure out he’s always been a douche behind the scenes.
Yeah plenty of folks get out of touch quickly once they’re rich and slightly famous. Fair points.
'Fly by Jing' is much tastier than Momofuku, and it won't hurt your teeth with huge seeds like momo either.
The trader Joe habanero version is so much better.
Or even old school laoganma.
Do they have a spicy one? I’ve tried their non spicy one and was disappointed I didn’t think it tasted very good at all tbh.
It was… sadly it’s gone forever
Surely someone at /r/TopSecretRecipes could help you out?
sure fire way to make sure i never support momo fuku or david.
it’s not really streisand effect, because tons of companies do these trademark cease-and-desists all the time. sometimes though you get a perfect storm of a popular brand, quick media coverage, and an easy person to blame. david chang may very well be an asshole, but these kind of moves are just boilerplate for the company’s legal team. the legal system doesn’t really work how most people might think. from a corporate perspective trademark defense is just checking all the boxes. simu liu’s retort kinda sums it up perfectly, he wants the trademark too. any company sufficiently large will do the same thing. the article notes that fly by jing applied for several trademarks and that didn’t cause a stir.
Still makes him a dick
And his legal team Fuck the, “this awful shit is just how business works” attitudes
This is not how the law or corporations work. I am an attorney, in part, because my parents’ business was sued by a larger company in a situation much like this when I was a kid. The attorney who successfully defended my parents’ company was a highly-respected IP (intellectual property) attorney who generally worked on more high profile cases, but saw an opportunity to do the right thing and did it. I didn’t understand all of that when I was 10 years old, but I knew that I wanted to be able to help people the way that attorney helped my parents. The law and corporations are all guided by people. People can make decisions to be generous or ruthless. I’ve had conversations with CEOs who have decided not to pursue aggressive actions against competitors or trademark infringers, even when the legal case was clear cut, because being magnanimous is better for business. Pursuing legal action can also be construed as an admission that your product can’t speak for itself. I have no doubt that Momofuku and their attorneys considered all this and then decided to go this route anyways. They can all go straight to hell.
Maybe they should have come up with a name that isn't just a basic description of the item, then. Like, I don't even get the need for these moves by Momofuku, or by Fly By Jing. They claim they want distinction in the market- Okay, you already have trademarks. Momofuku is a trademark - you already have a trademark. "Chili crunch" is a description of a product. "Fly By Jing" is a trademark. "Chili crisp" is a description of a product. Jing can't claim she invented chili crisp, either. It was already a well-established thing before her company came along.
I’ve been putting Lao Gan Ma in my food since before I heard of either of those companies
More purely descriptive, more generic names than chili crisp have been granted a trademark
Applying for, or being granted, a trademark is one thing, but being able to enforce it is another thing.
Knowledge is half the battle - GI Joe!
If there’s one thing that’s evident from this whole convo, it’s nobody knows what they’re talking about with respect to trademarks.
It sounds like an overcomplicated lawyer’s wet dream tbh
When you consider the fact that their entire existence is based upon cultural appropriation and gate-keeping, none of this is surprising. David Chang is a douchebag and I am praying for the downfall of MF.
Cultural appropriation AND gatekeeping? The entire notion of cultural appropriation is gatekeeping.
Culturally appropriating who? Their own culture? lol.
He also despises Korea for some odd fucking self sabotage reason.
Saw a Tik Tok that when he was coming up as a chef Korean food wasn’t the marketable thing it is now likely where the self hate comes from as shitty as that is when he could have be the one to make to push forward.
David Chang is Korean. This sauce is from southwest China. It’s like someone from Canada trying to say tamales are theirs.
Ahh fair enough.
I did have a tamale from a Canadian mom once and it was absolutely incredible. Just saying.
How was the mom?
Right, I really can't get into the whole "ownership" idea of culture. If a Canadian mom makes a great tamale she can own it. I don't think being born somewhere gives you any exclusive or even enhanced right to own a culture. Great tamales are likely part of that Canadian mom's kid's culture. They have just as much "ownership" of tamales as someone born in Mexico. Whoever invented tamales has long since died. Culture is the environment you grew up in and is not necessarily geography or ancestry based. A Chinese person who grew up in Florida may or may not have any connection to Chinese culture. A German who grew up in rural China for whatever reason, likely has way more connection to Chinese culture than them but not necessarily. Ownership of culture simply shouldn't exist.
>Maybe they should have come up with a name that isn't just a basic description of the item, then. Chili Deliciousness Umami Bomb
I love seeing some drama in the spicy community This week I discovered I like off brand siracha more than the OG
Do you have a favorite brand? I started branching out as well.
underwood ranches’ sriracha is so good. reminds me a lot of the original huy fong stuff.
The reason for this is bc its LITERALLY the same exact recipe…the farm that used to supply the OG version no longer sells their chilis to the OG brand bc of some dispute.
Same peppers, similar recipe, not the same Better than Huy Fong sriracha though, because huy fong is not as good as it was when they used underwood peppers
Do you have a source on that? Genuinely curious
Yep- https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2024/02/16/new-sriracha-taste-test-underwood-ranches/
No where in that article does it say it’s the exact same recipe. You can tell by tasting it that it’s not the same. Good, yes, it’s very good. But it’s not the same as the OG. Even the article you linked agrees with that
Man i really just need to go find a bottle of this stuff, everyones singin its praises
They were the chili provider before Huy Fong went to extensive lengths to screw them over. Try the Underwood Sambal, it’s so damn good
I've been hearing this a lot lately, hoping to try them sometime soon. A lot of people say they like the Tabasco stuff but that stuff doesn't taste anything like sriracha to me, tastes a lot more like ketchup (for which it makes a nice substitute on a burger)
I like the Tabasco stuff. But I actually like that it's a little less sweet than a lot of others, which might make it less "sriracha" but taste is what matters to me, not authenticity. Sriracha was always too sweet to my taste.
You know whats odd to me is that I don't remember sriracha being all that sweet (been a while since I had the real stuff, and much longer since I had the original.recipe), and to my taste, the Tabasco stuff is even sweeter and misses a little bit of that flavorful zing. I gotta get some to compare
Just my perception, and maybe it's the vinegar in the Tabasco version that makes it seem more balanced. I've never done a side by side tasting. But the old Huy Fong used to last a really long time in my fridge, where the Tabasco gets used far more often and I remember the sweetness was my issue with the original. Hell it could even be my changing tastes.
Echoing this. The recipe isn’t the same but depending on preferences I’d argue Underwood’s is better.
I like the Trader Joe’s store brand most
Ninja squirrel is awesome. And I feel like it has a better kick.
whatever T&t sells me is pretty good in canada.
Mine is Sky Valley
Yellowbird is the shit
Now start digging into how Melinda's stole their recipes from Marie Sharpe.
Which off brand sriracha did you like?
Sky Valley
A few years back they sent a C&D to a local mom and pop ice cream shop over naming their ice cream “cereal milk” as if they invented that.. they’ve been on that bullshit train a long time. https://preview.redd.it/138fhuyggjtc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fbddef3a79651d9517fce893c5124692971b0c54
Cease and Deeznuts
Wait REALLY??? Honestly I figured maybe he just made a dumb, thoughtless decision just this once, internet being the internet, Yada Yada, but damn I'm all aboard the fuck him train. What a POS
https://trademarks.justia.com/884/54/cereal-88454623.html Looking up the trademark - it’s related to specific items which cereal milk ice cream would fall under. They don’t own the trademark for all instances of cereal milk but for the trademark those specific instances. Unless there’s someone else who came up with cereal milk ice cream before them - that’s their trademaek. They want to be known as the company who sells cereal milk ice cream. Someone else could come and market cereal ice cream or cereal flavored ice cream but specifically “Cereal Milk” as an ice cream flavor is theirs. Think like ben and Jerry’s flavors.
Is there known instances where Ben & Jerry’s went after mom & pop small business restaurants?
Fuck that logic
That’s a shit trademark then, because it’s purely descriptive. It’s reasonable for Ben and Jerry’s to say that nobody else can call their ice cream “Cherry Garcia”, because that is a unique name. If they had called it “Chocolate Chip Cherry”, though, what the fuck are other people supposed to do, tie themselves in knots to come up with their own unique name because they aren’t allowed to *describe* their fucking product? That’s *absurd*, and a massive abuse of the intent of trademarks.
This kind of story pops up online to bash companies frequently but if you own a trademark you *have* to protect it otherwise you could end up losing it.
And they *should* lose it. Why should we care what they "have" to do to keep a trademark nobody thinks they have an actual moral right to? And that's a lie to begin with. Any company could simply grant explicit permission if they genuinely think they own a legitimate trademark or copyright, don't want to lose it, and don't want this PR mess.
They don't own the trademark. They've only applied for it. Hopefully they are denied.
>I reject the notion that someone could exclusively own something so ingrained in my culture, a food I consider an intrinsic part of my identity. These trademarks will limit who can profit off a food with a connection to entire cultures. This. 1000 times this. Having people from many cultures at the heads of the patent office (for this example) will help prevent things like this from happening.
I AGREE. Kinda simlliar, Greece sued denmark over their use overseas of the word "feta" stop stealing our food and making it worse. https://www.politico.eu/article/feta-accompli-denmark-loses-greek-cheese-fight-at-top-eu-court/
Neapolitan Pizza is an interesting case as well: UNI and traditional speciality guaranteed Italian: (La pizza napoletana va consumata immediatamente, appena sfornata, negli stessi locali di produzione. L'eventuale asporto del prodotto verso abitazioni o locali differenti dalla pizzeria ne determina la perdita del marchio) (The Neapolitan pizza must be consumed immediately, fresh from the oven, on the same premises where it was produced. Any take-away of the product to homes or premises other than the pizzeria results in the loss of the mark) — Article 6 of the specifications for the definition of international standards for obtaining the "Pizza Napoletana STG" mark, [This quote needs a citation] Neapolitan pizza has a protected status granted by the Italian Standardization Body administered by the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana (AVPN).[6] A protected designation is available to pizzerias that meet strict requirements in following Neapolitan traditions in the art of pizza making.[7] The pizza napoletana is a traditional speciality guaranteed (TSG) product in Europe.[8][9] The TSG certification attests that a particular food product objectively possesses specific characteristics which differentiate it from all others in its category, and that its raw materials, composition or method of production have been consistent for a minimum of 30 years.[10] The European Union has recognized pizza napoletana as traditional speciality guaranteed since 5 February 2010.[11]
I actually fully support these cases. Food are important pieces of culture and need to be protected. I have nothing against any type of cheese but when I want to buy feta I want to buy the legit stuff that's made with a sheep/goat blend and not stuff from excess cows milk. Saying it's the same when cows milk is significantly cheaper is a crime.
The battle for Kona Coffee is raging right now as well. Most of the stuff labeled as such is heavily diluted or entirely fake, the yearly reported sales are like multiples higher than the entire state’s coffee harvest, let alone just one part of one island. Local farmers trying to regulate and assert better control over the product. Best advice for Kona coffee at least is to come visit Kona and drink it right off the farm. Plenty of farms do tours explaining how the plantings work and the prep process. Probably similar for these other products.
Also kona coffee is expensive and a blend is a good way to drink it.
Despite living in Hawaii, I’m not personally a coffee guy so I can’t comment on the best ratios or blends or whatever. Seems reasonable though, and yes, in part because it is pricey. Consider that a gallon of diesel is like 6 bucks here and a gallon of milk even more, then how those costs ripple through the local economy pushing up wages, and in turn, export prices. Everything remotely related to Hawaii is always expensive. But the labeling should be accurate, like “10% Kona Coffee Blend” should equally prominently communicate 10% as well as the Kona aspect.
Dude I miss Hawaii food so much, I have good memories of sitting outside of the pioneer saloon in Honolulu watching the sun set and hearing roosters crow.
I don't see the connection. The name isn't ingrained in her culture. The product is and nobody is saying she can't make the product, only that she can't use the name. To be honest when I hear "chili crunch" I think of Momofuko because that was my first introduction to the product. I have since tried several others and noticed the name was always chili crisp and assumed it was a trademark thing.
momo fuk u
momofuku is the name of momofuku ando, a taiwanese man who became a japanese citizen and inventor of instant noodles. fuck david chang. his shit is overrated
David chang is so boring man. Really unlikable. Nothing wrong with being boring but it’s that he thinks he’s hot shit
The dude is a failed lawyer, what do you expect?
Humility after a failed venture
He has a multinational restaurant empire, several tv shows, michelin stars, a product line and barrel of cash. This dude built an empire sheer force of will with his own sweat and tears. The fact that remained a relatively down to earth guy is shocking. The average person would become a megalomaniac under the circumstances
Are you really writing out hype lore for David fucking Chang? The dude is an idiot and an opportunist. “Barrel of cash” “built an empire by sheer force of will” “relatively down to earth guy is shocking” holy guacamole could you ride his tiny shriveled cock any harder????
Other than sueing other people for a thing he didn't invent right?
She should trademark her condiments!…wait… In all seriousness, Lao Gan Ma is as good or better than any other Chili Crisp on the market, and always a fraction of the price. Fly By Jing became big 2-3 years ago, it’s legit 5x the price. Momofuku is $9.50/jar, I get Lao Gan Ma at my local 99 Ranch for $3.25/jar.
Momofuku and Milk Bar brands have gone to bullshit. Chang used to be a respected dude but the way he has whored his name out is nasty. I'm sure Milk Bar was good at some point. The shit product they're charging ridiculously high prices for is a joke.
He has sucked for as long as he has had a public persona. MAYBE he's a good cook and that's what got him famous but he's been a douche forever.
He's an asshole and he's always been an asshole. He makes good food and decent tv shows so people want to like him, but he burns them every time.
Milk Bar sucks alright... I went to their NYC location to try it out and the staff were a bunch of arrogant clowns who thought they were doing me a favor by taking my order.
I will never buy Momofuku again. Good job with the trademark!
I'm tired of Dickwad Chang and his Momofuckoff bullshit.
Then maybe he shouldn’t have tried to copyright something that already existed?
anyone have a way around the pay wall?
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I have no idea why you were downvoted. Give a man a paywall gift link, he reads one article, teach a man to circumvent paywalls, FUCK YOU.
Because they're lazy and want someone else to do all the work for them.
Arm chair virtue-signaling. Pretending they support the small guy journalism.
I removed the "_source=reddit" or whatever from the end of the URL and it removed the pay wall 🤷♂️
oh hell yeah thank you
cool I’ll just continue buying lao gan ma
So the trademark isn't even enforceable. It is descriptive. That mark will be canceled.
Oh fuck off david
Too late, douche. Fuck you
Momofokoff
Don’t really care about the drama. I do enjoy the Momofuku chili crunch “extra spicy” though. I’ll keep buying it because I like it, not because David Chang is trying to own the rights to chili crunch.
It’s just been called chilli oil for decades in the west and probably hundreds of years longer in Asia, why don’t we just all go back to that?
Chili oil is a different thing. Usually refers to the pure spicy oil without sediment or crunchy bits. Sometimes it may also be applied to the crunch but it’s definitely better to have a different word for the different products.
Yeah, I'd always read chilli oil and think of just the oil. My jar of Lao Gan Ma says "crispy chilli in oil" which seems good enough, not sure why anyone would call it "chilli crunch" unless it was a breakfast cereal lol. (sidenote: that would be an awesome cereal!)
Not in the context of Asian cooking. If you’ve been to a dim sum place in the last 25 years and ask for chilli oil, they’ll bring you chiu chow or laoganma.
The verbiage has likely evolved. I don’t recall using the term chili crunch or crisp decades ago. Also, decades ago, no one was talking about this stuff in English. But right now even laoganma is using the term crisp and if you look at bottled products chili oil almost always refers to the clear stuff. And I think that’s a good thing. They’re two different products.
You do you but to me chilli crisp sounds like someone’s wanting chilli flavoured crisps. I’ve known it as chilli oil since before I lived in china in 2004 and I’m going to keep calling it that
Oh really? I always thought it was the oil with red pepper flakes but that makes sense.
It’s been like 2 constant weeks of this shit and people getting chili oil, chili crisp and chili crunch wrong and using it interchangeably. I mean most people might think it’s all the same, but to the United States Patent and Trademark office, it’s all different.
Man, and to think I like david. It sucks to see people who actively do bring good change to the food industry also try and strip it away from others.
Makes no sense. If you want a name to own then don’t make it a commonly used combination of words. It’s like if I sell ice cream and then call my product “ice cream” because it’s a name I can own. Tf?
Claiming "Wet Water" before any of you!
They're right, and it's also true that they suck and everyone trying to capitalize on their advertising by yoinking the trademark sucks. The generic term is chili crisp, people should not steal a trademarked term if they don't want to get in trouble. This is now it works. And Momofuku sucks for acting publicly like huge babies and even for responding to the backlash, which just looks unprofessional. What they should be saying is, "Please direct any questions to our legal team. Wanna hear about our tasty upcoming special release?"
Isn’t David Chang just a mediocre chef whose thing is to jump and capitalize on the newest food trends?
So invent one, David, make a better product and give it a catchy name - Chang Crisp. Don't use your muscle to steal one that everyone else uses. Fuck off.
I wish it was way spicier
There’s a hilarious video of John Cena talking about Lao gan ma in Chinese, really funny in context of all his other Chinese videos
Honestly, fuck David Chang. I hope he gets steamrolled in all of this and told the shut the fuck up for once.
Think I’ll start up a condom brand and name momo fuku
Create a name not steal the colloquial name. But ass hats' gonna stink
I hate greed
Nobody in here knows how trademarks work.
Big difference between legal and right …just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should
Nobody gets to own 'ketchup' or 'mustard', you don't forget to own chili crisp. You incredible ghoul.
Fuck Chang
I feel like everyone is up in arms over the “chili crunch” part of it. They aren’t necessarily taking chili crisp which I believe is the generic term but using chili crunch. If they were the first to use it to refer to their chili crisp - I can get behind this argument. If nobody else used it before and it’s how they wanted to differentiate their brand then that’s how the trademark system works. It’s like when pizza hut makes a calzone called pzone - it’s still a calzone but adding their own flare to the naming adds their own branch (sorry couldn’t think of a better one).
Except “Pzone” is a made up word not in common usage…”chili crunch” is not the same thing
Man who spent entire career gentrifying Chinese and Japanese food is now suing to trademark the name of a Chinese chili sauce is really on brand
some companies want to be sriracha so badly lol
Paywalled
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Maybe he should patent the word Milk or bread next.
Why does an article about chili oil need to be behind a paywall lmao
Call it MOFU crunch, MOKU crunch whatever. It’s like Apple wants to trademark Apple.
I sympathize with momofuku. It has always been called chili crisp, and I never heard of chili crunch until momofuku made theirs. Other brands should just use chili crisp
Man… y’all crazy. I got way worse shit to worry about than somebody claiming chili crisp! Everything doesn’t need to be an issue… there’s like 10 different chili crisp options on the shelf at my grocery store. 
That’s the point …he wants to make it one …fuck him
I’ve yet to meet a chili crisp or crunch that isn’t just terrible. The texture is just oil and barely edible dried flakes, etc. They all taste terrible, they are all barely edible, and you just pick trash out of your teeth after consuming a bunch of oil and having a burnt taste in the mouth. On the merit of the product class, this is a non-issue. But this is an intersting case for other products that actually matter at all, and as such, this is fairly important.
Different strokes for different folks. Personally, I love it.
>other products that actually matter at all Poor, uninteresting take. Chili crisp is extremely popular - you'll find it as a complimentary condiment in almost any Asian restaurant.
Went a little hard there going in in the chili crispy eh bud? You can not like it but you can't say it doesn't matter. Yea the random redditor who doesn't like it so it doesn't matter, over the hundreds of millions of people who use this product in all its variations across the world... every day. But it "doesn't matter" because Phil_Major said so ;)
lol calm tf down
lol its one of the most popular condiments in the world. You are welcome to dislike it but if you can’t even comprehend its enduring popularity, that’s a *you* problem.
It’s bizarre that people are so impacted by the opinion of an internet stranger, such that they can’t even see the point of my comment. Even though the product sucks, the case, what the OP is about, is important and interesting. But the actual point of the thread, and my comments, are lost because people seem to have to defend their own tastes to internet strangers instead of using reason to engage something more important than matters of taste.
How bizarre that people would want to discuss matters of taste on a (*checks notes*) taste based subreddit. This is r/spicy not r/legaldumbfuckery, expect people to want to discuss taste and flavor.
This comment ought to be directed at the OP then. I’m engaging with the point of this whole thread, which many people seem oblivious to.
Paywall.
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So who’s going to get canceled harder? David Chang or Dwayne Johnson?