Indian Food is praised worldwide and celebrated in countries like the UK and Germany. Americans, why do all your comedy shows rag on Indian food?
3 years ago by tetris11 to c/asklemmy
Can you give an example?
I thought you meant for Indian food being praised worldwide at first...
Most people I know that enjoy Indian food switched to Thai prerty quickly. They might still get Indian occasionally, but Thai food does everything better.
Most Indian dishes that are popular in other countries, aren't even Indian. At most they were invented in other countries and portrayed as authentic. So I'm not even sure that counts.
Kind of like how General Tsao's chicken is an American dish
Such an odd way to hear people talk about food.
I’d never consider food to be “switchable”, let alone think another culture does it “better”. Like there’s so much diversity between Indian/Thai, on a dish by dish basis no country is better.
I mean, I can't think of another type of curry that's popular in America...
Like sure, if you're in a huge city there might be one or two other options.
I’d never consider food to be “switchable”, let alone think another culture does it “better”.
I'm honestly at a loss how someone wouldn't be able to understand that...
Not sure I understand why you think a Thai restaurant would be making Indian food or vice versa.
Obviously they're not making the same dishes, but that's like insisting no one can prefer clam chowder to tomato soup because it's not the same dish
I think the point is they are very different cuisines, not interchangeable. They both just happen to be spicier than the American palate is used to.
I don't choose food based on country of origin but what I fancy to eat. Sometimes that's Indian foods sometimes thai, sometimes vietnamese etc.
I live in Australia where there is not a great selection of Indian food (despite a relatively high Indian population) compared to the UK where I also lived. Even so, there are different styles of Indian food with different dishes available just in my suburb. It's nothing like Thai food, which also has a large variety. Both Indian and Thai restaurants have a few dishes that are 'classic' and available at most mainstream restaurants. Like, it would be odd to not have Pad Thai available, or in an Indian, butter chicken.
Sometimes I'll want a pad Thai. Sometimes a butter chicken. The pad Thai is not better than the butter chicken. A green curry is not better than a jalfrezi. They are different flavour profiles.
I would say there is more crossover between dishes from Vietnam, Thailand malaysia and China, with varying levels of spice and flavour but very similar dishes available and common.
Again, you might prefer a Vietnamese sweet and sour chicken, but that doesn't mean Cantonese or Hong Kong style is better or worse.
Butter chicken was invented for the British (in India), but naan bread and the various dal dishes are authentic, and those are the first things I think of. Thai food is good too, but it's different.
Yeah...
But that was invented by people from Pakistan who were just living in India...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_chicken
So its still a stretch to call it Indian food.
And naan is from Iran...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naan
Muslims brought it to India when they conquered it.
It's like saying a Big Mac is authentic Native American food
Gee, how far back does it have to go to be authentic? Tomatoes weren't in Italy until after Columbus brought them (of course after 1300), and didn't catch on until well after the later date mentioned of 1700, so there goes all of Italy's most famous dishes.
Hamburgers are American food. Not Native American food, but American. Next you're going to tell me baguettes are Middle Eastern food because grain was domesticated there, or that camel meat is Native American food because they evolved in America before crossing the land bridge in pre-human times.
According to your source
Naan as known today originates from Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt.
The word Naan originates from Iran.
Anyway you might as well try to make the case that any Indian dish that contains tomatoes, potatoes, chillies, squash, and much else isn't really Indian because they didn't exist there until a few hundred years ago.
I think after a cuisine or manner of cooking has been used in a region for almost a thousand years we are free to say it is authentic to that region, even though it was introduced. That you would deny Indians that, while accepting that Thai cuisine only started using chilli peppers in the last 300 years, opens a broader discussion about your personal understanding of culture and ethnicity.
Further, a Big Mac is a product made by a single corporation, lmao. I’m not going to justify that with further argument. But to use your Naitive American angle; a big part of NA cuisine is a bread called ‘bannock’. It can be savoury or sweet, and every tribe cooks it a little different from every other tribe. It is an important part of Indegenous cooking… and it’s an introduced food. The word bannock isn’t even from any native word. It came about from Scottish settlers/workers surviving on meagre company rations of flour and oil in isolated regions where they had no idea how to get food from the land. First Nations were introduced to it then found themselves in a similar situation as they were pushed off their land and given flour rations by the government so they wouldn’t all die. This all happened so recently my grandparents knew people affected by this.
It’s integral to their culture, even, and anyone who would deny bannock isn’t naitive would rightly be called an idiot by any indigenous person I know. Even though it’s an introduced food. That’s how culture, and food, work.
invented by people from Pakistan who were just living in India
Pakistan was part of India until 1947. These guys ended up on the Pakistan side of the partition, and then returned to India as refugees.
I'm not sure that it's fair to say that they weren't Indian.
That's always how ethnic food works though. It always starts with the original base food then gets modified by the local culture to fit their tastes and available ingredients. Chinese is the same. American Chinese food isn't the same as Indian Chinese food which isn't the same as French Chinese food. American Thai food isn't 100% authentic either, it's just different than Indian food because it's not based on Indian food.
American Chinese food isn’t the same as Indian Chinese food which isn’t the same as French Chinese food.
Sooooo...
If it's all different, then it's not the same.
And if it's not the same, it's not a single thing "praised worldwide".
It's impressive how long people keep commenting on this thread, but still super weird y'all keep agreeing with me but acting like you're explaining what I said to me.
As a Mexican, I don’t take Taco Bell jokes to be offensive. Or even Mexican food jokes to be offensive, for that matter. I mean, i know my people’s food will sometimes make me shit my pants, but fuck it’s delicious. But back to the point, Taco Bell is far from being ethnically offensive, because it is far from being representative of Mexican food.
Everyone knows it's a shitty photocopy of Tex-Mex. We eat it anyway because it's greasy, cheap food with a strong but not offensive flavour of some kind.
Cumin, paprika, and a touch of Cayenne, oh and some MSG
Yeah, the joke isn't just that Mexican food gave them the shits, it's that we still eat knowing that is the case because its so fucking good.
Do Mexicans even know how to be offended, or is it a foreign concept completely? You guys like Speedy Gonzales.
I think a very interesting part of Mexican culture is to learn how to not take ourselves too seriously. I had to learn to deal with being made fun of for the stupidest things. It was always “el que se enoja, pierde (he who gets mad, loses).” So you had to learn how to take it and dish it back. And the idea was to keep it as a battle of wits, without becoming irate and physical. I have to admit, I lost more times than I’d like to own up…
That's neat (the cultural part, sorry you got teased so much). I guess America creates enough butthurt for the whole continent, amiright? :P
You guys like Speedy Gonzales.
They (a good amount of Mexican immigrants at the time) like Speedy because it was pretty much the only remotely positive representation of Mexicans in American television back then...
What's weirder is they also thought his cousin slowpoke was funny. Even tho Slowpoke was a common stereotype of Mexicans, having him on the same show as Speedy made it less bad, because a lazy relative was something everyone of all cultures can relate with.
If they showed all of Speedy's family as the same as Slowpoke it would have been more problematic.
But especially back then, minorities were pretty pumped to get any positive representation
Without getting too deep into it, I think the simplest explanation is that speedy Gonzalez was just funny and entertaining. I don’t think many people at the time stopped to think too much about it being representative of our culture or even a stereotype. Looking back, sure, it is a stereotype, but one that even by then was so outdated that no one thought twice about it perhaps being offensive.
And let's face it, SG is a straight up badass. I love that dude.
Taco Bell was started by a white guy named Mr. Bell. He had a hot dog stand that wasn't doing so well, and talked a Mexican restaurant that always had a line out the door into teaching him how to make tacos. He moved the stand across town and made so much money that he started his own store.
Carl's Jr, and In N Out have similar origin stories.
I'm American and I can't think of a comedy show that makes fun of Indian food. Can you name one of them so I can check it out?
I'd say most medium to large sized cities in the US have Indian restaurants, so it's not so unusual.
Is that a comedy show?
Technically yes
Friends did, Big Bang Theory does all the time, but yeah pretty much every yank comedy contains some negativity towards Indian food. I don't watch much comedy, but it seems to be a meme in their shows.
I don't know if I've ever seen jokes about Indian food, but if you're right I would guess it's for the same reasons Taco Bell gets the same jokes - it's still spicy by "mayonnaise is spicy" standards and (at least my orders) are usually bean heavy and that's a lot of fiber by average American diet standards. The joke is really on us, not the Indian food.
So 2 cartoons that are by the same people. So basically a single source.
Indian food is probably given less shit in the states than most other foods. Mainly just the smell it leaves permeating through everything.
British food is tasteless trash.
Mexican food makes you shit your pants.
Chinese food is eating cats and dogs.
Thai will burn your butthole to death.
German food is angry and has sauerkraut.
Canada just has syrup on everything.
Japan is fish they won't cook.
Irish is all potatoes and sheep belly.
Indian is stinky and smells forever.
Americans deep fry everything.
We're an equal opportunity country. We'll talk shit on everyone.
The spice jokes happen in any nation that culturally lacks a pepper based heat as a common seasoning, towards any food with said spice. Southern states, who share food inspiration with mexico, do not have these jokes. They eat the hottest nonsense sauces, theyre used to the effect.
It's also a joke because if you don't often have spicy food you are going to get the shits when you do have it.
Right, but specifically that joke cannot be made successfully in regions where pepper based spice is common cuisine. Because those people dont have that reaction.
And a large portion of the US makes that spice a common part of normal meals, thanks to proximity to mexico, or international ports.
Basically, this is only funny to people in very isolated communities and the central northern states. Both coasts and the south have plenty of spicy influence.
I'm an exceptional nut job from the Midwest, myself. I'm immune to spicy shits and the Mexicans I know won't eat my hot sauces and think I'm crazy. I've seen people on the internet eat hotter stuff than me and enjoy it, but I've never met someone in real life that does.
As near as I can figure I just like spicy flavors and I'm not as sensitive to capsaicin as normal people are, because it doesn't cause me pain like it seems to do to anyone else. Southern Thai food tastes pretty good after I add a splash of mad dog 357 gold edition to it.
You got the bird gene, lucky bastard
Do they?
It's not just Indian food. A number of mostly older Americans like to make fun of any spicy "foreign" foods that are more adventurous than the local Taco Bell. They do it because their tummies can't handle anything that's not bland to the point of being tastless. These are the same people who think salt and pepper are exotic spices. For the record I am American and I love Indian food
Its not that they arent used to flavored food. You have a built up tolerance to a mildly toxic chemical such that it doesnt cause you intestinal inflammation anymore.
I love heat as much as the next guy, but lets be clear. You dont taste with your butthole, and its a toxin that doesnt discriminate between tongue and tookus.
It is literally a toxin, which is part of why it binds to your pain receptors and not your taste buds.
Which is also why it reacts with your entire digestive system, not just your mouth. Because it is a mammal targeting poison that evolved to deter unwanted predation. Its supposed to make you sick, so you dont eat the pepper and grind its seeds with your teeth.
Its just a toxin that is only deadly in insanely massive doses, that humans are lucky enough to be able to build tolerance for.
Capsaicin is not the first toxin humans ingest for fun. It will not be the last. But while lots of toxins are fun to eat, you shouldnt forget that it is very much a toxin, which is why some people cannot stomach them. Not everyone can stomach eating poisons easily, and you can have too much of them if youre not careful.
E: to clarify, "you dont taste with your butthole" means while capsaicin is a fun flavor boosting chemical when paired with food, you do not get the additional flavor when that chemical passes through your south mouth and shares its little gift regardless.
I appreciate your elaborating.
I was going to say more until I realized that you and I are using different definitions of 'toxin'. There is more than one definition and yours is not the one that I was approaching the subject from. To me, a toxin is something that causes disease. But yes, you're right, a plant is considered toxic for different reasons.
Who made you the expert on old people and their tummies?
I did. I decide those kinda things.
Don't ask who tasked me with this responsibility
A bunch of cranky old relatives who do things like order hibachi chicken at the best Thai restaurant in town, or insist that their steak be cooked until it is flavorless shoe leather
It gets the same jokes as Mexican food usually here. Really, some people's guts just can't handle any amount of spice, and poo jokes are always a hit.
I haven't seen too many shows make fun of Indian food, but to be fair my taste in TV often isn't very mainstream and doesn't tend to include a lot of comedy, so I may not be the right one to answer this.
When I do see it, usually I see them joking about the smell, and I can kind of get that. Don't get me wrong, I love Indian food, I love the flavors and smells and all that goes with it. But all of those wonderful spices can create a powerful smell, it can kind of cling to clothing and such, if you live in an apartment it's very likely you'll smell when your neighbors are cooking Indian food, etc. and I can get how that can be annoying or unpleasant for some people. Honestly, if I was constantly smelling Indian food wafting into my apartment through a shared vent or something, I'd probably get sick of it too.
There's also the fact that a lot of Americans just have a very bland palate, and all of the spices, not to mention heat, can be very overwhelming to people who aren't accustomed to it. Personally when I see these jokes, and again, my experience may not be typical, it tends to be more at the expense of the American having boring taste in food than actually making fun of Indian food itself.
And since I mentioned that people may not be accustomed to it, let's not forget that America is a big, diverse country, and not every part of America has a big Indian population, which means a lot of the country doesn't necessarily have a lot of exposure to indian food. I do happen to live in an area with a lot of Indian families, but you only need to drive maybe about an hour away for your options to dry up pretty quickly. I have friends who genuinely do not have any Indian restaurants anywhere near them, and their grocery options are sometimes kind of limited which may get in the way of making it at home if they wanted to (and not everyone is a great cook or willing to risk messing up dinner with unfamiliar recipes) And that much spice and flavor when you're not used to it can be a bit off-putting. I'm a fairly adventurous eater, but I didn't grow up eating Indian food (my mom is one of those kinds of people who thinks a McChicken is too spicy,) and I know the first time I had Indian I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, I didn't dislike it, but I had to have it a couple times before I really came to appreciate it.
Personally, in my circles the people who don't like Indian tend to be the odd ones out that get made fun of, but again I'm not necessarily representative of America in general, that's just been my own experience. I even know some people who love indian food but can't/shouldn't eat it due to all of the spices and such not sitting well with their stomachs (and there may be a discussion to be had about many American's bland, super-processed diets having negative effects on their gut microbiomes possibly making it harder for their systems to handle certain cuisines, but that's well outside of my depth to really go into, I'm a foodie, not a nutritionist, so take my speculation with a heaping helping of some coarse finishing salt)
let's not forget that America is a big, diverse country
We just did a 5 week trip in the US which was LA, drive to Vegas, fly to NYC, then drive 5000k to the middle of Texas, and man... I keep hearing about all this diversity but that joint is the same all over. Having some mountains in the background instead of a desert, and having a majority RAM 2500s instead of majority Teslas is not the "diversity" I'd been led to believe existed. It's all just chain stores, tipping, and bad coffee anywhere you go.
Most places in the US developed in a similarly shitty way thanks to the logic of American capitalism. That doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t ethnic and cultural diversity.
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Aww I sure hope you aren't basing your opinion off of one of the most purposefully offensive shows out there haha. Indian food is known for its potential heat and the corresponding affects.. and more often than not the joke is about stupid americans who think they're chads who go for the multiple star rating and pay the price. Peter from Family Guy is beloved because of his stupid decisions and we laugh at the consequences!
Also, Indian food is not the only example of this.. Thai Food is my particular masochistic joy =) Give me that pain! It tastes so good!
What is the punchline you see in American media about Indian food?
The stereotype of Indian cuisine is that it sometimes has really strong flavor, sometimes a strong smell to match. Those are not bad things.
I don't have any overall negative associations with Indian food. There are certainly dishes that don't appeal to me, but if anyone wanted to go to an Indian restaurant for dinner, I would say "yes, please".
Edit: I see some comments about "spicy diarrhea" jokes. I see those as a function of people not acclimated to spicy food, not that the spicy food itself is bad. I'm impressed by people who can eat full spicy level Indian food. I would be on a toilet for a day if I ate fully spicy level; that's my problem, not the fault of Indian cuisine overall.
No amount of acclimation will stop an ulcer from reacting badly to spicy food. There are plenty of people who love spicy hot food but physically can't eat it, unfortunately.
odd, never heard of comedy making fun of foreign food.
I personally enjoy a fair bit of Indian food, it's quite varied.
What? I've never seen anyone rag on Indian food.
At worst, the way they eat it, but never the food.
I honestly can't think of seeing anything like that.
If anything we might make fun of some of us who can't take anything spicier than mashed potatoes.
Dang. Now I'm hungry for some saag paneer.
Hollywood and reality are very different. Hollywood makers can be slightly out of touch. In reality people here love Indian food. Many people I know tolerate decent spice levels too.
It's so common people don't even see it. But it's the same thing as Mexican food. The perception is it is spicy and will give you diarrhea.
I firmly believe this is because American people in general don't understand what spices are. Spiced does not mean spicy hot. Spiced is flavourful and they just can't have that. I have dined with Americans that truly believe black pepper is too spicy. We had a Starbucks chai which is absolutely terrible, and they've said "it's too spicy"... What? Their brains equate flavour to spicy heat to bad.
It's stupidly infuriating.
Spiced does not mean spicy hot.
Yea but like... it's way hotter than most other American food by default.
No it isn't... It has more spices. It does not have more capsaicin. Indian food by default is NOT spicy hot. It is spiced. You can get it spicy hot but that's not default.
It's like saying fried chicken is spicy because you can order it with a hot sauce coating. In reality just that style of preparation is spicy.
You can argue semantics until you go blue in the face. If you’re not used to spicy food or hot food, or food that produces a similar feeling in the mouth, you have to be careful with Indian food. Your tolerance level isn’t everyone else’s.
Spices are not heat. End of story. If you don't understand this, you are obviously a pasty white American and the exact point being made.
Any time I used to bring anything with so much as a waft of cumin for lunch, the bitchy conservative office manager would complain.
I now happily WFH.
That just sounds like the perfect opportunity to eat Indian food for lunch every day at work.
Strong odors (as noted in other comments) can cause physical distress to a sensitive individual.
Every office I've worked in has had a policy related to odors.
The same policy covers perfumes and body odor.
Check your handbooks people!
I wish the places I've worked at had a policy like that. I always kind of hated the smell of popcorn because of how it lingers and it's very popular in communal offices. But even more so, wearing perfume or cologne inside of an elevator should be a crime.
We're an office of 4 people. There's no HR dept, no handbook, just chaos. I'm never leaving.
And I bet if she hadn’t been a bitch about it then gradually_adjusting wouldn’t have said anything about it just now.
People tend to want to get along until someone starts being a bitch.
Granted they might be exaggerating, but we only have what we have to go by.
Dunno what you’re talking about there champ
Worldwide? I don't think so. Idk I tried Indian food before it was good but I prefer Peruvian food.
As an American, I too would like to know this.
My problem is with a specific, hyper common ingredient of Indian food: Cumin
I'm sorry, but garlic, onion, cloves, etc don't even come close to the clinging, pervasive staying power of cumin.
I don't like to smell what I cook or eat for days after the fact.
This has never made sense to me. I love the smell of food. When people apologise for the smell of garlic on their clothes, all I can think is "Why?? You smell delicious."
"I could just eat you up"
"Awww... wait you meant that figuratively right? ...right???"
There are two sides to american eating habits.. the ones who think the Wendy's Ghost Pepper fries were too spicy, and the ones who are actively out there inventing a whole new level of spice to torture their taste buds with.
Sadly, the first side is WAAAAAYYYY larger than the second and any level of spice stronger than black pepper will instantaneously send them both to the bathroom and the emergency room for even daring to try something with some flavor on it. And it doesn't help that as far as most people (around here anyways) consider indian food chicken tika marsala and samosas.. and that's the entirety of the menu.
The only other thing I can think of that might cause it is the intention for each bite of bland food (like rice) to have a surplus of flavorings on it, which works for most non spiced foods but may wreak some havoc on people who don't balance out their spice intake with the rest of the meal. There's probably something to be said for overall quality causing some problems as well.
I can't be sure, but from the people I've interacted with, these are reasons I can think of which may explain how things got to where they are.
Side one thinks Ketchup is spicy enough. The other side laughs at them, but they don't understand how much spices hurt side one. This is genetic as far as I can tell - it isn't just you get used to spices if fed them as a kid which side two seems to think.
It's nothing genetic...
At least not for people
Capsaicin is what makes peppers hot, and all mammals are sensitive to it. But birds aren't.
And birds are better are distributing seeds than mammals, so some peppers that evolved to have a lot of capsaicin spread much further. There was an advantage to large mammals not woofing a whole pepper down in one bite.
The difference in people is some like the endorphin rush from their bodies thinking they're in actual pain, and some people don't think it's worth it.
But the vast amount of people that don't like spicy food never work up to it, they just go straight to something crazy spicy and then refuse anything remotely spicy.
Like, if your first time drinking alcohol you just chug a fifth of everclear, it's probably gonna be a while before your second night drinking.
There is a third side who understands that there are more food flavorings then "spicy," and that often excessive spicing is used to hide shitty quality food.
How come everyone gets sick if the go to India ?
Really too many reasons to list
If you're from a country that sanitizes water, you're going to get the shits from water in a place that doesnt. Because your body isn't used to fighting all that stuff off on a daily basis.
But there's also the insane amounts of air pollution in India, again, it's bad for everyone, but especially people whose bodies aren't used to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35PUIhDUFZo
Very relevant.
Basically, it's a combination of new foods and exposure to new bacteria.
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Same reason you get sick going anywhere, the water.
2 things.
It's food that is prepared in India (not essentially the cultural food). They have sanitation issues like other developing nations. Mexico- "don't drink the water".
White people with their sensitive tummies think salt is spicy.
Am American and eat Indian food several times a month. Even here there's hole in the wall restaurants that have sanitation issues and you have to do some investigating before choosing to eat at a new place.
Dude, what the fuck are you talking about? The dirtiest places have the best food it’s just like taco trucks. If it looks like it will give you food poisoning. The food will be delicious.
LoL Egg roll from a gas station. You're unlucky that you didn't end up with worms.
https://tenor.com/bGG38.gif
Could you post some examples of comedy shows making fun of indian food? Otherwise it sounds like you are using anecdata and then drawing an inaccurate and worthless generalization of a diverse genre of "comedy shows."
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Can you give an example? I know that some people have a hard time with the strong smells, but I honestly have never heard it made fun of in any demeaning way. Maybe at worst a character has a bad time on a toilet due to the Indian food being so spicy, but I can't think of how it would be made fun of. Seems well loved here in the States in my experience.
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