Sriracha, Where art thou?

Earlier this year, I started a Sriracha fan page on facebook. It was neglected for some time until I befriended someone who randomly signed up to become a fan of sriracha.

It had been a few months since I had started the page and I was pleasantly surprised to have found that it now boasted over 12,000 members.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I opened my email to find that facebook had discontinued my fan page. It had over 16,000 members. What hurt most was that I had been busy making press releases, adding youtube videos, and participating in the forums. I was making it into a robust site.

I’ve been corresponding with facebook and I’m hoping they’ll reinstate it soon.

Anyway, second to losing the ability to look over really cool demographic statistics, I was annoyed that I didn’t back up an essay I wrote for the page.

However, while pulling up an old doc at work today, I fortunately found the essay tucked into some case summaries I had written for work. Then I did a google cache search for it and found it again.

Here it is for posterity:

Contemplating the Rooster - science, philosophy, jay-z

The purveyor of that sweet, that nasty, that gushy stuff and his handler.

Capsaicin, the chemical in chili peppers which gives them their “heat” or “woo-ha,” is well-documented by researchers to be an animal deterrent. From the plant’s perspective the presence of capsaicin should protect it from being consumed by mammals.

Enter subset of humans. Enter the select few. Enter us.

But why do their defenses suck against us? We’re mammalian. Your mom’s modified sweat glands which produce milk says you are. (Oh snap, son!) And yet, given the fact that we are mammals, why are we so drawn to the burning sensation that the bottle with the green cap provides? Why do we so diligently seek out that sweet, that nasty, that gushy stuff referenced in “I Just Wanna Love U (Give it 2 me)” by Jay Z featuring Pharrell?

Maybe it’s because we have innate knowledge that the dialectic is true, that there is “no pleasure without pain” or “Ohne Fleiss kein Preis.” Sounds more austere, more true, in german, nein?

Science says we seek da’ sauce because of the pain-stimulated release of endorphins which has euphoriant effects. To which I reply, “duh, scientist, hurry up and pass me the bottle!”

But science did tell me something that made me cry into its starchy labcoat.

The most tragic part of the whole human/sriracha relationship/dance is the story of the noble rooster. The seeds of Capsicum plants are predominantly dispersed by birds, as birds lack the receptor to detect capsaicin. Because they cannot sense capsaicin, it is not an irritant to birds.

So the next time you hold up a bottle of that sweet that nasty that gushy stuff take a moment to acknowledge that the rooster cannot even taste what it proudly represents. Recognize.

It must sometimes crow in longing. It is the modern day Sisyphus. Did Albert Camus ponder the rooster when he introduced his philosophy of the absurd: man's futile search for meaning, unity and clarity in the face of an unintelligible world? Probably not, considering how bland philosophers like their food.

In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus compares the absurdity of man's life with the situation of Sisyphus, the figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a rock up a mountain, only to see it roll down again.

Here, the rooster crows proudly pushing sriracha on us, on the market place, and it even pushes against the plastic to discover why we’re so rabid for sriracha. (It’s as if he’s soulmates with Ariel from Disney’s Little Mermaid before she gets transformed but that’s another posting.) He struggles yet never tastes.

Camus concludes, "The struggle itself...is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." Is the rooster existentially despairing or is it happy?

I’m just glad I’m not the rooster.