Mindy Kaling And Padma Lakshmi Call Out An Article, By An American Columnist, Claiming ‘Indian Cuisine Has Only One Spice’

Hollywood actors Mindy Kaling and Padma Lakshmi, who are of Indian descent, were certainly not pleased with a story that talked about Indian food. The two stunning ladies slammed an article by an American columnist for claiming that Indian cuisines have only one spice. Calling out the writer’s racist remark, Mindy and Padma used humour to shut him up. Meena Harris, lawyer and niece of US Vice President Kamala Harris, reacted to the article that was published in Washington Post and tweeted, ‘Apropos of absolutely nothing name your ONE favorite Indian spice. I’ll go first: asafoetida.’

In the same thread, Mindy dropped a sassy comment saying, “I love fenugreek! There are so many spices in this wonderful cuisine!” She then added, "You don’t like a cuisine? Fine. But it’s so weird to feel defiantly proud of not liking a cuisine. You can quietly not like something too.” Seeing the reaction, even Padma joined the bandwagon and called out the ‘white nonsense’. The actor tweeted, “What in the white nonsense is this?" adding, "Is this really the type of colonizer 'hot take' the @washingtonpost wants to publish in 2021- sardonically characterizing curry as 'one spice' and that all of India's cuisine is based on it?"

Apart from sharing her views on Twitter, Lakshmi even shared the screenshot of the Washington post where it is said Indian cuisine has one spice. She wrote, “There is truly no need for something like this to be published in 2021 (or ever).  It’s racist and lazy at best.  My issue is not this person’s performative contrarianism (although it is tedious) or that he didn’t enjoy the Indian cuisines he’s tasted.  My problem is in this attempt at a comedic piece he’s actually just regurgitating old colonizer tropes, gleefully reducing the culture and country of 1.3 billion people to a (frankly) weak punchline- and that the @washingtonpost published it.”   

The writer named Gene Weingarten took to his Twitter account and reacted to the backlash that came from netizens. He wrote, "Took a lot of blowback for my dislike of Indian food in today's column so tonight I went to Rasika, DC's best Indian restaurant. Food was beautifully prepared yet still swimming with the herbs & spices I most despise. I take nothing back.”

Replying to him, Padma tweeted, "On behalf of 1.3 billion people, kindly f*** off."

Aaah! We like that. Take that, Weingarten!