Top Chef’s Padma Lakshmi Roasts ‘Racist’ WaPo Food Critic

By Malcolm Smith - https://www.flickr.com/photos/senatormalcolmsmith/8556549419/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91263323

“Top Chef” host Padma Lakshmi fried the Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten for expressing his hate for Indian cuisine for it tasting “like something that could knock a vulture off a meat wagon.”

His article, “You can’t make me eat these foods,” focuses on the dishes he refuses to eat like anchovies and hazelnuts, which Weingarten describes his distaste for in humorously harsh ways, but the two-time Pulitzer Award winner hit a sour note for his take on Indian food.

“The Indian subcontinent has vastly enriched the world, giving us chess, buttons, the mathematical concept of zero, shampoo, modern-day nonviolent political resistance, Chutes and Ladders, the Fibonacci sequence, rock candy, cataract surgery, cashmere, USB ports … and the only ethnic cuisine in the world insanely based entirely on one spice,” he began.

“If you like Indian curries, yay, you like Indian food!” he continued. “If you think Indian curries taste like something that could knock a vulture off a meat wagon, you do not like Indian food. I don’t get it, as a culinary principle.”

“Top Chef’s” Lakshmi, roasted Weingarten on Twitter for his not-so-hot take. “What the white nonsense is this?” she said in response to the article. “On behalf of 1.3 billion people,” she said in reference to India’s population. “Kindly f**k off.”

In a follow-up post, she shredded the Washington Post for allowing the article to be published. “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?” She tweeted.

Lakshmi then pointed Weingarten towards her own book so he could learn about spices. “You *clearly* need an education on spices, flavor, and taste…. I suggest starting with my book “The Encyclopedia of Spices & Herbs.””

Weingarten responded to the criticism cheekily in a follow-up. “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,” he wrote. “Food was beautifully prepared yet still swimming with the herbs & spices I most despise. I take nothing back.”

The next day he apologized on Twitter. “From start to finish plus the illo, the column was about what a whining infantile ignorant d—head I am,” Weingarten said. “I should have named a single Indian dish, not the whole cuisine, & I do see how that broad-brush was insulting. Apologies. (Also, yes, curries are spice blends, not spices.)”


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Steven Halprin
2 years ago

Yes, Weingarten is a D-head which makes him fit in with majority of those at the Woke Post. But, this is no excuse for Padma’s racist anti white response. Stop putting people into groups. We are individuals. Both of you need to reflect on your divisive rhetoric. STOP!

Last edited 2 years ago by Steven Halprin
Kate Ferris
Kate Ferris
2 years ago
Reply to  Steven Halprin

It JUST keeps perpetuating, HEY??? 😥🙏🇺🇸

Clifton Brewer
Clifton Brewer
2 years ago
Reply to  Steven Halprin

Exactly. He was discussing his dislike of Indian food, which u totally agree with. Then she goes in on a racist rant against white people, which apparently is fine within twitters rules.

John David
John David
2 years ago
Reply to  Steven Halprin

I, for one, am ethnically half Italian and half Hungarian. To me, the two greatest cuisines in the world are Italian and Indian. Loving rich foods, I have yet to dive into French. I have an idea it’ll make it to the top three.

Brando
Brando
2 years ago

Indian food tastes like crap. How the hell is that racist? What if I said Irish food tastes like crap? Whats the freaking difference? The ones crying “racism” are generally the real racists.

Lifelongskeptic
Lifelongskeptic
2 years ago
Reply to  Brando

Who on earth actually believes that critics are unbiased? Heck, I often choose to see movies that critics panned but audiences liked because I go to the movies for entertainment, not snobbery. Nevertheless it is sad that opinions, even bad ones, aren’t allowed anymore.

vinnie
vinnie
2 years ago

I for one was always skeptical of Indian Food and Curry until I discovered that it wasn’t Curry(that I really like) but Cumin which has an Aroma much like a gym locker in a Heat wave that causes most people to hold “Indian Food” responsible for Pungent aromas!
Punjab Butter Chicken sauce made me a believer in tastes for Indian food and I now make it from scratch to my family’s delight because there are no preservatives when you make it from scratch and you can control the amount of spices to your taste! I experiment with other Indian recipes I find online and alter them in my own way to suit whom I am cooking for! So, Don’t be too hasty to write off the Indian menu till you try one of the recipes and if you are really sensitive to some fragrance that reminds you of someone needing an underarm deodorant, Skip the Cumin, at least until you acquire a taste for it!

Barry L Jones
Barry L Jones
2 years ago

I agree with Weingarten – Indian food sucks, period. I don’t see how 1 billion people exist on this crap. Maybe if they would learn to eat all those “scared” cows?

Rob
Rob
2 years ago

An elitist snob is an elitist snob, with or without a “CYA” apology! And don’t waste any lipstick, it won’t help either!

Hugh G. Rection
Hugh G. Rection
2 years ago

Indian food is awful. Indians make awful food and I am somehow racist? F off.

ranman
ranman
2 years ago

Who the FU*K Cares about any of this BS, or any of these people??!!
If they feel off the earth tomorrow, would anyone notice???
Think about it!!!!

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