Indian food is very popular in the US and I have never heard anybody rag on it ever. Don’t know what kind of media you must be consuming.
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.
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
Do they? I rarely see jokes about it and if I do see jokes they are spicy diarrhea related which I will admit is odd because Americanized Indian food is not spicy at all.
exactly the spicey diarrhea jokes, as well as direct comparisons to vomit. American Dad and Family Guy writers spring to mind.
That’s the kind of jokes those shows make; cheap shots and poop jokes.
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.
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’ve not heard these jokes. I love my Indian food. Taco Bell jokes are 10x more prevalent. What are your sources for Indian food hate?
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.
Casual xenophobia/racism. Much like the whole MSG thing here.
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)
