The point ascenray is making is that you’ve got to try [cuisine] to know you don’t like it. And whilst I’m not in the US, I do somewhat agree with the point that you’ve almost got to be trying (or living in Pleasantville) to have absolutely zero idea what sort of things might be Indian food. Surely everyone’s heard of Vindaloo and Chicken Tikka Masala?
We’re not talking about people using “Chinese” as a shorthand for “Asian food that isn’t Sushi or Teppanyaki” (which I personally know lots of people who do)
To be fair, though, there are lots of Indian food places in Australia; even my colleague from Rural Australia who’s never been on an aeroplane (or left the state, for that matter) knows what Indian food is and which dishes they like, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone in the UK who didn’t know anything about Indian food…
I neither know nor care if I’d like any Indian dishes. I do know that I find the stench of the Indian food that coworkers eat at their desk repugnant.
And frankly, being told that not eating a type of food is a “character flaw” on a board where much of the user base is morbidly obese is laughable. Maybe it’s actually healthier to be a little less invested in food.
No, he was quite clear on his point: not knowing Indian food is a character flaw.
Of course. So has the guy in the show. You know, the guy that sparked the outrage over being so ignorant of Indian food.
Your attitude is already reflected in your lack of prenatal and natal nutrition. Your bullimic, hyper-anality, and anorexic attitudes are directly reflected by the sins of your mother and father. You are not getting the proper nutrition and have become a true insular food retard. This fat fuck has more energy stores and vitamins than you have ever had… and more critical brain development. You are frankly undernourished, abject, and impoverished by your prejudices.
Yes, I worked for several years in a company whose call centers were in Philadelphia, Shanghai and Bangalore; for one in another whose call centers were in Switzerland, Hong Kong and Mumbai. And yes, I do know Switzerland is a country and the rest aren’t, but giving the town pretty much identifies the company.
For the first company, the one center people had problems communicating with was the one in Bangalore; I think partly this is because the people who were going to work in Shanghai were tested for English, while the ones from India were not, they were assumed to have English as their first language - even when this was true, it would be a dialect and pronunciation which even our EFL speakers had problems with, the ESL speakers moreso. And the Chinese had learned the same heavily-influenced-by-American English as the majority of the company’s ESL speakers, but they were also quick at offering to switch to IM if there was an accent problem, whereas the Indians wouldn’t offer and would even refuse to do so when asked. Often I prefer IM to the phone simply because I’m tired.
There were many other details in that company’s HR policies which showed that they did not understand a lot of important things about linguistic and cultural differences: a Welshman born in Madrid, who’d always been schooled in English and moved back to the UK at 18 was ordered to take ESL lessons when he was transferred from the UK to the USA; transfers from India and Pakistan didn’t even have the option to have ESL lessons for them or their families, nor were they offered the “dealing with cultural differences” course that I was…
I like a few Indian dishes, but I have to agree on the smell. I never had Indian food until I spent a few years in England in the Air Force, despite growing up in NYC and Long Island (but this was well before the magical cut-off year of 1990 posted above).
Not the first time I’ve seen it on this board. Its a form of snobbery.
Nothing wrong with being invested in food and trying different things, but just because I haven’t tried Ethiopian cuisine (and don’t have a strong desire to do so) doesn’t make one more worldly or better than me just because they have.
What the fuck does this even mean? His attitude is caused by the nutrition of his pre-birth and birth? And how the hell do you jump to statements about eating disorders, and then telling him he doesn’t get proper nutrition because he doesn’t like goa fish curry or saag paneer?
Climb down off your high horse and lay whatever bottle you’re drinking from down. Despite the “prenatal sins” of both my mother and father, I love all manner of different types of ethnic food but it doesn’t make me a better person than Ellis or anyone else that doesn’t share my tastes. Frankly, seeing you attempt to lay into him makes me question having friends and family try my “strange” food for fear of coming off like you.
You’re doing no one favors with your bizarre and misplaced superiority complex.
If you’ve tried it and didn’t like it, fine. But my problem (and ascenray’s, I think) is people under 35 who haven’t tried it who live in a reasonably sized city or its suburbs.
At my favorite Indian joint a few months ago, I overheard a group ordering. One guy asked for a dish “that’s not spicy, and has no cream in it”. I snickered “Why the hell did you come here?” I think he got tandoori chicken and didn’t eat most of it.
Doesn’t bother me. The “I won’t learn the names” is a little weird and insular, but since you’ve tried it it doesn’t bother me.
Just like I find your personality. How quaint!
If Americans substituted their burgers and shakes for vegetarian Indian food, our collective weight would go down orders of magnitude.
Really though, if you live in decent sized city or its suburbs and haven’t tried Indian food, you probably lead a very insular life and eat bologna. At this point in most major cities and suburbs you’ve got “real” Indian food and “curry shacks”, watered down versions of real Indian food. I haven’t seen that point reached in Japanese cuisine or Thai food either. I mean, once you hit the point of real versions of your food and moneymaking joints focused on the bland watered down version of the cuisine, it’s hit the mainstream. Just like Chinese or Italian food in the past.
Why snicker at him? He clearly came with the group, not necessarily of his own accord, and, knowing he personally did not enjoy dishes which were spicy or had cream in them, was trying his best to find something to his tastes. Perhaps he was unable to. Alas. Not everyone likes the same things.
Indistinguishable, it’s amusing because spice and cream are the basis of arguably all Indian food in the US. It’s as though I went to a Thai restaurant and asked for nothing with fish sauce, tofu, or coconut milk. What would they give me exactly?
Do you realize how many different types of food can be found in your average suburb or city? I could go weeks eating at different restaurants, eating tons of different food and not hitting an Indian place because they aren’t that ubiquitous yet. Sure, there’s one a few miles from my house. And I can get hot Indian food from the local grocery store’s cafe anytime I want, but if I didn’t want to, there’s tons of different options that cover a wide range before bologna comes into play.
Um, that was part of my point entirely, actually. You’d have to actively work to avoid Indian, especially since you said it’s served at your grocery store - hot, no less, something mine doesn’t have - and a few mile from your house.
Actually, that wasn’t my point. My point was that you don’t have to work to avoid Indian. I can just walk two feet to the hot Italian food and fill a take-out box with lasagna, meatballs and then top it off with an egg roll (there’s a Chinese hot food bar too).
There’s lots of different foods out there and ignoring a certain kind is actually amazingly easy. It’s also easy to eat a huge variety of other foods while ignoring that certain kind of food.
The two are not mutually exclusive, no matter how much you want to paint people who don’t eat Indian food as sheltered.
This makes me feel better. I’ve been watching the show, and have been vaguely uncomfortable, wondering if I’m racist for liking it I don’t think the exaggerations are excessive or unkind. They make as much fun of Americans as Indians (Jolly Vindaloo Day). It’s not high-brow comedy, but it’s not disgusting (they sell novelties, so it could get a lot more gross if they were inclinded).
Oh, much more so, I think. Notice how when the rival call-center guys fake their American accents, they always choose Deep-South Bubba or Compton Lateesha. That the Indian characters aren’t familiar with American culture actually speaks positively of them, since the American culture depicted is almost invariably something stupid. So far as i can tell, the cultural clash on the American’s part is how he can’t reconcile living with one’s parents well into adulthood or entering into an arranged marriage, yet his own life is such a shambles that he’s not exactly a prime example of American success.
I don’t think the exaggerations are excessive or unkind. They make as much fun of Americans as Indians (Jolly Vindaloo Day). It’s not high-brow comedy, but it’s not disgusting (they sell novelties, so it could get a lot more gross if they were inclinded).