Indians love their food and the whole celebration that comes with preparing, serving, and indulging in it. From simple meals of lentils and rice, to elaborate vegetarian and non-vegetarian delicacies that are painstakingly prepared (read: hours or days to marinate, and simmered over low heat for durations to whet an appetite), Indian cuisine is a carnival in itself. And when this rich food culture is reduced to statements like, “(Indian food) taste(s) like something that could knock a vulture off a meat wagon”, and is “based entirely on one spice”, is it surprising that Indians across the world are up in arms over it?
After an opinion piece by Gene Weingarten in the Washington Post described Indian food in those very words, celebrity chefs, top diplomats, and people of Indian descent took to Twitter to show their discontent, calling out Weingarten for his reductive opinion.
Weingarten titled his column, ‘You can’t make me eat these foods’, and describes in painful details the various foods he refuses to eat and why. Talking about his disdain for Indian food, he wrote, “the only ethnic cuisine in the world insanely based entirely on one spice. If you think Indian curries taste like something that could knock a vulture off a meat wagon, you do not like Indian food. I don’t get it, as a culinary principle.”
Model-television host and Top Chef judge, Padma Lakshmi, criticised the writer in a tweet, writing: “On behalf of 1.3 billion people kindly f**k off.” Saying that he clearly needed “an education on spices, flavor, and taste,” she offered up her book “The Encyclopedia of Spices and Herbs” in a follow-up tweet.
Lakshmi’s tweet garnered a lot of reactions, and netizens chimed in to give him a “lesson” on the various Indian spices. Writer Shireen Ahmed wrote, “I pride myself on my Pakistani cooking. I also love South Indian, and fusion dishes. That you got paid to write this tripe, and boldly spew your racism is deplorable. May your rice be clumpy, roti dry, your chilies unforgivable, your chai cold, and your papadams soft.”
To combat the growing criticism, Weingarten paid a visit to a popular Indian restaurant to have a proper taste. He later took to Twitter, writing: “Took a lot of blowback for my dislike of Indian food in today’s column so tonight I went to Rasika, DC’s best Indian restaurant. Food was beautifully prepared yet still swimming with the herbs & spices I most despise. I take nothing back.”
On Monday, however, the newspaper revised the column. “A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Indian cuisine is based on one spice, curry, and that Indian food is made up only of curries, types of stew. In fact, India’s vastly diverse cuisines use many spice blends and include many other types of dishes. The article has been corrected.”
Weingarten also tweeted an apology, saying he did not mean to be “insulting”, but people were less than amused.