Australian woman says Indian food is made of ‘dirt spices’, netizens retaliate

Diverse Indian cuisine, from Chole Bhature to Idli Sambar, is widely popular worldwide. Europeans enjoyed Indian spices for centuries, even before the colonial era. Rejecting the opinion, an Australian YouTuber described Indian cuisine as food served with ‘dirt spices’ spread all over it. Her opinion on social media sparked massive reactions.

The matter started when a social media user, Jeff, shared an image of an Indian dish and wrote, “Indian food is the best on earth. Fight me.” Dr. Sydney Watson from Australia reshared the post and wrote, “It really, really isn't.”

Watson's retweet of the original post has been viewed by more than 23.5 million social media users and garnered nearly 7,000 comments, most of them either defending Indian food or supporting her views.

One of the comments on Watkins' post shed light on how the Indian cuisine has been misinterpreted by the rest of the world. He also also highlighted how it is impossible to define the diverse food culture f the country with an umbrella term like ‘Indian cuisine’

“As an Indian in the food industry who eats food for a living, has run restaurants from multiple cuisines and has eaten all over the world, I can assure you there is nothing actually called 'Indian cuisine',” commented Chetan Kaul.

“I don't mind anyone hating on Indian food, Im also aware that any comment on the subject will attract the now regular 'all Indians and their food are dirty' remarks. Regardless, it unfortunate to see Indian food reduced down to ‘curry and naan’,” the comment added.

“There is no cuisine called 'Indian cuisine' nor is there any staple Indian cuisine. Every state in India has an entirely different cuisine. When foreigners say 'Indian food' they typically refer to North Indian cuisine which is also very very broad,” he added.

“Quality Indian food is amazing. But not best on earth.. to be best on earth it has to be something you could eat every single day and never get tired of. Indian while good does not have a wide variety of flavors. That award goes to the one and only best food. Italian,” commented another user.

“It is definitely better than Australian food which is the worst English food with kangaroo meat replacing the beef [sic]" read another comment.

Agreeing to Watson, another user wrote, “Even Thai curry is better than Indian curry.”

“Poor taste. Indian food is among the top tier cuisines of flavor sophistication, given the complexity of spices used in balance--each of which also happen to be medicinal in various ways. Doctor,” read another comment.