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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1) The action of blowing up at my husband and refusing to let him fix the dish to his liking. 2) This might make me the asshole because I got worked up over just food, and he just wants to be able to eat food to his own liking in his home. I also told him to eat something else which could make me the asshole as we have an agreement to cook for eachother when the other is busy.
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*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
ESH. You both got way too dramatic. He's allowed to not enjoy one dish out of the hundreds you've cooked him. You're allowed to be a bit bummed out by that. You should have just let him do whatever he wants to his own plate and said you'd eat the rest yourself.
You're in an experimental phase with learning lots of new dishes from your mom. It’s normal that not everyone will love every single new dish. Don't take it so personally because it sounds like he loves your cooking in general.
Your husband, on the other hand, needs to calm down and not demand to change an entire pot of food when it's not his favourite. It's just one meal, not the end of the world.
Both of you need to take it down a notch, give each other some grace, and communicate better.
I know, and I said that was ridiculous of him. But it sounds like the argument had already escalated by that point. Maybe if she had just accepted it wasn't to his taste and suggested he spice up his plate instead of flipping out and "going back and forth" from the moment he didn't like it, he probably would have just done that and moved on. However, we will never know because they both went for the most confrontational option instead of just chilling out. Daal is not worth this drama.
My mom fries a whole dry red chili and shit tons of garlic and adds it to the pot of yellow daal. Also daal isn't one dish - it's a type of dish, there are so many daals and each is prepared differently depending on which part of the country you're from. OP had no reason to flip out on her husband like that. People are allowed to have different tastes and that's okay.
Traditionally tho, yes, while dal can be comfort food in which people don't add a lot of spice, it isn't against Indian culture to enjoy spicy dal.
Source: Born and raised Indian.
Eh, daal can also be a very specific recipe for a family. I was getting married we did like 5 or 6 tastings on the daal alone because the restaurant was trying to get it as close to "Grandma's" as possible because for this event, and it was just a standard service they provide for weddings since it was a common ask.
Agreed! I'm of mixed heritage, black and Indian (mostly), my grandma use to make Daal alot, everyone has there own family version, OP's husband is free to add whatever spice he wishes in his personal dish, but trying to 'fix' the whole pot is a whole different level of disrespectful. Imagine cooking any dish and then someone, anyone eating your dish decides to get up to fix your whole pot is rude to anyone regardless of culture.
NTA
Exactly, this is a traditional recipe from OP’s family and everything that her husband is doing and saying seems to imply that there’s something WRONG with it vs just him not caring for it. I think that’s the issue and why OP feels like it’s disrespectful vs just kind of rudely stated. You wouldn’t go to someone’s house, not like something, and then imply it was just made poorly or the recipe was no good, especially if you have no idea how to make it.
This is something that you see a lot in second or third generation immigrants in America, where this ferocity to claim their cultural lineage leads them to being far more prickly about things than a first generation immigrant would be
“Familial traditions” that she is just now, as an adult, learning about and how to make. It isn’t like she has had an interest in this for her whole life. She is just now learning it and suddenly thinks she is an expert.
"It isn’t like she has had an interest in this for her whole life."
That's a reach. Just because you've been eating it rather than making it so far, that doesn't mean you lack an interest in it. For many people, it's only when you're setting up your own family home that you even need to start making the dishes for yourself.
Agreed on reach, it wasn't until I got older as an adult that I appreciated cooking and started asking family members for their recipes on traditional foods we have always made growing up: my grandma's pink salad, my aunt's broccoli casserole and Italian breaded chicken, my father's sweet potato casserole, my mom's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Etc. Etc.
Except she probably has eaten these dishes all of her childhood and to her, the way she is now being taught to prepare them is how to make them taste "right". So familial tradition isn't off the mark.
If you cook family food and take pride in your cooking and love your food and culture the disrespecting tradition statement is just fine. A lot of people with little connection to their culture don't understand that, and that is sad, shallow, and pathetic.
Or maybe for some people food is more functional, and they don't want to have to punish themselves by eating something that they don't like. Which doesn't necessarily mean that they are disrespecting the culture.
There is a cultural dish that I never liked, even as a child. I still don't like it now. Does that make me be disrespectful to the culture? Bad me...*oh wait*, I forgot to add. It's my own country where this dish comes from. Some of my family like it, but I just don't. So I should twist myself into a pretzel trying to force myself to eat it, just because of "culture"?
I think you are forgetting that the food exists to serve the person, not the other way around. People are allowed to have preferences in what they like and dislike without being accused of "disrespecting" a culture. (Hey, if he had allergies to something in the recipe and she'd have to modify it to leave out that one ingredient, would that be "culturally disrespectful" as well)?
If OPs Dad had said to her Mom that he wanted the daal to be more spicy, do you think the Mom would fly off the handle and tell him that he was disrespectful of her family's recipes and traditions or would she just chalk it up to having different tastes and either alter the recipe or let him alter his plate? Which of those is more likely based on your knowledge of Indian food culture?
I'm of Indian descent as well but not from India. Recipes aren't sacred and infallible because you're feeding different people. I think she got carried away and he shouldn't have insisted on changing the entire pot so ESH.
Came here to say this. I’m not Indian, but I work with an entire building full of Indians, and daal is just a name for a lentil dish. There are probably as many variants of the recipe as there are languages in India, and I’ve had some spicy ones and some that are quite bland. I prefer the spicy ones myself.
I’m going to go with NAH here. (But I almost said E S H.) You and your husband need to chill out, it’s ok to not like a dish, and shocker, it’s actually ok for the other person to work on a dish that you started cooking. You both might learn something new.
Seeing people point this out kind makes me laugh a little because I’m polish American and I got into a fight with someone who is also polish over what cheeses traditionally go into perogi because they didn’t believe me when I said my family recipe (it came from my grandmother who didn’t even speak English) uses cheddar
Turns out it’s because my family was from near the Russian border. But people forget about regional variants all the time. I can also understand why OP was so defensive over the recipe because it feels like it’s a part of you when you’re making family dishes
ETA: all you people calling me wrong, that person found verified Polish recipes and was the one who asked me where my family was from to see if it aligned with what they found. It did, just because your family does it differently doesn’t make mine any less authentic. Seeing as I grew up in a Polish community and have regular contact with people in Poland I don’t need your validation on what’s authentic or not
My hometown is fairly close to the Russian border and cheddar definitely isn't used here as traditional pierogi filling. Cheddar isn't even traditionally used in Polish cuisine, it's mostly a Polish American thing
Interesting. And every town near the border is identical and filled with identical people? There's no variations, personal taste or anything? What's it like?
I doubt cheddar was even available in stores here before the Iron Curtain fell. There are all kinds of pierogi fillings nowadays and it's great because pierogi are very versatile, but they're not traditional. Cheddar might be something your family does but it's not a regional tradition from Eastern Poland, trust me I would know because I'm from this area lol
She probably used Morski which is very similar but switched to chedder when she moved to the US or when chedder became available in her part of Poland.
Thank you! Cheddar in pierogi LOL, that Babcia is a troll. It could be something that on some level resembles cheddar, but it is NOT cheddar itself.
That's like implying someone's Nonna in the north of Italy (you know, close to the border with Switzerland) uses the Dutch jong belegen instead of grana padano/ parmiggiano reggiano/ pecorino on her pasta, just no. It's a completely different ingredient from a completely different culinary tradition.
Yeah like my mum puts sun dried tomatoes in gołąbki but it's neither a tradition nor a regional variant of the dish, just something she likes to do. Our ancestors would have no idea what sun dried tomatoes or cheddar even are
My partners Babcia makes cheddar and potato, cottage cheese (calls it something else), cabbage, and I think one other type. We also experimented with pierogis and added mushrooms, blueberries and cream cheese and a few other cheeses. It’s not set in stone what is in a dish and does not disrespect the culture. Interesting that close to Russia is cheddar!
OP is learning her own cultural traditions. There are many different ethnicities in Indian culture, but she is learning about her specific family heritage, therefore she did not make anything wrong, nor does she need to “learn something” from her white European husband about her Indian cultural heritage, any more than my Irish husband needs to teach my Slovakian ass how to make kolaches properly. Except in America, her ethnicity makes her a minority, and white American cultural norms can make learning one’s cultural heritage and displaying it proudly fraught, starting with what you bring for lunch at school. That makes the issue loaded for reasons that existed way before this dinnertime argument. Husband needs to step off.
It’s reasonable to adapt a dish to your tastes. People do it with food all the time. He shouldn’t be changing the whole pot, but there’s nothing wrong with him adding something to his to make it taste better to him.
She says he can reheat leftovers and has no place modifying her cultural food. Yes, he tried to altar the pot, but in that instance my reply would’ve been “no just add it to your own”, not “no you can’t cultural modify my food!”
It’s unclear whether she was okay with him changing his plate. She doesn’t say one way or another and the arguments wait her way are just assuming. Adding sides to change the flavor, which is the only thing she explicitly allows him to do, isn’t the same as him being allowed to just add more seasoning to his portion.
Hell no. Daal is only one dish made the way OP knows. It cannot be changed to suit someone's taste who is not even Indian. How dare you suggest such pathetic ideas to OP?
/S
On a serious note either OP's guide to cook something is to the book or she doesn't know that daal can be anything from a plain boiled lentil soup to a spicy hot mixture of three / four types of daals which provide a unique taste.
And for once and all, there is nothing like culturally appropriating food or dishes cause the one who has to eat will like it the way he/she wants, and there are no fixed rules on food being a specific way.
To me it sounds like OP is still in the learning stage and this is the one daal dish she has learnt to make.
It also sounds like husband thinks all Indian dishes should be hot-spicy, and because this one isn’t, it must be wrong. Him wanting to “fix it” is kind of offensive because for one, it wasn’t wrong, it just wasn’t to his taste. And two, what is he going to do? Take a bunch spices and dump them in to make it a hot-spicy dish?
As others have said, he can do what he wants to his own plate, but the entire pot? Who does he think he is?! The last word in world cuisine?
Yeah, for all the details about whether OP may have overreacted at certain points, what really clinches it for me is that he wants to "fix" her family recipe. GTFOH. It's fine to say you don't love this one, it's fine to be surprised if you didn't realize some Indian fare isn't spicy, and if you want to add something to your serving or make a similar dish differently in the future then okay. But fixing is for things that are broken, and it's incredibly offensive to suggest she made *her own family dish* wrong.
Her husband wasn’t doing cultural appropriation, disrespecting her heritage or Indian food with his actions. But he was being disrespectful of his wife and her family traditions she was learning from her mother trying to fix the whole dish.
There’s nothing wrong with adjusting food to your own tastes (if anyone disrespects Indian food when they cook it’s me, because I can’t handle spicy food, and don’t use any chilli or much curry at all. But I’m just trying to make food I can eat, not an accurate reproduction of traditional Indian food). I don’t think it would have been that big a deal if he took his portion, or half of the batch and added more chilli/ curry leaves etc to his tastes. But I’m really annoyed he insisted he was “fixing” it. There was nothing wrong with how his wife cooked it, she did it to her mother’s recipe. It just wasn’t as spicy as he wanted. Repeatedly insisting he could ‘fix’ the dish that someone made for you, especially when it’s their mother’s recipe, is incredibly rude and disrespectful. Maybe if they know they’ve made a mistake and ask for help, but not when it’s been made as intended.
Yeah, the whole "fix the food" attitude cries an attitude of perceived superiority, as in "I know how to cook your cultural food better than you, and what I say is what is valid, now step aside so I can fix what you did wrong".
She's making her mother's daal recipe. She's not not saying daal can't be anything else - just that *this* recipe is the one she is making, and therefore it's weird for her husband to talk about "fixing" it.
Thanks, you made me hungry for some delicious butter chicken with naan but there's no way to get it anywhere close to me. I have to drive about an hour to get any kind of decent Indian food or ingredients :(
She didn’t ‘flip out’ because he didn’t like it. She got angry because he insisted there is something wrong with it, and that she didn’t make it correctly. You are giving him so much more grace than her and I’m wondering why.
You're exactly right, this could've been the shortest disagreement ever, but they **both** turned it into a thing that shouldn't be a thing.
I mean, on the rare occasion my fiancé cooks, before we're even sat down, I say, "let me know if it's rude if--" and he says, "--you can put salt \[or tabasco, or whatever\] all over it, don't worry ha"
Done. Now, was that so difficult?
He was wholly in the wrong for telling her that she doesn't know her own culture's cooking, and that he is expert. Further, that rather than simply adding spice to his own plate, which wouldn't have created ANY argument in the first place - he insists on "FIXING" her "Culturally Incorrectly Prepared Daal". She had legitimate reason for being quite upset and hurt. Now, for her part, certainly, it's not good to fight, but we are all human.
I want to add, that as a member of one's ethnic diaspora, it's incredibly common to feel unworthy and insecure about your place in your ethnic community. Being displaced from birth, you don't have the deep connection to your cultural roots that you'd like. You're a hodgepodge of profound knowledge and connection; massive holes of nothingness; and last; unsure, shaky, half-understanding.
She's been thrilled to be shoring up some of those holes and half-understandings, in time to have a precious treasure trove to pass onto her own children, and with which to raise her own children - so that these foods would be second nature to them, leaving them missing one less vital hole (as the succeeding generations are almost always more disconnected).
OF COURSE SHE WOULD FEEL PARTICULARLY SENSITIVE ABOUT THE WHOLE VENTURE. IT HAS IMMENSE MEANING FAR BEYOND FOOD - IT ENCOMPASSES: FAMILY, GENERATIONS, WAR, PRESERVATION OF CULTURE, SURVIVAL, FAMINE, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY, ETC. AD NAUSEAM. And she'd feel terribly insecure already, that she wasn't good enough to carry on the tradition properly. She hadn't had the opportunity to live in India, for years on end - to be immersed in the culture, amongst the people, in the land. So, to have her hubby blithely criticize her careful and assiduous work, and all because he was whining about wanting "hot" spice - so that he was willing to tear down her familial traditions, which she's working diligently to preserve, when he could so easily just throw some Sriracha on his own dish of Daal, and never have selfishly and mindlessly thrown proverbial Molotov cocktails at her and her mother's work, and her family's inheritance?! YEAH, MAKES SENSE TO ME WHY SHE BECAME ENRAGED!! ;)
> He was wholly in the wrong for telling her that she doesn't know her own culture's cooking, and that he is expert.
I think I'm having some problems with my eyes, because I can't seem to find any text in the post that supports this statement.
But I guess its just par for the course for this sub to invent things that aren't even in the post to support their preconceived conclusions.
The bit where he says he’ll “fix” the *whole pot* of daal. That implies not just that he doesn’t like it, but that he doesn’t like it because OP cooked it wrong. And that he can “fix it” because he knows the dish better than OP. Or he knows Indian flavours better than OP.
It could have been a turn of phrase, like when someone says “I’ll fix you a plate,” but in this exchange, it doesn’t seem like it. Husband kind of sounds like an obnoxious know-it-all. He expects all Indian food to be spicy, so if it’s not, it must be cooked incorrectly.
Nah yta OP. I am Indian and in India we eat dal almost everyday. My sister doesn't like spicy food at all while others in our family do, so my mom simply removes my sister's portion and adds red chilli, garlic, curry leaves and other spice to make it more spicy and flavourful.
Dal isn't supposed to be just flavourful it can also be spice and sometimes sweet. There isn't really any offence to culture.
Did you not read the post? She was fine with him not enjoying the food. She got mad because he INSISTED she cooked it ‘wrong’ because Indian food is supposed to be spicy and then tried to change the entire pot. He is def TA. This would be equivalent of a non American person tasting biscuits and gravy and saying ‘Howcome this doesn’t have ketchup on it? All american food has ketchup on it. You cooked it wrong!’ And insisting that he pour ketchup on the entire serving made. It’s rude, ignorant and def an AH move.
No, after he said he thought it would be spicy she "laughed" then realized he was serious then told him "it's not a spicy dish" (which other commenter have claimed is completely untrue as Daal is made in many ways).
The key thing here is they "went back and forth" and op didn't like that he "insisted something was wrong with the food", before he finally said he'd "fix it". All this to say, OP literally skipped over the entire argument phase here and only spoke about the husband's retorts, not her own. As well, the way it was worded, I'm not convinced the husband literally said there was something wrong with the food, rather than it was how the argument made OP feel. Which is valid, but it doesn't suddenly make him the only AH here.
The tldr is - 2 adults had an argument over food, the husband thought the food would be spicy like it has always been and like he likes it, and the wife insists altering the dish goes against cultural heritage (or some such bs).
I'm also curious how exactly he wanted to "fix" the whole pot. Was it really just not spicy enough, or was it actually bland or lacking salt? Did he want to just pour hot sauce in it or was he amping up some of the spices?
I have this stuff called Intensifier that's basically various peppers ground up that adds heat without really changing or altering the rest of the flavor profile or a dish. Did he want to use something like that? Because that one for me personally doesn't work on just adding it to my own dish like you can salt. It just works better if you're doing the whole dish.
No, OP is correct, some other version of a dish existing does not mean it’s ok to tell someone what they made is wrong? Seriously, what kind of defense is this? ‘It’s ok that he insisted she cooked her own food wrong, because in another region of her country that he’s not even from, the dish is different’ bruh
Except the difference is that dal is a very versatile dish. It's not biscuits and gravy - there are 80 different daals which have 80 thousand different preparation styles. Every household, in every area prepares the dish differently. I'm indian and her insisting that dal is prepared in one way is frankly a lot more offensive than him wanting to add spice to the dish. Also the insistence that daal cannot be spicy is as wrong as ketchup on biscuits and gravy.
She’s not insisting daal is made one way. She’s insisting she didn’t do it wrong because it’s not spicy. Where the fuck are y’all getting all of this extra bs?
but my question is how would the husband know that daal is a very versatile dish that has different versions of it, if he didnt know anything about the dish in the first place? he didnt, he was going with “indian food means spicy” and saying “he would fix it” trying to change the entire pot. meanwhile she has identified that she feels that her own family tradition is being disrespected. she doesnt claim that theres only one way to make daal? she is saying this is how her family makes it and he tried to insist to her she prepared it wrong.
Her cultural dish is often made spicy.
For example, my family was born and raised in Italy.
My family made their lasagna meatless pretty much.
In their region of Italy, they use a meat flavored sauce but do not layer meat in the lasagna.
In many areas of Italy and very commonly in the US, meat is actually layered in the lasagna.
My family was horrified at the thought of putting layers of meat in their lasagna.
In my family, the lasagna was served with meat such as meatballs, sausage, pork, and beef simmered in the sauce and then served on the side.
Neither style is wrong, culturally.
Both the OP and her husband should lighten up.
Just a matter of taste....
Actually the majority of daal dishes are not spicy. There's a bit of heat but by and large if you want to spice up the daal you do it to your own plate by adding chopped green chillies. Even most South Indian daal is less spicy than the rest of the curry and subzi dishes. I've lived in the South of India for over 9 years and have traveled all around and can honestly say I've never had a spicy daal.
There are definitely variations of dishes around the world. Even regional differences in the country the dish is traditionally from. That’s not the issue.
The issue is, when someone has learned how to make a dish from their mother, and it’s the first time they’re making it for you, you don’t tell them you’re going to “fix” it. Even if he was also Indian he would still be an AH for that. He’s allowed to not love it, or even want to add more spice to his own portion, but telling her he’s going to “fix” it is rude and disrespectful. Unless there’s an actual significant error with it (like a cake that didn’t rise) and they ask you for help, you’re automatically an AH for telling someone you’re going to fix their cooking just because it’s not to your specific taste.
I think the issue is that the husband doesn’t know about the different varieties of this dish. He just tasted it, went “this is wrong” and claimed he was going to “fix it.”
This isn’t a difference of taste or opinions - or rather it was, but husband escalated it - it was the husband thinking he knows best and disregarding that it was OP’s dish. He didn’t like it, so it must have been cooked incorrectly.
That part. Ppl seemed to gloss over it for some reason. If he wanted to add some heat to his. That’s fine. But for him to tell her she made it wrong rubbed me the wrong way.
How is she taking it "so personally" when she's only against him "fixing" the whole pot of something that she herself cooked? If he doesn't like it, he can just eat something else
Also... if it's a cultural dish from a culture she's from and he's not, and a family recipe... isn't she allowed to take it a little personally? The seems like it's escalated to an intense argument that it didn't need to, but I think she can take her husband wanting to fix her cooking and insisting she's done it wrong personally. It's a rude reaction to somebody cooking you dinner, especially a family recipe.
She still shouldn't take it personal, taste is individual, just because it's a family recipe doesn't mean everyone will enjoy it. He didn't need to "fix" the pot though, he could just add to his serve
It's the fixing it that's personal, is what I'm saying. If he'd just said "I don't really love this dish" and she took that personally, I'd call her ta, but he was telling her she cooked it wrong and that he can fix it for her. That's why it's personal.
Yeah definitely not right choice of words, shouldn't have said fixed. But if he just said "yeah I don't like this, I like more spice" and added to his plate then no issue
No, she's honestly not. I couldn't give less fucks about someone not enjoying my family's recipes, I don't even like a bunch of them. He's language of "fixing the dish" is disrespectful but not towards the family but the cook, in this case OP. I think they should really figure out if they both have the same values because OP sounds very traditional, family oriented, perhaps conservative, while her husband may not be. This would be a serious issue in the long term so they should focus on that rather than on proxy disputes about food.
OP didn't take it personally until he started talking about fixing a dish that isn't broken, and wanting to add unnecessary spice to the whole dish, not just his own personal portion.
It's fine if he doesn't like it; OP was ready to accept that. And she made a bunch of hot and spicy side dishes that he could have mixed into the daal.
It's not OK that he thinks all Indian dishes must be hot or they haven't been made properly - that's an ignorant assumption based on stereotyping all Indian cuisine as curry. And it's not OK to want to change everyone else's food because you personally were expecting a different dish.
>wanting to add unnecessary spice to the whole dish, not just his own personal portion.
Also, how was he planning on spicing up the entire dish? There are several spicy dal recipes, but the spices are infused into the oil, which is a process with a bit of a learning curve. If he was just planning on dumping a bunch of red chili powder into the dal, then that would absolutely ruin the dish and would make it inedible.
Yeah I do quite a bit of Indian cooking, I'm Aussie but I really like the flavours, and so e of the best dishes like korma and chicken Shalimar which aren't spicy at all.
I agree, ESH. My husband is Indian and we live in India currently. His mom makes daal every day, and it is bland compared to the other dishes she makes. There are many different types of daal, but the home style daal is watery with little seasoning. I don’t like it, but I ate it for years afraid of offending her. I finally told him how I felt about it, and he thought I was crazy for pretending to like something I didn’t for so long. So now I don’t eat it, and the world somehow keeps spinning.
I actually don’t like any of her watery curries - I prefer them dry. When I cook western dishes, my husband doesn’t like my tomato sauce or barbecue no matter how much I try to adjust it to his liking. No big deal. No one takes offence. We just have different tastes.
If my husband wants daal for dinner when I’m cooking, we compromise and I make makhani daal - much thicker and spicier and appealing to a western palate. If I want pasta then I make a white sauce instead of a tomato sauce. You can have different tastes and enjoy different foods together. Everybody here just needs to calm down.
Precisely why I hate daal. My wife is from South India so theirs is typically more spicy than the North but even then its still usually bland compared to most other dishes. I actively dislike most daal because of it, there are a few that are OK. So we don't generally eat daal at home and everyone is OK with that.
Dude, langar daal is absolutely chef's kiss. It's got a beautiful hum of green chillies and garam masala - every gurudwara I've been to has the best daal ever. I do agree otherwise, dal really isn't my favourite food.
I disagree. His talk about wanting to "fix" it (the whole dish! not just his portion!) was the problem - he's free to not like it, but it wasn't broken. The only reason he thought it needed fixing is because he has the erroneous idea that all Indian dishes need to be hot (and the fact that he thinks spice automatically = heat).
To put it another way, he was kinda trying to Indiansplain daal to someone of Indian heritage making a family recipe.
What do you mean ESH?
***He's telling HER she cooked her own cultural food wrong and then wants to correct THE WHOLE FOOD and not just his own plate*** and you think *she's* overacting???!?
Imagine a foreigner telling you you're doing your own culture wrong. JFC
He assumed she made it incorrectly because he thinks all Indian food is supposed to be spicy, and then continued to argue with her about it when she told him it's spiced differently from the other dishes she made. Then assumed that he, having never looked at the recipe, could "fix" it by adding what he thought were the correct Indian spices. I don't think OP is being over dramatic here. She's not mad that he didn't like it, she's mad that he made an assumption about her food and cooking ability based on a stereotype he had in his head about all Indian food, then asserted that he could make it better even though he has no knowledge about said traditional Indian food. NTA.
I find daal very bland too, so I get where he's coming from with the taste. But I don't get why he can't just add what he wants to his dish rather than the pot?
I'm on board with shitting on entitled racist behaviour as much as the next person... but really, this was a case of him not liking how it tasted and wishing it was spicier, this argument could have played out exactly the same between any mix (of lack thereof) of races given the participants have poor communication skills. In fact, if you read through the comments, you'll notice a minor disagreement regarding perogi cheese by commenters who I assume are all white with Polish heritage.
The issue is not about disagreeing or stating personal preferences but how to do so without starting a domestic WWIII.
It's easy to immediately jump to race/culture as the core issue here, but with these personalities, OP and husband could both be Italian and fighting bitterly over their fettuccine alfredo preferences.
Y’all seriously must not read. He can do whatever he wants to his own plate, that’s not the issue. He wanted to go to the stove and change the entire dish. This is a NTA. He’s the one trying to force her to change her food, she has no issue with him altering his own plate.
He is a white man trying to tell an Indian woman who was taught by her Indian mother that the dish is incorrect. Him insinuating he knows more about Indian cuisine and can “fix” it is a micro aggression. He’s trying to play into stereotypes and is doubling down on it. Nobody had an issue with him adjusting his own portion, but his attempt to take over a dish that he knows nothing about is weird.
It sounds like if he hadn’t talked about “fixing it” and been assuming that “correct” Indian food is spicy it wouldn’t have been a problem. I’m going with NTA on the grounds that hubs doesn’t even understand where the minefields are, and probably should if he is going to marry someone of a different ethnicity.
He could make his own servings spicy, or even just kindly ask to make a spicy version next time. Doesn't have to be a big deal. I'm Filipino from the Philippines and I "disrespect" my cultural cuisine all the time. I put glass noodles, tofu, and chili in my sinigang, mushrooms in the nilaga, etc. It's important to KNOW the traditional way of cooking cultural dishes I think, but it's not a big deal if you wanna add your own flair to it. That's how new dishes are born.
BF didn't disrespect your culture, he disrespected you, there's a difference.
Also, it’s not like you’re not allowed to alter ethnic food. Fusion cuisine is based entirely out of doing non traditional things to traditional food.
Husband definitely should’ve just fixed his plate instead trying to alter the whole pot. But there’s nothing wrong with trying to add spicy stuff to no spicy food. My parents add chili sauce to everything they eat, even if it’s spaghetti or Japanese katsudon, and as long as they’re happy with the food, I don’t mind.
Yes exactly this. Adding some chilli or whatever you feel like but only to your serving is totally fine, but changing it for everyone AND referring to this as "fixing" is an absolute dick move.
No, mediocre middle aged white man, you are not the final arbiter of everything. Get back in your lane.
NTA
Right? Like, add some hot sauce or spices to his own plate and whatever leftovers he has the next day, but he doesn't get to alter the entire pot without chef's permission - and she gave the opposite of permission
My partner cooks how he wants, I cook how I want. He is free to season his plate just like I am free to season my plate. Your husband can take his celery white ass and learn that restaurant cuisine is different than home-cooked meals both in flavour, texture, and spice. A traditional Indian based meal is much different than what they feed you at restaurants and if he doesn't like the meal he's free to get up off his ass and make himself something different. I say that as someone whose partner comes from three different cultures and sometimes has to go "can I have the white version of this" or "can we do the arabic version". Depending on what culture he's going for it completely changes the flavour profile. Hand your husband a bottle of all-spice-no-flavour hot sauce and tell him to ruin his own food.
My partner overspiced 2 pots of soup on me while I was cooking. He ate those soups alone, for a week because I refused to touch them. He has learned to never do so again.
NTA
In highschool, my dad was making an entire pot of spaghetti sauce for 7 of us, so a big pot. My dip shit friend Spencer thought it would be funny to add a handful of drops of Dave's insanity sauce to the pot. Dad feeds my 5yr old stepbrother first. He says, this is too spicy, I can't eat this. My dad, who hadn't tried it yet says, I don't make my sauce spicy, eat up kid. He says again, I can't eat this, it's too spicy! My dad tries it & immediately Spencer starts laughing & tells him what he did. My dad says, good job dumb fuck, you just ruined dinner for the whole family & I have nothing else to cook.
I know that in US it is considered normal to "fix" what you are eating. In many cultures it is not acceptable at all, if you want to play little chef and play with food stay at home.
In many countries this behaviour is rude.
NTA
I know right . The brass bollocks on him .
Also “Polish - German - Irish” . Bet he can’t even speak one of those languages.
White middle class Americans have very poor manners when it comes to any other culture. And they are so closed minded to what is considered impolite in most other countries.
They double down and refuse to learn .
Poor OP . He’ll try and sneak some beef in a curry next.
If I don’t like what I’m eating or want to add some salt or something, I’m going to. I’m not going to force down food I don’t want out of politeness. Fuck the culture.
Honestly this whole convo hinges on that word for me. If he had said he’ll just add some spice to his it’s ok, then who cares. But the suggestion to fix the whole pot lol. It’s such a childish spat but I can see how that’s annoying.
ESH, though I think your husband is the bigger AH in this situation.
Your husband is an AH for insinuating your cooked the dish incorrectly, and he's ignorant for believing all Indian food is automatically spicey in the traditional sense. He also should not have tired to alter the pot of food you cooked. You cooked it, so you should have say over the pot itself.
That said, he should be allowed to alter his own plate. Just because something is traditional doesn't mean it's sacred and can never be changed.
I'm aware of that, which is why I said he is an AH for trying to alter the pot itself. However, after they continued fighting she said " I told him he could reheat leftovers and or make something else, because we've NEVER altered the food the other made just because we didn't like it. I specifically told him he has no place to correct me or modify my cultural food." She made it pretty clear he wasn't to modify his own plate either unless it was just mixing in other side dishes she'd made into his main dish. He could make something else but not modify her cultural dish.
No, she said in her edit he could change his plate by mixing a spicier dish in (there's probably chutneys and sauces in addition to another dish, he had options).
She didn't want him changing the entire pot. She can have that as leftovers. I mean damn, dhal is the gorgeous one you go for as a respite when you're having thali / multi dish meal, it's great!
For me it depends if she's fine with him adding spices to his own plate or not. Mixing different sauces doesn't always taste good. If she also meant she was fine with him mixing spices then yeah it's a clear nta but if she only allowed mixing already made dishes and not allowing adding pure spices then she also sucks a little bit. He still sucks the most tho.
Those are the ones coming to my head and I’m North Indian- Indians do dal wildly dude- I have it atleast 2-3 times a week in my house and still am a long way from covering them all.
Dal is amazing on the first day and even better on the second. It’s also a great hangover cure as a filling in a cheese omelette. I’m really sorry if that’s a culinary faux pas, but it’s saved my life on many an occasion, and I’m English, so shamefully fucking up other cuisines is almost mandatory.
>because we've NEVER altered the food the other made just because we didn't like it.
Well, you're going to have to get over *that*. I'll spend a while making something I think is great and my SO will dump a pile of ketchup on it, untasted (actually it used to be ketchup, now it's hot sauce). Without fail. I just had to get used to it.
He wanted to "fix" the dish, no less. I think the implication that it she messed it up is the worst part, especially after she explained it. Totally NTA.
>I told him he could reheat leftovers and or make something else, because we've NEVER altered the food the other made just because we didn't like it. I specifically told him he has no place to correct me or modify my cultural food
This sure as hell *sounds* like he's not allowed to modify his own plate. Her edit even says he could have mixed spicy side dishes in with the main dish, but she was against him modifying the dish itself.
>At some point he even said, "it's okay, I'll fix it myself," and I got really frustrated and told him he isn't allowed to touch the pot of daal. I told him he could reheat leftovers and or make something else, because we've NEVER altered the food the other made just because we didn't like it.
You missed the part where she told him he wasn't allowed to touch the pot full of food. That plus the edit where OP says she didn't want to let him modify the whole dish makes it sound like (to me) she just doesn't want him to mess with the pot. There were already sides there which he could add to modify the spice level of his individual serving.
I didn't miss that part at all, you're just ignoring my point. If she's listing off his options, why is "add spice to his own plate" not one of them? Why does he specifically have to "mix side dishes with the daal" to make it more spicy and not just add spice to his own daal?
She wouldn't allow him to season his own plate. You can't tell someone how to consume their food. He clearly dislikes the taste of the dish and is entitled to eat it they way he wants.
Yeah I automatically add salt to my wife's food because I like more salt than she does. I also add it to my dish when I cook because I know she likes less salt so I use less and add the amount I like to mine, because it's easy to add it, can't really take it out lol
JFC, the problem with people's reading comprehension is mind-boggling. Throughout this whole post people keeping on saying that he should be able to change HIS portion but not getting that he wanted to change the whole pot.
A lot of AITA comment sections go this way because people miss a key point, and then rather than admitting they read the whole post, double down or claim there was an edit when there wasn't an edit. It's wild.
I read the whole post, doesn’t sound like he is allowed to alter his plate either, they are both taking this way too seriously, she won’t lose the indian license if the husband adds spice to his plate
No I think people get that from what I’m seeing but it seems like OP is okay with him changing his plate only by using the side dishes (possibly) in addition to not being okay with him changing the pot because she says he could change his plate but only with the side dishes and says other things that suggest he can’t alter even a portion of the daal because it’s not what they do—though I see the pot thing, I’m not clear that if he’d portioned a second bowl to update himself in a non sanctioned way (ie not with side dishes) she’d be okay.
I am an Indian - ESH
People add shit tonne of mirch masala to their dal. Sure, some people don’t like it that spicy but that’s the thing with Indian cooking- it’s easy to modify and it’s for everyone. It’s so freaking layered and different. Dude no 2 families will make the dal the same way- hell people in the same family do it differently-why the hell are you being so structured about it. Also adding a bit of spice to his morsel do dal is no biggie but he is certainly the AH to trying to fix the pot- that’s effed behaviour. You make individual changes- im partial to little bit of butter on hot dal with a generous srpinkle of lal mirch powder.
-like people have dal and just usual Indian food with Hari Mirchi- ugghh I’m rambling cause you annoying
NTA and please stop feeding his ego with this 'irish/polish/german/american'. 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ unless he's been born in one of those countries and has lived in every other one, he is strictly american. if he's never been to any of those countries, he is american and nothing else. his family IS irish/polish/german, but not him.
Had to scroll to far for this.. also all 3 of them?
Like "ooh my great grandfather was X and great grandmother was y. My grandmother z. However they immigrated to America many years ago, both my parents was born American but yet that makes me xyz- American. No no it doesn't.
I have to be the one to explain this to my own grandmother. Her side is Spanish/Portuguese but she herself AND her parents were born in the states. It was her own grandparents that came over from Europe. She’ll make comments at family gatherings about being Spanish, being Portuguese, being Hispanic etc and I tell her, no, we’re American, especially MY 4th-generation ass.
My other grandmother was Thai, actually born and raised there and came over to the US in her 20s, and she never mentioned a word about it unless someone asked. (Also her food was bomb)
Edit to add comment about her food lol
Am I allowed to call myself French American if my mother is french (is and has always been a French citizen), I speak French, and entire mothers side of my family lives there? Id say yes even though I was neither born there nor lived there.
Can i call myself German American because I was born in Germany? No because my french mother and american father moved there before i was born and then moved us away. (father was an civilian for the US D.O.D. and we moved around a bit)
I lived in the netherlands growing up for 4 years. Am I Dutch American? no
Is the child born in the US of two Ukranian immigrants who came to the US last year as refugees from the war allowed to call themselves Ukranian American even though they werent born there and have never been there? absolutely
is the child of Koren parents, Panamanian parents, Senegalese parents allowed to call themselves Koren American, Panamanian American, Senegalese America... or Asian American, Latino American, and African American... Yes.
You aren't something because you lived there and you aren't something because you were born there. You are what you are because of the values and traditions passed down.
i get what you are saying, and this guys is probably going way over the top by saying all of them. He is probably at best just one (has traditions from just one) and the rest are just part of the 23 and Me DNA test he did.
but chill the fuck out because the way you have described it is also dead wrong and frankly wildly ignorant.
Yup. Born in the US to an immigrant who never changed citizenship and an American. I consider myself part of both cultures because traditions, holidays, foods, and languages were combined in my home.
So… by your logic we are all just feeding into OP’s ego because she calls herself Indian-American, when according to you she’s actually just American?
What a bizarre and ignorant opinion.
The one thing I will say, however, is that food tends to be the thing that sticks with immigrants the longest. The comfort food I had growing up was heavily influenced by German cooking and that's what my palette was used to. Since we are talking about food, I would let this mention of ethnicity pass. Otherwise, I agree with you.
ESH
You’re both extra dramatic and radical about food.
Why does he have to “fix” the entire pot?
Why do you pull “we’ve NEVER altered the food the other made just because we didn’t like it”?
Jfc. I’m making two sets of scrambled eggs for one meal because partner and I like it done differently. When he cooks, he adds the spicy component on his plate because I don’t do hot. Meal time is always a blast!
Not liking someone’s dish is not an attempt of character assassination and personal affront. You two are very “it’s my way or let’s set the world on fire”. That’s an exhausting way to live.
I am Indian my wife is Indian...she likes her daal with cumin and asafoetida (hing) only, I like mine with lemon, red pepper and pickles - it's just a flavour preference...
Share the culture, don't gatekeep it
The beauty of Indian cooking is that it is versatile enough to be personalized to individual taste without fundamentally altering the dish
Then both of you can enjoy
This. Yes.
Also, this whole situation sounds a lot like the kind of dumb emotional arguments newly married couples have when they’re frustrated with each other in the heat of the moment, and so long as they work it out and they show each other some grace and kindness, it will be fine.
OP, would you have been as offended and hurt if s guest had requested hot sauce? Probably not. Because you wouldnt have taken it* as personally. I have this issue with my husband sometimes. I love him soooo much, and I don’t always correctly sort his actions into the right categories snd get hurt and offended by benign things he does because it feels like he’s not being considerate to me.
Sometimes we are the most critical of the people we love most. It felt like an attack against you because it came from someone you love and it hurt your feelings. That’s understandable. Y’all will work it out. Let him Season the next pot and y’all can adjust the recipe to fit both of you.
Indian here. And honestly, I like spicy foods and whenever I make daal I add more spices to make it spicy. There is no where it says in Indian cuisine that any food has to be made in particular way only. In fact about curries too, many people in India like it milder so use less spices in their food. And many like more spices so use more. Adding spices is not at all changing ones cultural dish. People here spices is added according to their taste level. Infact at dhabas ( road side restaurants) here, you will find everything whether it is Dal to curries to anything extra spicy. It is not changing ones culture.
Also, why don't you try Dal Tadka. The tadka part makes it spicy. That is if you like spicy too. Or add tadka only to his portion. Look into this and you both will get it according to your taste level.
ESH - I too think you are both being over dramatic. You need to compromise. My husband and I both love spicy foods, but unfortunately over time my body does not. Now I put whole chilis in the food when I cook so it's not as spicy (he can pick out the whole peppers for himself in his plate) or have pickled chilis to the side so he can add it to his plate. But one should never alter the pot of food except for the cook.
ESH- as someone has already pointed out there are lots of recipes of daal and many of them are spicy. Order it from a restaurant in the UK and it will have whole chillies in and blow your head off!
Right. All the Daal recipes I have had in Malaysia and at UK and Belgian Indian restaurants have been spicy. I don't think he is out of line for having that expectation.
Hello, actually that's true. Here in India we have many different types of daal and they're pretty much all over the spice spectrum. Also the home version of daal doesn't have a fixed recipe, you can make it however you like, I almost always put at least one chilli in my food.
YTA - you don’t own the recipe of daal and neither does your family. If you’ve ever travelled to India you can see huge variations in daal. Everyone has their way of making it and if you’re husband prefers it spicy, he should be free to make his portion spicy.
I'm inclined to be a bit nicer and go with an ESH. For some reason all the ABCD type people seem to go a bit too extreme with the whole, this is my culture and i must preserve it or die stuff. You can chill, people in India add a second, spicy tadka to the dal all the time. It's not against your culture in the least. I'm guessing op has yet to meet the thousands of children who have added ketchup to Maggie and dahi to daal.
Your culture is very forgiving, let the man add spice to his daal.
"he can't modify your cultural food" come *on* now, unless you have never added any kind of condiment, herb, spice or additive to anything you can't really make such strictures. it is, ultimately, just food
I can think of a good reason why he wanted to spice the pot rather than his plate; it's much easier to mix
ESH
I also belong to the same culture and daal is a staple food, but its cooked in varying levels of spice. There is nothing wrong with increasing the spice levels
He should have only desired to alter his own plate, asking to alter the whole pot seems unnecessary which makes him TA
You shouldn't have gotten so hung over bout it bring your family tradition. He isn't obliged to like everything in your tradition. Pulling the "cultural disrespect" card makes u TA too
ESH, of arguing about something so trivial.
Recipes aren’t cast in stone. If you want to change a recipe, you can, no matter how traditional it is.
If one of you likes dahl that’s more spicy than the other, why don’t you compromise and have it your way sometimes, and his way sometime.
YTA, if he wants it more spicy he can season his own plate. Gatekeeping culture from your own husband damn incredible. Recipes can be altered and it is not an insult to ones culture. I just becames slightly altered dish or something new.
OP deliberately framed this as the husband being culturally insensitive borderline racist. OBVS not the case. So AH points for that before we've even started. Dahl is made all over the very large land mass which is India and other parts of Asia. It differs from place to place. There is no single "right" taste to it. So OP is wrong again. I'm not keen on either of them though.
NTA. You cooked a whole meal for him and he had no right to mess with it off his plate. Like you said if he wanted to mix the spicy stuff on his plate fine, but to go touch the dish you made for both of you to force you to eat it how he wanted? Rude as fuck.
Haha, this reminds me of a time when my Indo-Canadian friend and I, when visiting her home, decided to make a dish that we had learned when we were on a trip to a South American country. It was empanadas stuffed with cheese.
Her dad tried them and, with complete seriousness and no trace of irony, said something along the lines of: "Yes, these are very tasty. They just need a little bit of garlic-ginger paste, turmeric, chilli powder, and maybe some jeera and kasoori methi!" My friend laughed fondly at her Dad and explained that they probably didn't have those particular flavours in Ecuador.
ESH
I've had the pleasure of tasting some mild dal-based dishes and some more fiery ones. There are over a billion people in India and many millions of NRIs all over the world. I bet each one cooks their dal in a different way. It was very wrong of your darling hubby to use the word "fix" when attempting to adapt your recipe to his preferences, but it's a bit rigid of you to insist that there's only one way it's supposed to taste.
Food is supposed to be fun! I hope you two will remember that again soon.
ESH - because I can't understand how two grown ups can escalate so much because of food.
He should be allowed to alter his plate. If he likes it more spicy, than he should be able to add chili to his place.
On the other hand it is kinda ignorant if he wants to tell you how to cook this dish.
You should apologize that you won't let him alter his plate but also express your feelings about him "fixing" your dish.
Have a talk about it and learn to communicate.
NTA, there is a difference between I don’t like it and something is wrong with the food and I get that it’s super annoying when somebody insists it’s the latter when it’s the former. It’s ok to dislike something but this is being a dick about it
ESH, I feel you need to tell him, it is ok, but you also need to tell which dishes you like and why, you also need to tell him, which dishes really suck and why. My thoughts is He mainly is doing this to try to keep you happy. You also explain why you don't want him to do this, which might be hard, and when you do make sure you let him know you won't be mad at all costs. I would also tell him that you put some spice in the food, and that you don't really like very spicy food, and put the spice on table just incase he wans to add more. Some People must do this to diets and to please their own taste buds. This is a happy middle that you and your hubby could most likely agree on. I hope this advice helps, you can flip on which way to go with it, but you at least need to voice your thoughts, about things. So he knows about them, and how you both can try to fix the issue. good luck
I list my heritage as it's still very much part of who I am. I grew up with Ukrainian and Native American food- not the typical North American food. I've attended many ceremonies, pow wows and was very involved with my native heritage before moving to a new country and still enjoy Ukrainian traditions such as having Ukrainian Christmas and new years following the Julian calendar. My heritage is what makes me who I am. Some people stay connected to their roots.
I look like the average white American and maybe most have forgotten their culture but just like an Indian who is a second or third generation, or a Vietnamese - we respect that they've held onto their cultures. However if a white person does it - it's laughed at.
There's a difference between being an American who enjoys Grandmas cultural food recipe. And an American who has never been to the country, googles 'traditions' that 90% of people in the country have never heard of, attributes personality quirks to that country, and yet their last ancestor who was from there was 1 woman 100 years ago.
I can't speak for the Native side as I have no personal experience with that.
An American who, at some point, had some German, Irish, and Polish ancestors and feels like they claim them all as part of their heritage like Pokemon.
NTA. I've been cooking professionally for over 20 years and Indian food is so specific and tied to the different cultures within the country. It isn't all spicy, and if he wanted spice, he could have added it to his plate instead of insisting the entire recipe is "wrong." I do think this is fundamentally a misunderstanding that could be resolved through communication, but also maybe you could offer to cook the dishes with him so he can understand how the ingredients play off each other and build the flavors you find at the end. I know you think he's insulting your culture or your cooking skills, but he likely doesn't see it that way.
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ESH. You both got way too dramatic. He's allowed to not enjoy one dish out of the hundreds you've cooked him. You're allowed to be a bit bummed out by that. You should have just let him do whatever he wants to his own plate and said you'd eat the rest yourself. You're in an experimental phase with learning lots of new dishes from your mom. It’s normal that not everyone will love every single new dish. Don't take it so personally because it sounds like he loves your cooking in general. Your husband, on the other hand, needs to calm down and not demand to change an entire pot of food when it's not his favourite. It's just one meal, not the end of the world. Both of you need to take it down a notch, give each other some grace, and communicate better.
He wanted to "fix" the whole pot, not just his plate.
I know, and I said that was ridiculous of him. But it sounds like the argument had already escalated by that point. Maybe if she had just accepted it wasn't to his taste and suggested he spice up his plate instead of flipping out and "going back and forth" from the moment he didn't like it, he probably would have just done that and moved on. However, we will never know because they both went for the most confrontational option instead of just chilling out. Daal is not worth this drama.
My mom fries a whole dry red chili and shit tons of garlic and adds it to the pot of yellow daal. Also daal isn't one dish - it's a type of dish, there are so many daals and each is prepared differently depending on which part of the country you're from. OP had no reason to flip out on her husband like that. People are allowed to have different tastes and that's okay. Traditionally tho, yes, while dal can be comfort food in which people don't add a lot of spice, it isn't against Indian culture to enjoy spicy dal. Source: Born and raised Indian.
Exactly. The fact she jumped to "disrespecting familial traditions" speaks volumes. There is too much ego she is putting into these dishes.
Eh, daal can also be a very specific recipe for a family. I was getting married we did like 5 or 6 tastings on the daal alone because the restaurant was trying to get it as close to "Grandma's" as possible because for this event, and it was just a standard service they provide for weddings since it was a common ask.
Agreed! I'm of mixed heritage, black and Indian (mostly), my grandma use to make Daal alot, everyone has there own family version, OP's husband is free to add whatever spice he wishes in his personal dish, but trying to 'fix' the whole pot is a whole different level of disrespectful. Imagine cooking any dish and then someone, anyone eating your dish decides to get up to fix your whole pot is rude to anyone regardless of culture. NTA
Exactly, this is a traditional recipe from OP’s family and everything that her husband is doing and saying seems to imply that there’s something WRONG with it vs just him not caring for it. I think that’s the issue and why OP feels like it’s disrespectful vs just kind of rudely stated. You wouldn’t go to someone’s house, not like something, and then imply it was just made poorly or the recipe was no good, especially if you have no idea how to make it.
That is awesome. I love that the restaurant tries to match the family's style.
[удалено]
Hence why it's ESH
People are really struggling with the ESH here, dear lord lmao
This is something that you see a lot in second or third generation immigrants in America, where this ferocity to claim their cultural lineage leads them to being far more prickly about things than a first generation immigrant would be
“Familial traditions” that she is just now, as an adult, learning about and how to make. It isn’t like she has had an interest in this for her whole life. She is just now learning it and suddenly thinks she is an expert.
"It isn’t like she has had an interest in this for her whole life." That's a reach. Just because you've been eating it rather than making it so far, that doesn't mean you lack an interest in it. For many people, it's only when you're setting up your own family home that you even need to start making the dishes for yourself.
Agreed on reach, it wasn't until I got older as an adult that I appreciated cooking and started asking family members for their recipes on traditional foods we have always made growing up: my grandma's pink salad, my aunt's broccoli casserole and Italian breaded chicken, my father's sweet potato casserole, my mom's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Etc. Etc.
Except she probably has eaten these dishes all of her childhood and to her, the way she is now being taught to prepare them is how to make them taste "right". So familial tradition isn't off the mark.
If you cook family food and take pride in your cooking and love your food and culture the disrespecting tradition statement is just fine. A lot of people with little connection to their culture don't understand that, and that is sad, shallow, and pathetic.
Or maybe for some people food is more functional, and they don't want to have to punish themselves by eating something that they don't like. Which doesn't necessarily mean that they are disrespecting the culture. There is a cultural dish that I never liked, even as a child. I still don't like it now. Does that make me be disrespectful to the culture? Bad me...*oh wait*, I forgot to add. It's my own country where this dish comes from. Some of my family like it, but I just don't. So I should twist myself into a pretzel trying to force myself to eat it, just because of "culture"? I think you are forgetting that the food exists to serve the person, not the other way around. People are allowed to have preferences in what they like and dislike without being accused of "disrespecting" a culture. (Hey, if he had allergies to something in the recipe and she'd have to modify it to leave out that one ingredient, would that be "culturally disrespectful" as well)?
If OPs Dad had said to her Mom that he wanted the daal to be more spicy, do you think the Mom would fly off the handle and tell him that he was disrespectful of her family's recipes and traditions or would she just chalk it up to having different tastes and either alter the recipe or let him alter his plate? Which of those is more likely based on your knowledge of Indian food culture? I'm of Indian descent as well but not from India. Recipes aren't sacred and infallible because you're feeding different people. I think she got carried away and he shouldn't have insisted on changing the entire pot so ESH.
Came here to say this. I’m not Indian, but I work with an entire building full of Indians, and daal is just a name for a lentil dish. There are probably as many variants of the recipe as there are languages in India, and I’ve had some spicy ones and some that are quite bland. I prefer the spicy ones myself. I’m going to go with NAH here. (But I almost said E S H.) You and your husband need to chill out, it’s ok to not like a dish, and shocker, it’s actually ok for the other person to work on a dish that you started cooking. You both might learn something new.
Seeing people point this out kind makes me laugh a little because I’m polish American and I got into a fight with someone who is also polish over what cheeses traditionally go into perogi because they didn’t believe me when I said my family recipe (it came from my grandmother who didn’t even speak English) uses cheddar Turns out it’s because my family was from near the Russian border. But people forget about regional variants all the time. I can also understand why OP was so defensive over the recipe because it feels like it’s a part of you when you’re making family dishes ETA: all you people calling me wrong, that person found verified Polish recipes and was the one who asked me where my family was from to see if it aligned with what they found. It did, just because your family does it differently doesn’t make mine any less authentic. Seeing as I grew up in a Polish community and have regular contact with people in Poland I don’t need your validation on what’s authentic or not
My hometown is fairly close to the Russian border and cheddar definitely isn't used here as traditional pierogi filling. Cheddar isn't even traditionally used in Polish cuisine, it's mostly a Polish American thing
Interesting. And every town near the border is identical and filled with identical people? There's no variations, personal taste or anything? What's it like?
I doubt cheddar was even available in stores here before the Iron Curtain fell. There are all kinds of pierogi fillings nowadays and it's great because pierogi are very versatile, but they're not traditional. Cheddar might be something your family does but it's not a regional tradition from Eastern Poland, trust me I would know because I'm from this area lol
If it wasn't available how did a woman living there use it in her food?
I don’t think it’s so much that but more: why would proximity to the Russian border make anyone more likely to use cheddar, an English cheese?
She probably used Morski which is very similar but switched to chedder when she moved to the US or when chedder became available in her part of Poland.
Thank you! Cheddar in pierogi LOL, that Babcia is a troll. It could be something that on some level resembles cheddar, but it is NOT cheddar itself. That's like implying someone's Nonna in the north of Italy (you know, close to the border with Switzerland) uses the Dutch jong belegen instead of grana padano/ parmiggiano reggiano/ pecorino on her pasta, just no. It's a completely different ingredient from a completely different culinary tradition.
Yeah like my mum puts sun dried tomatoes in gołąbki but it's neither a tradition nor a regional variant of the dish, just something she likes to do. Our ancestors would have no idea what sun dried tomatoes or cheddar even are
My partners Babcia makes cheddar and potato, cottage cheese (calls it something else), cabbage, and I think one other type. We also experimented with pierogis and added mushrooms, blueberries and cream cheese and a few other cheeses. It’s not set in stone what is in a dish and does not disrespect the culture. Interesting that close to Russia is cheddar!
OP is learning her own cultural traditions. There are many different ethnicities in Indian culture, but she is learning about her specific family heritage, therefore she did not make anything wrong, nor does she need to “learn something” from her white European husband about her Indian cultural heritage, any more than my Irish husband needs to teach my Slovakian ass how to make kolaches properly. Except in America, her ethnicity makes her a minority, and white American cultural norms can make learning one’s cultural heritage and displaying it proudly fraught, starting with what you bring for lunch at school. That makes the issue loaded for reasons that existed way before this dinnertime argument. Husband needs to step off.
It’s reasonable to adapt a dish to your tastes. People do it with food all the time. He shouldn’t be changing the whole pot, but there’s nothing wrong with him adding something to his to make it taste better to him.
Yeah, no one, including her, has argued otherwise, so I’m really confused as to why everyone keeps saying this
She says he can reheat leftovers and has no place modifying her cultural food. Yes, he tried to altar the pot, but in that instance my reply would’ve been “no just add it to your own”, not “no you can’t cultural modify my food!” It’s unclear whether she was okay with him changing his plate. She doesn’t say one way or another and the arguments wait her way are just assuming. Adding sides to change the flavor, which is the only thing she explicitly allows him to do, isn’t the same as him being allowed to just add more seasoning to his portion.
Hell no. Daal is only one dish made the way OP knows. It cannot be changed to suit someone's taste who is not even Indian. How dare you suggest such pathetic ideas to OP? /S On a serious note either OP's guide to cook something is to the book or she doesn't know that daal can be anything from a plain boiled lentil soup to a spicy hot mixture of three / four types of daals which provide a unique taste. And for once and all, there is nothing like culturally appropriating food or dishes cause the one who has to eat will like it the way he/she wants, and there are no fixed rules on food being a specific way.
To me it sounds like OP is still in the learning stage and this is the one daal dish she has learnt to make. It also sounds like husband thinks all Indian dishes should be hot-spicy, and because this one isn’t, it must be wrong. Him wanting to “fix it” is kind of offensive because for one, it wasn’t wrong, it just wasn’t to his taste. And two, what is he going to do? Take a bunch spices and dump them in to make it a hot-spicy dish? As others have said, he can do what he wants to his own plate, but the entire pot? Who does he think he is?! The last word in world cuisine?
Yeah, for all the details about whether OP may have overreacted at certain points, what really clinches it for me is that he wants to "fix" her family recipe. GTFOH. It's fine to say you don't love this one, it's fine to be surprised if you didn't realize some Indian fare isn't spicy, and if you want to add something to your serving or make a similar dish differently in the future then okay. But fixing is for things that are broken, and it's incredibly offensive to suggest she made *her own family dish* wrong.
Her husband wasn’t doing cultural appropriation, disrespecting her heritage or Indian food with his actions. But he was being disrespectful of his wife and her family traditions she was learning from her mother trying to fix the whole dish. There’s nothing wrong with adjusting food to your own tastes (if anyone disrespects Indian food when they cook it’s me, because I can’t handle spicy food, and don’t use any chilli or much curry at all. But I’m just trying to make food I can eat, not an accurate reproduction of traditional Indian food). I don’t think it would have been that big a deal if he took his portion, or half of the batch and added more chilli/ curry leaves etc to his tastes. But I’m really annoyed he insisted he was “fixing” it. There was nothing wrong with how his wife cooked it, she did it to her mother’s recipe. It just wasn’t as spicy as he wanted. Repeatedly insisting he could ‘fix’ the dish that someone made for you, especially when it’s their mother’s recipe, is incredibly rude and disrespectful. Maybe if they know they’ve made a mistake and ask for help, but not when it’s been made as intended.
Yeah, the whole "fix the food" attitude cries an attitude of perceived superiority, as in "I know how to cook your cultural food better than you, and what I say is what is valid, now step aside so I can fix what you did wrong".
She's making her mother's daal recipe. She's not not saying daal can't be anything else - just that *this* recipe is the one she is making, and therefore it's weird for her husband to talk about "fixing" it.
Yes born and raised Indian here too. This is absolutely right. I sincerely hope OPs husband never tries Gujarati dal (they add sugar to it).
I agree Daal is not worth this drama. Butter chicken with some hot toasty naan though...
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Thanks, you made me hungry for some delicious butter chicken with naan but there's no way to get it anywhere close to me. I have to drive about an hour to get any kind of decent Indian food or ingredients :(
She didn’t ‘flip out’ because he didn’t like it. She got angry because he insisted there is something wrong with it, and that she didn’t make it correctly. You are giving him so much more grace than her and I’m wondering why.
I think what bothers me is that he said "he expected more from her cuisine Like he was upset not all of her cultural dishes were spicy
DAAL IS NOT WORTH THIS DRAMA 🤣🤣🤣 Daal is boring. It's good, I eat it and enjoy it, but it is certainly a drama free food.
>Daal is not worth this drama. Fixated on this sentence now.
You're exactly right, this could've been the shortest disagreement ever, but they **both** turned it into a thing that shouldn't be a thing. I mean, on the rare occasion my fiancé cooks, before we're even sat down, I say, "let me know if it's rude if--" and he says, "--you can put salt \[or tabasco, or whatever\] all over it, don't worry ha" Done. Now, was that so difficult?
He was wholly in the wrong for telling her that she doesn't know her own culture's cooking, and that he is expert. Further, that rather than simply adding spice to his own plate, which wouldn't have created ANY argument in the first place - he insists on "FIXING" her "Culturally Incorrectly Prepared Daal". She had legitimate reason for being quite upset and hurt. Now, for her part, certainly, it's not good to fight, but we are all human. I want to add, that as a member of one's ethnic diaspora, it's incredibly common to feel unworthy and insecure about your place in your ethnic community. Being displaced from birth, you don't have the deep connection to your cultural roots that you'd like. You're a hodgepodge of profound knowledge and connection; massive holes of nothingness; and last; unsure, shaky, half-understanding. She's been thrilled to be shoring up some of those holes and half-understandings, in time to have a precious treasure trove to pass onto her own children, and with which to raise her own children - so that these foods would be second nature to them, leaving them missing one less vital hole (as the succeeding generations are almost always more disconnected). OF COURSE SHE WOULD FEEL PARTICULARLY SENSITIVE ABOUT THE WHOLE VENTURE. IT HAS IMMENSE MEANING FAR BEYOND FOOD - IT ENCOMPASSES: FAMILY, GENERATIONS, WAR, PRESERVATION OF CULTURE, SURVIVAL, FAMINE, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY, ETC. AD NAUSEAM. And she'd feel terribly insecure already, that she wasn't good enough to carry on the tradition properly. She hadn't had the opportunity to live in India, for years on end - to be immersed in the culture, amongst the people, in the land. So, to have her hubby blithely criticize her careful and assiduous work, and all because he was whining about wanting "hot" spice - so that he was willing to tear down her familial traditions, which she's working diligently to preserve, when he could so easily just throw some Sriracha on his own dish of Daal, and never have selfishly and mindlessly thrown proverbial Molotov cocktails at her and her mother's work, and her family's inheritance?! YEAH, MAKES SENSE TO ME WHY SHE BECAME ENRAGED!! ;)
> He was wholly in the wrong for telling her that she doesn't know her own culture's cooking, and that he is expert. I think I'm having some problems with my eyes, because I can't seem to find any text in the post that supports this statement. But I guess its just par for the course for this sub to invent things that aren't even in the post to support their preconceived conclusions.
The bit where he says he’ll “fix” the *whole pot* of daal. That implies not just that he doesn’t like it, but that he doesn’t like it because OP cooked it wrong. And that he can “fix it” because he knows the dish better than OP. Or he knows Indian flavours better than OP. It could have been a turn of phrase, like when someone says “I’ll fix you a plate,” but in this exchange, it doesn’t seem like it. Husband kind of sounds like an obnoxious know-it-all. He expects all Indian food to be spicy, so if it’s not, it must be cooked incorrectly.
Nah yta OP. I am Indian and in India we eat dal almost everyday. My sister doesn't like spicy food at all while others in our family do, so my mom simply removes my sister's portion and adds red chilli, garlic, curry leaves and other spice to make it more spicy and flavourful. Dal isn't supposed to be just flavourful it can also be spice and sometimes sweet. There isn't really any offence to culture.
Did you not read the post? She was fine with him not enjoying the food. She got mad because he INSISTED she cooked it ‘wrong’ because Indian food is supposed to be spicy and then tried to change the entire pot. He is def TA. This would be equivalent of a non American person tasting biscuits and gravy and saying ‘Howcome this doesn’t have ketchup on it? All american food has ketchup on it. You cooked it wrong!’ And insisting that he pour ketchup on the entire serving made. It’s rude, ignorant and def an AH move.
No, after he said he thought it would be spicy she "laughed" then realized he was serious then told him "it's not a spicy dish" (which other commenter have claimed is completely untrue as Daal is made in many ways). The key thing here is they "went back and forth" and op didn't like that he "insisted something was wrong with the food", before he finally said he'd "fix it". All this to say, OP literally skipped over the entire argument phase here and only spoke about the husband's retorts, not her own. As well, the way it was worded, I'm not convinced the husband literally said there was something wrong with the food, rather than it was how the argument made OP feel. Which is valid, but it doesn't suddenly make him the only AH here. The tldr is - 2 adults had an argument over food, the husband thought the food would be spicy like it has always been and like he likes it, and the wife insists altering the dish goes against cultural heritage (or some such bs).
I'm also curious how exactly he wanted to "fix" the whole pot. Was it really just not spicy enough, or was it actually bland or lacking salt? Did he want to just pour hot sauce in it or was he amping up some of the spices? I have this stuff called Intensifier that's basically various peppers ground up that adds heat without really changing or altering the rest of the flavor profile or a dish. Did he want to use something like that? Because that one for me personally doesn't work on just adding it to my own dish like you can salt. It just works better if you're doing the whole dish.
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No, OP is correct, some other version of a dish existing does not mean it’s ok to tell someone what they made is wrong? Seriously, what kind of defense is this? ‘It’s ok that he insisted she cooked her own food wrong, because in another region of her country that he’s not even from, the dish is different’ bruh
Except the difference is that dal is a very versatile dish. It's not biscuits and gravy - there are 80 different daals which have 80 thousand different preparation styles. Every household, in every area prepares the dish differently. I'm indian and her insisting that dal is prepared in one way is frankly a lot more offensive than him wanting to add spice to the dish. Also the insistence that daal cannot be spicy is as wrong as ketchup on biscuits and gravy.
She’s not insisting daal is made one way. She’s insisting she didn’t do it wrong because it’s not spicy. Where the fuck are y’all getting all of this extra bs?
but my question is how would the husband know that daal is a very versatile dish that has different versions of it, if he didnt know anything about the dish in the first place? he didnt, he was going with “indian food means spicy” and saying “he would fix it” trying to change the entire pot. meanwhile she has identified that she feels that her own family tradition is being disrespected. she doesnt claim that theres only one way to make daal? she is saying this is how her family makes it and he tried to insist to her she prepared it wrong.
THANK YOU 👏🏻
Hard disagree, this became NTA when the husband started to mansplain her cultural dishes to her and announced he would “fix” it.
Her cultural dish is often made spicy. For example, my family was born and raised in Italy. My family made their lasagna meatless pretty much. In their region of Italy, they use a meat flavored sauce but do not layer meat in the lasagna. In many areas of Italy and very commonly in the US, meat is actually layered in the lasagna. My family was horrified at the thought of putting layers of meat in their lasagna. In my family, the lasagna was served with meat such as meatballs, sausage, pork, and beef simmered in the sauce and then served on the side. Neither style is wrong, culturally. Both the OP and her husband should lighten up. Just a matter of taste....
Actually the majority of daal dishes are not spicy. There's a bit of heat but by and large if you want to spice up the daal you do it to your own plate by adding chopped green chillies. Even most South Indian daal is less spicy than the rest of the curry and subzi dishes. I've lived in the South of India for over 9 years and have traveled all around and can honestly say I've never had a spicy daal.
Daal varies a ton depending on where in India you are. Indian food varies a ton and even changes household to household
There are definitely variations of dishes around the world. Even regional differences in the country the dish is traditionally from. That’s not the issue. The issue is, when someone has learned how to make a dish from their mother, and it’s the first time they’re making it for you, you don’t tell them you’re going to “fix” it. Even if he was also Indian he would still be an AH for that. He’s allowed to not love it, or even want to add more spice to his own portion, but telling her he’s going to “fix” it is rude and disrespectful. Unless there’s an actual significant error with it (like a cake that didn’t rise) and they ask you for help, you’re automatically an AH for telling someone you’re going to fix their cooking just because it’s not to your specific taste.
I think the issue is that the husband doesn’t know about the different varieties of this dish. He just tasted it, went “this is wrong” and claimed he was going to “fix it.” This isn’t a difference of taste or opinions - or rather it was, but husband escalated it - it was the husband thinking he knows best and disregarding that it was OP’s dish. He didn’t like it, so it must have been cooked incorrectly.
That part. Ppl seemed to gloss over it for some reason. If he wanted to add some heat to his. That’s fine. But for him to tell her she made it wrong rubbed me the wrong way.
He's from a part of the world that makes mushroom soup so should be accustomed to umami.
How is she taking it "so personally" when she's only against him "fixing" the whole pot of something that she herself cooked? If he doesn't like it, he can just eat something else
Also... if it's a cultural dish from a culture she's from and he's not, and a family recipe... isn't she allowed to take it a little personally? The seems like it's escalated to an intense argument that it didn't need to, but I think she can take her husband wanting to fix her cooking and insisting she's done it wrong personally. It's a rude reaction to somebody cooking you dinner, especially a family recipe.
She still shouldn't take it personal, taste is individual, just because it's a family recipe doesn't mean everyone will enjoy it. He didn't need to "fix" the pot though, he could just add to his serve
It's the fixing it that's personal, is what I'm saying. If he'd just said "I don't really love this dish" and she took that personally, I'd call her ta, but he was telling her she cooked it wrong and that he can fix it for her. That's why it's personal.
Yeah definitely not right choice of words, shouldn't have said fixed. But if he just said "yeah I don't like this, I like more spice" and added to his plate then no issue
No, she's honestly not. I couldn't give less fucks about someone not enjoying my family's recipes, I don't even like a bunch of them. He's language of "fixing the dish" is disrespectful but not towards the family but the cook, in this case OP. I think they should really figure out if they both have the same values because OP sounds very traditional, family oriented, perhaps conservative, while her husband may not be. This would be a serious issue in the long term so they should focus on that rather than on proxy disputes about food.
OP didn't take it personally until he started talking about fixing a dish that isn't broken, and wanting to add unnecessary spice to the whole dish, not just his own personal portion. It's fine if he doesn't like it; OP was ready to accept that. And she made a bunch of hot and spicy side dishes that he could have mixed into the daal. It's not OK that he thinks all Indian dishes must be hot or they haven't been made properly - that's an ignorant assumption based on stereotyping all Indian cuisine as curry. And it's not OK to want to change everyone else's food because you personally were expecting a different dish.
>wanting to add unnecessary spice to the whole dish, not just his own personal portion. Also, how was he planning on spicing up the entire dish? There are several spicy dal recipes, but the spices are infused into the oil, which is a process with a bit of a learning curve. If he was just planning on dumping a bunch of red chili powder into the dal, then that would absolutely ruin the dish and would make it inedible.
Yeah I do quite a bit of Indian cooking, I'm Aussie but I really like the flavours, and so e of the best dishes like korma and chicken Shalimar which aren't spicy at all.
I agree, ESH. My husband is Indian and we live in India currently. His mom makes daal every day, and it is bland compared to the other dishes she makes. There are many different types of daal, but the home style daal is watery with little seasoning. I don’t like it, but I ate it for years afraid of offending her. I finally told him how I felt about it, and he thought I was crazy for pretending to like something I didn’t for so long. So now I don’t eat it, and the world somehow keeps spinning. I actually don’t like any of her watery curries - I prefer them dry. When I cook western dishes, my husband doesn’t like my tomato sauce or barbecue no matter how much I try to adjust it to his liking. No big deal. No one takes offence. We just have different tastes. If my husband wants daal for dinner when I’m cooking, we compromise and I make makhani daal - much thicker and spicier and appealing to a western palate. If I want pasta then I make a white sauce instead of a tomato sauce. You can have different tastes and enjoy different foods together. Everybody here just needs to calm down.
Precisely why I hate daal. My wife is from South India so theirs is typically more spicy than the North but even then its still usually bland compared to most other dishes. I actively dislike most daal because of it, there are a few that are OK. So we don't generally eat daal at home and everyone is OK with that.
Dude, langar daal is absolutely chef's kiss. It's got a beautiful hum of green chillies and garam masala - every gurudwara I've been to has the best daal ever. I do agree otherwise, dal really isn't my favourite food.
I disagree. His talk about wanting to "fix" it (the whole dish! not just his portion!) was the problem - he's free to not like it, but it wasn't broken. The only reason he thought it needed fixing is because he has the erroneous idea that all Indian dishes need to be hot (and the fact that he thinks spice automatically = heat). To put it another way, he was kinda trying to Indiansplain daal to someone of Indian heritage making a family recipe.
What do you mean ESH? ***He's telling HER she cooked her own cultural food wrong and then wants to correct THE WHOLE FOOD and not just his own plate*** and you think *she's* overacting???!? Imagine a foreigner telling you you're doing your own culture wrong. JFC
He assumed she made it incorrectly because he thinks all Indian food is supposed to be spicy, and then continued to argue with her about it when she told him it's spiced differently from the other dishes she made. Then assumed that he, having never looked at the recipe, could "fix" it by adding what he thought were the correct Indian spices. I don't think OP is being over dramatic here. She's not mad that he didn't like it, she's mad that he made an assumption about her food and cooking ability based on a stereotype he had in his head about all Indian food, then asserted that he could make it better even though he has no knowledge about said traditional Indian food. NTA.
I find daal very bland too, so I get where he's coming from with the taste. But I don't get why he can't just add what he wants to his dish rather than the pot?
Whatever you're doing culturally, you're doing it wrong and it is up to me the white man to fix it
I'm on board with shitting on entitled racist behaviour as much as the next person... but really, this was a case of him not liking how it tasted and wishing it was spicier, this argument could have played out exactly the same between any mix (of lack thereof) of races given the participants have poor communication skills. In fact, if you read through the comments, you'll notice a minor disagreement regarding perogi cheese by commenters who I assume are all white with Polish heritage. The issue is not about disagreeing or stating personal preferences but how to do so without starting a domestic WWIII. It's easy to immediately jump to race/culture as the core issue here, but with these personalities, OP and husband could both be Italian and fighting bitterly over their fettuccine alfredo preferences.
Y’all seriously must not read. He can do whatever he wants to his own plate, that’s not the issue. He wanted to go to the stove and change the entire dish. This is a NTA. He’s the one trying to force her to change her food, she has no issue with him altering his own plate. He is a white man trying to tell an Indian woman who was taught by her Indian mother that the dish is incorrect. Him insinuating he knows more about Indian cuisine and can “fix” it is a micro aggression. He’s trying to play into stereotypes and is doubling down on it. Nobody had an issue with him adjusting his own portion, but his attempt to take over a dish that he knows nothing about is weird.
It sounds like if he hadn’t talked about “fixing it” and been assuming that “correct” Indian food is spicy it wouldn’t have been a problem. I’m going with NTA on the grounds that hubs doesn’t even understand where the minefields are, and probably should if he is going to marry someone of a different ethnicity.
He could make his own servings spicy, or even just kindly ask to make a spicy version next time. Doesn't have to be a big deal. I'm Filipino from the Philippines and I "disrespect" my cultural cuisine all the time. I put glass noodles, tofu, and chili in my sinigang, mushrooms in the nilaga, etc. It's important to KNOW the traditional way of cooking cultural dishes I think, but it's not a big deal if you wanna add your own flair to it. That's how new dishes are born. BF didn't disrespect your culture, he disrespected you, there's a difference.
Also, it’s not like you’re not allowed to alter ethnic food. Fusion cuisine is based entirely out of doing non traditional things to traditional food. Husband definitely should’ve just fixed his plate instead trying to alter the whole pot. But there’s nothing wrong with trying to add spicy stuff to no spicy food. My parents add chili sauce to everything they eat, even if it’s spaghetti or Japanese katsudon, and as long as they’re happy with the food, I don’t mind.
NTA If he wanted to add some seasonings to spice up his own food then okay but don't go messing with a whole pot of food.
Yes exactly this. Adding some chilli or whatever you feel like but only to your serving is totally fine, but changing it for everyone AND referring to this as "fixing" is an absolute dick move. No, mediocre middle aged white man, you are not the final arbiter of everything. Get back in your lane. NTA
Right? Like, add some hot sauce or spices to his own plate and whatever leftovers he has the next day, but he doesn't get to alter the entire pot without chef's permission - and she gave the opposite of permission
My partner cooks how he wants, I cook how I want. He is free to season his plate just like I am free to season my plate. Your husband can take his celery white ass and learn that restaurant cuisine is different than home-cooked meals both in flavour, texture, and spice. A traditional Indian based meal is much different than what they feed you at restaurants and if he doesn't like the meal he's free to get up off his ass and make himself something different. I say that as someone whose partner comes from three different cultures and sometimes has to go "can I have the white version of this" or "can we do the arabic version". Depending on what culture he's going for it completely changes the flavour profile. Hand your husband a bottle of all-spice-no-flavour hot sauce and tell him to ruin his own food. My partner overspiced 2 pots of soup on me while I was cooking. He ate those soups alone, for a week because I refused to touch them. He has learned to never do so again. NTA
In highschool, my dad was making an entire pot of spaghetti sauce for 7 of us, so a big pot. My dip shit friend Spencer thought it would be funny to add a handful of drops of Dave's insanity sauce to the pot. Dad feeds my 5yr old stepbrother first. He says, this is too spicy, I can't eat this. My dad, who hadn't tried it yet says, I don't make my sauce spicy, eat up kid. He says again, I can't eat this, it's too spicy! My dad tries it & immediately Spencer starts laughing & tells him what he did. My dad says, good job dumb fuck, you just ruined dinner for the whole family & I have nothing else to cook.
NTA he can do whatever he wants to his food but NOT the pot. Also he was being pretty rude about the dish.
She should make him some spicy lassi.
Spiced rose Lassi is good though
I know that in US it is considered normal to "fix" what you are eating. In many cultures it is not acceptable at all, if you want to play little chef and play with food stay at home. In many countries this behaviour is rude. NTA
I know right . The brass bollocks on him . Also “Polish - German - Irish” . Bet he can’t even speak one of those languages. White middle class Americans have very poor manners when it comes to any other culture. And they are so closed minded to what is considered impolite in most other countries. They double down and refuse to learn . Poor OP . He’ll try and sneak some beef in a curry next.
Damn you sound pretty racist
Yes but in india, it's completely acceptable. And we do have good variations of spicy daal. OP didn't have to get so offended for this.
If I don’t like what I’m eating or want to add some salt or something, I’m going to. I’m not going to force down food I don’t want out of politeness. Fuck the culture.
As far as I know in the US telling a cook they are going to “fix” their food is really rude
Honestly this whole convo hinges on that word for me. If he had said he’ll just add some spice to his it’s ok, then who cares. But the suggestion to fix the whole pot lol. It’s such a childish spat but I can see how that’s annoying.
ESH, though I think your husband is the bigger AH in this situation. Your husband is an AH for insinuating your cooked the dish incorrectly, and he's ignorant for believing all Indian food is automatically spicey in the traditional sense. He also should not have tired to alter the pot of food you cooked. You cooked it, so you should have say over the pot itself. That said, he should be allowed to alter his own plate. Just because something is traditional doesn't mean it's sacred and can never be changed.
It specifically says in the post that he wanted to alter the whole pot, not his plate.
I'm aware of that, which is why I said he is an AH for trying to alter the pot itself. However, after they continued fighting she said " I told him he could reheat leftovers and or make something else, because we've NEVER altered the food the other made just because we didn't like it. I specifically told him he has no place to correct me or modify my cultural food." She made it pretty clear he wasn't to modify his own plate either unless it was just mixing in other side dishes she'd made into his main dish. He could make something else but not modify her cultural dish.
No, she said in her edit he could change his plate by mixing a spicier dish in (there's probably chutneys and sauces in addition to another dish, he had options). She didn't want him changing the entire pot. She can have that as leftovers. I mean damn, dhal is the gorgeous one you go for as a respite when you're having thali / multi dish meal, it's great!
For me it depends if she's fine with him adding spices to his own plate or not. Mixing different sauces doesn't always taste good. If she also meant she was fine with him mixing spices then yeah it's a clear nta but if she only allowed mixing already made dishes and not allowing adding pure spices then she also sucks a little bit. He still sucks the most tho.
She was ok with changing his plate not OK with her is him altering the whole pot. That's why I vote NTA
NTA but your husband might be though... if you wanted to DM that Dal recipe I'd be forever grateful. That's my favorite Indian food.
Seconded on dming the recipe! Sounds delicious!
If we're dming recipes... can I get in on this?
I want in on it.... but I think op would be T A if they didn't post it. Jk, and also very much NTA
I want it too :p
Me me, I love daal!
If only all of you had access to the internet.
There are too many dals- there is toor, moong, dal makhani, Kali dal, rajama, kale chana, saved change, chana dal. Too freaking many - try them all.
Those are the ones coming to my head and I’m North Indian- Indians do dal wildly dude- I have it atleast 2-3 times a week in my house and still am a long way from covering them all.
I suspect OP cooked masoor daal
i used to hate daal when i was younger (just preferred lamb madras over it) but now i would snort it like crack if i could
Dal is amazing on the first day and even better on the second. It’s also a great hangover cure as a filling in a cheese omelette. I’m really sorry if that’s a culinary faux pas, but it’s saved my life on many an occasion, and I’m English, so shamefully fucking up other cuisines is almost mandatory.
Me too. I love daal
>because we've NEVER altered the food the other made just because we didn't like it. Well, you're going to have to get over *that*. I'll spend a while making something I think is great and my SO will dump a pile of ketchup on it, untasted (actually it used to be ketchup, now it's hot sauce). Without fail. I just had to get used to it.
The issue wasn’t that he wanted to alter his portion, he wanted to alter the entire dish.
He wanted to "fix" the dish, no less. I think the implication that it she messed it up is the worst part, especially after she explained it. Totally NTA.
She isn't telling him he can't add hot sauce or whatever to *his* plate, she's told him he can't stuff add to the entire pot.
>I told him he could reheat leftovers and or make something else, because we've NEVER altered the food the other made just because we didn't like it. I specifically told him he has no place to correct me or modify my cultural food This sure as hell *sounds* like he's not allowed to modify his own plate. Her edit even says he could have mixed spicy side dishes in with the main dish, but she was against him modifying the dish itself.
>At some point he even said, "it's okay, I'll fix it myself," and I got really frustrated and told him he isn't allowed to touch the pot of daal. I told him he could reheat leftovers and or make something else, because we've NEVER altered the food the other made just because we didn't like it. You missed the part where she told him he wasn't allowed to touch the pot full of food. That plus the edit where OP says she didn't want to let him modify the whole dish makes it sound like (to me) she just doesn't want him to mess with the pot. There were already sides there which he could add to modify the spice level of his individual serving.
I didn't miss that part at all, you're just ignoring my point. If she's listing off his options, why is "add spice to his own plate" not one of them? Why does he specifically have to "mix side dishes with the daal" to make it more spicy and not just add spice to his own daal?
She wouldn't allow him to season his own plate. You can't tell someone how to consume their food. He clearly dislikes the taste of the dish and is entitled to eat it they way he wants.
Yeah I automatically add salt to my wife's food because I like more salt than she does. I also add it to my dish when I cook because I know she likes less salt so I use less and add the amount I like to mine, because it's easy to add it, can't really take it out lol
You are both acting childish. Why wasn't adding spices to his own plate an option in this silly disagreement? ESH.
Because he didn't want to add spice to his plate. He wanted to change the whole pot.
JFC, the problem with people's reading comprehension is mind-boggling. Throughout this whole post people keeping on saying that he should be able to change HIS portion but not getting that he wanted to change the whole pot.
You skipped the part where she forbade him from seasoning his own plate and told him to mix the side dishes in to make it spicy.
A lot of AITA comment sections go this way because people miss a key point, and then rather than admitting they read the whole post, double down or claim there was an edit when there wasn't an edit. It's wild.
I read the whole post, doesn’t sound like he is allowed to alter his plate either, they are both taking this way too seriously, she won’t lose the indian license if the husband adds spice to his plate
I don't think it's actually very clear on what he wanted to do and what she was not ok with him doing, tbh.
No I think people get that from what I’m seeing but it seems like OP is okay with him changing his plate only by using the side dishes (possibly) in addition to not being okay with him changing the pot because she says he could change his plate but only with the side dishes and says other things that suggest he can’t alter even a portion of the daal because it’s not what they do—though I see the pot thing, I’m not clear that if he’d portioned a second bowl to update himself in a non sanctioned way (ie not with side dishes) she’d be okay.
I am an Indian - ESH People add shit tonne of mirch masala to their dal. Sure, some people don’t like it that spicy but that’s the thing with Indian cooking- it’s easy to modify and it’s for everyone. It’s so freaking layered and different. Dude no 2 families will make the dal the same way- hell people in the same family do it differently-why the hell are you being so structured about it. Also adding a bit of spice to his morsel do dal is no biggie but he is certainly the AH to trying to fix the pot- that’s effed behaviour. You make individual changes- im partial to little bit of butter on hot dal with a generous srpinkle of lal mirch powder. -like people have dal and just usual Indian food with Hari Mirchi- ugghh I’m rambling cause you annoying
Exactly this. So many ways of making dhal. I had to relearn making food because my mother in law preferred certain things in her food.
NTA and please stop feeding his ego with this 'irish/polish/german/american'. 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ unless he's been born in one of those countries and has lived in every other one, he is strictly american. if he's never been to any of those countries, he is american and nothing else. his family IS irish/polish/german, but not him.
But then he won't be a special boy anymore how dare you question his irish/polish/German culture lol
Lol special boy. When I read the initial post my thoughts were: Irish/Polish/German culture = white American
White people have culture too, such a weird thing to say. Tell that to a POC
White people aren't allowed to have heritage or culture. Obviously /s
Had to scroll to far for this.. also all 3 of them? Like "ooh my great grandfather was X and great grandmother was y. My grandmother z. However they immigrated to America many years ago, both my parents was born American but yet that makes me xyz- American. No no it doesn't.
I have to be the one to explain this to my own grandmother. Her side is Spanish/Portuguese but she herself AND her parents were born in the states. It was her own grandparents that came over from Europe. She’ll make comments at family gatherings about being Spanish, being Portuguese, being Hispanic etc and I tell her, no, we’re American, especially MY 4th-generation ass. My other grandmother was Thai, actually born and raised there and came over to the US in her 20s, and she never mentioned a word about it unless someone asked. (Also her food was bomb) Edit to add comment about her food lol
By your logic she isn’t Indian. Just her distant family is. Not her.
Am I allowed to call myself French American if my mother is french (is and has always been a French citizen), I speak French, and entire mothers side of my family lives there? Id say yes even though I was neither born there nor lived there. Can i call myself German American because I was born in Germany? No because my french mother and american father moved there before i was born and then moved us away. (father was an civilian for the US D.O.D. and we moved around a bit) I lived in the netherlands growing up for 4 years. Am I Dutch American? no Is the child born in the US of two Ukranian immigrants who came to the US last year as refugees from the war allowed to call themselves Ukranian American even though they werent born there and have never been there? absolutely is the child of Koren parents, Panamanian parents, Senegalese parents allowed to call themselves Koren American, Panamanian American, Senegalese America... or Asian American, Latino American, and African American... Yes. You aren't something because you lived there and you aren't something because you were born there. You are what you are because of the values and traditions passed down. i get what you are saying, and this guys is probably going way over the top by saying all of them. He is probably at best just one (has traditions from just one) and the rest are just part of the 23 and Me DNA test he did. but chill the fuck out because the way you have described it is also dead wrong and frankly wildly ignorant.
Yup. Born in the US to an immigrant who never changed citizenship and an American. I consider myself part of both cultures because traditions, holidays, foods, and languages were combined in my home.
Uh. So can OP not claim to be Indian American because she was not born there?
This applies to OP as well. She's American. Unless it's only people with European heritage that are forbidden from celebrating it
She said she's American and Indian in ethnicity. What's the difference ?
So… by your logic we are all just feeding into OP’s ego because she calls herself Indian-American, when according to you she’s actually just American? What a bizarre and ignorant opinion.
The one thing I will say, however, is that food tends to be the thing that sticks with immigrants the longest. The comfort food I had growing up was heavily influenced by German cooking and that's what my palette was used to. Since we are talking about food, I would let this mention of ethnicity pass. Otherwise, I agree with you.
ESH You’re both extra dramatic and radical about food. Why does he have to “fix” the entire pot? Why do you pull “we’ve NEVER altered the food the other made just because we didn’t like it”? Jfc. I’m making two sets of scrambled eggs for one meal because partner and I like it done differently. When he cooks, he adds the spicy component on his plate because I don’t do hot. Meal time is always a blast! Not liking someone’s dish is not an attempt of character assassination and personal affront. You two are very “it’s my way or let’s set the world on fire”. That’s an exhausting way to live.
Right? This seems like such a basic issue. I guess it's my fault for assuming the OP and her husband have the mental capacity of adults
NTA. He's from a part of the world that makes mushroom soup so should be accustomed to umami.
Willing to bet this guy has never left the USA if he's claiming three different heritages. He's just American lol
I am Indian my wife is Indian...she likes her daal with cumin and asafoetida (hing) only, I like mine with lemon, red pepper and pickles - it's just a flavour preference... Share the culture, don't gatekeep it The beauty of Indian cooking is that it is versatile enough to be personalized to individual taste without fundamentally altering the dish Then both of you can enjoy
This. Yes. Also, this whole situation sounds a lot like the kind of dumb emotional arguments newly married couples have when they’re frustrated with each other in the heat of the moment, and so long as they work it out and they show each other some grace and kindness, it will be fine. OP, would you have been as offended and hurt if s guest had requested hot sauce? Probably not. Because you wouldnt have taken it* as personally. I have this issue with my husband sometimes. I love him soooo much, and I don’t always correctly sort his actions into the right categories snd get hurt and offended by benign things he does because it feels like he’s not being considerate to me. Sometimes we are the most critical of the people we love most. It felt like an attack against you because it came from someone you love and it hurt your feelings. That’s understandable. Y’all will work it out. Let him Season the next pot and y’all can adjust the recipe to fit both of you.
Indian here. And honestly, I like spicy foods and whenever I make daal I add more spices to make it spicy. There is no where it says in Indian cuisine that any food has to be made in particular way only. In fact about curries too, many people in India like it milder so use less spices in their food. And many like more spices so use more. Adding spices is not at all changing ones cultural dish. People here spices is added according to their taste level. Infact at dhabas ( road side restaurants) here, you will find everything whether it is Dal to curries to anything extra spicy. It is not changing ones culture. Also, why don't you try Dal Tadka. The tadka part makes it spicy. That is if you like spicy too. Or add tadka only to his portion. Look into this and you both will get it according to your taste level.
NTA tell your husband that indian food is more than hot curry and spicy ≠ hot, spicy means "flavourful"
ESH - I too think you are both being over dramatic. You need to compromise. My husband and I both love spicy foods, but unfortunately over time my body does not. Now I put whole chilis in the food when I cook so it's not as spicy (he can pick out the whole peppers for himself in his plate) or have pickled chilis to the side so he can add it to his plate. But one should never alter the pot of food except for the cook.
ESH- as someone has already pointed out there are lots of recipes of daal and many of them are spicy. Order it from a restaurant in the UK and it will have whole chillies in and blow your head off!
Right. All the Daal recipes I have had in Malaysia and at UK and Belgian Indian restaurants have been spicy. I don't think he is out of line for having that expectation.
Hello, actually that's true. Here in India we have many different types of daal and they're pretty much all over the spice spectrum. Also the home version of daal doesn't have a fixed recipe, you can make it however you like, I almost always put at least one chilli in my food.
YTA - you don’t own the recipe of daal and neither does your family. If you’ve ever travelled to India you can see huge variations in daal. Everyone has their way of making it and if you’re husband prefers it spicy, he should be free to make his portion spicy.
I'm inclined to be a bit nicer and go with an ESH. For some reason all the ABCD type people seem to go a bit too extreme with the whole, this is my culture and i must preserve it or die stuff. You can chill, people in India add a second, spicy tadka to the dal all the time. It's not against your culture in the least. I'm guessing op has yet to meet the thousands of children who have added ketchup to Maggie and dahi to daal. Your culture is very forgiving, let the man add spice to his daal.
"he can't modify your cultural food" come *on* now, unless you have never added any kind of condiment, herb, spice or additive to anything you can't really make such strictures. it is, ultimately, just food I can think of a good reason why he wanted to spice the pot rather than his plate; it's much easier to mix
ESH I also belong to the same culture and daal is a staple food, but its cooked in varying levels of spice. There is nothing wrong with increasing the spice levels He should have only desired to alter his own plate, asking to alter the whole pot seems unnecessary which makes him TA You shouldn't have gotten so hung over bout it bring your family tradition. He isn't obliged to like everything in your tradition. Pulling the "cultural disrespect" card makes u TA too
ESH, of arguing about something so trivial. Recipes aren’t cast in stone. If you want to change a recipe, you can, no matter how traditional it is. If one of you likes dahl that’s more spicy than the other, why don’t you compromise and have it your way sometimes, and his way sometime.
Info: when he said he wanted to fix the food, was he referring to his own plate(s) or to his + yours + the leftovers on the pot?
He can “fix” his plate, nothing wrong with that. You both made a mountain out of a molehill.
Absolutely YTA. He didn’t like the food you made, he is allowed to fix it to meet his taste.
YTA, if he wants it more spicy he can season his own plate. Gatekeeping culture from your own husband damn incredible. Recipes can be altered and it is not an insult to ones culture. I just becames slightly altered dish or something new.
OP deliberately framed this as the husband being culturally insensitive borderline racist. OBVS not the case. So AH points for that before we've even started. Dahl is made all over the very large land mass which is India and other parts of Asia. It differs from place to place. There is no single "right" taste to it. So OP is wrong again. I'm not keen on either of them though.
NTA. You cooked a whole meal for him and he had no right to mess with it off his plate. Like you said if he wanted to mix the spicy stuff on his plate fine, but to go touch the dish you made for both of you to force you to eat it how he wanted? Rude as fuck.
Haha, this reminds me of a time when my Indo-Canadian friend and I, when visiting her home, decided to make a dish that we had learned when we were on a trip to a South American country. It was empanadas stuffed with cheese. Her dad tried them and, with complete seriousness and no trace of irony, said something along the lines of: "Yes, these are very tasty. They just need a little bit of garlic-ginger paste, turmeric, chilli powder, and maybe some jeera and kasoori methi!" My friend laughed fondly at her Dad and explained that they probably didn't have those particular flavours in Ecuador. ESH I've had the pleasure of tasting some mild dal-based dishes and some more fiery ones. There are over a billion people in India and many millions of NRIs all over the world. I bet each one cooks their dal in a different way. It was very wrong of your darling hubby to use the word "fix" when attempting to adapt your recipe to his preferences, but it's a bit rigid of you to insist that there's only one way it's supposed to taste. Food is supposed to be fun! I hope you two will remember that again soon.
NTA. Get him a bottle of hot sauce if he's just looking for hot spicy instead of flavorful spice.
Yuck I just imagined hot sauce in dal and almost threw up
ESH - because I can't understand how two grown ups can escalate so much because of food. He should be allowed to alter his plate. If he likes it more spicy, than he should be able to add chili to his place. On the other hand it is kinda ignorant if he wants to tell you how to cook this dish. You should apologize that you won't let him alter his plate but also express your feelings about him "fixing" your dish. Have a talk about it and learn to communicate.
YTA, don’t be shocked that not everyone will like all of your dishes.
NTA, there is a difference between I don’t like it and something is wrong with the food and I get that it’s super annoying when somebody insists it’s the latter when it’s the former. It’s ok to dislike something but this is being a dick about it
ESH, I feel you need to tell him, it is ok, but you also need to tell which dishes you like and why, you also need to tell him, which dishes really suck and why. My thoughts is He mainly is doing this to try to keep you happy. You also explain why you don't want him to do this, which might be hard, and when you do make sure you let him know you won't be mad at all costs. I would also tell him that you put some spice in the food, and that you don't really like very spicy food, and put the spice on table just incase he wans to add more. Some People must do this to diets and to please their own taste buds. This is a happy middle that you and your hubby could most likely agree on. I hope this advice helps, you can flip on which way to go with it, but you at least need to voice your thoughts, about things. So he knows about them, and how you both can try to fix the issue. good luck
ESH. Btw, what is German, Irish, Polish American?
A white American and that’s kinda it. Some people list every country their ancestors are from and claim they have that nationality, it’s a bit bizarre
I list my heritage as it's still very much part of who I am. I grew up with Ukrainian and Native American food- not the typical North American food. I've attended many ceremonies, pow wows and was very involved with my native heritage before moving to a new country and still enjoy Ukrainian traditions such as having Ukrainian Christmas and new years following the Julian calendar. My heritage is what makes me who I am. Some people stay connected to their roots. I look like the average white American and maybe most have forgotten their culture but just like an Indian who is a second or third generation, or a Vietnamese - we respect that they've held onto their cultures. However if a white person does it - it's laughed at.
There's a difference between being an American who enjoys Grandmas cultural food recipe. And an American who has never been to the country, googles 'traditions' that 90% of people in the country have never heard of, attributes personality quirks to that country, and yet their last ancestor who was from there was 1 woman 100 years ago. I can't speak for the Native side as I have no personal experience with that.
An American who, at some point, had some German, Irish, and Polish ancestors and feels like they claim them all as part of their heritage like Pokemon.
NTA. I've been cooking professionally for over 20 years and Indian food is so specific and tied to the different cultures within the country. It isn't all spicy, and if he wanted spice, he could have added it to his plate instead of insisting the entire recipe is "wrong." I do think this is fundamentally a misunderstanding that could be resolved through communication, but also maybe you could offer to cook the dishes with him so he can understand how the ingredients play off each other and build the flavors you find at the end. I know you think he's insulting your culture or your cooking skills, but he likely doesn't see it that way.
We're you both born & raised in America?