3d ago

I'm cackling

203 comments

At a Indian restaurant, the waiter said, "We have regular and spicy... And Indian spicy." Then he goes, "I usually don't offer Indian spicy to everybody". I'm brown, and I was given special treatment. But honestly I think I broke his heart when I asked for regular because he thought I could hang.
Sorry man! 😭
- One of my proudest moments as a white dude who likes spicy stuff was when a buddy and I were hanging out with some local guys while on a trip to Mexico. I was just chowing down on some super hot salsa and one of the Mexican guys gets real excited and starts calling me "the blond Mexican". I'm sure my wife is tired of that story, but I will continue to tell it to her for the rest of my days.
  
  Achievement unlocked!
  
  Woah. If there's one thing that excites me more than foreigners speaking Spanish, it's people eating our food how it should be eaten. Well done! I hope you enjoyed yourself.
  
  Well done, dude. It is a fine and honorable story to tell, and let no one tell you otherwise!
  
  Güero! Estas invitado a la carne asada!
- I’m white and they said that to me once, but there was such an underlying tone of menace in “Indian hot” that I knew they weren’t fucking around.
  
  That is such a perfect way to describe how "Indian hot" is offered! No malice, of course, just an honest warning!
- Sometimes when my boyfriend and I want a spicy cuisine, I’ll do the online ordering because I’m the one with the non-white name. He’s convinced they tone down the spice levels when they see his name on the order.😂
- I’m white British and went through this at a New Zealand Indian restaurant. After all the warnings, Indian spicy was barely even mid-level spicy. I’m from Bradford and don’t need mollycoddling.
  In my experience Indians and British Asians are not even that into spice heat as a whole.
  
  Bradford counts as its own race, regardless of skin pigmentation
- My wife is West Indian and trying to convince restaurants she wants actually spicy food is a constant struggle
- I'm white, my wife is Desi. She can't handle spicy food, and I thrive on it. We order each other's dishes.
- A kebab place in town used to have their spicyness range from "Norwegian mild" to "immigrant spicy".
  I once went from my regular order of "Norwegian spicy" up to "immigrant mild". Bad move for me, delicious kebab though.
- I'm VERY white, and so is my tolerance of spicyness. I always have to ask if the food is actually spicy or Dutch-spicy, because if it's the former, I'll take the extra mild please.
  
  We call that "Upper Midwest Spicy" in my house.
- I kinda wanna ask for Indian spicy next time I go to a restaurant
  
  Ask if they could bring just a spoon full for you to test your might. I bet they'd have a laugh setting your intestines on fire.
- I'm a white guy and I genuinely love searing mouth pain followed shortly by burning bowel movements and it takes a real effort to convince most restaurants that I can handle the heat.
- The Indian place I often go to will only actually give me the spice level I’m asking for (1-10 scale) if I call to order it. If I go in and ask for it spicy, it’s always suuuuper mild. Very very annoying, because damnit that’s not what I ordered, and I know what I’m doing. I’ve even specifically asked for it to be done the way they’d eat it and nope.
  My partner makes ghost pepper and reaper sauces. They just made ghost jerky. I like reaper cheese. I can handle it, but no. They won’t give it to me unless they don’t know it’s for me :(

I moved recently and tried a Thai place down the street. The guy asked if I wanted mild, medium, or spicy, and I said spicy. He said :No, I think mild." I didn't know what to say and he added "...but you can have it however you want." I decided to try medium.
He came by after and asked how the spiciness was, and I said it was just a little spicier than I like it (I ate it without issue), and he said "I told you!"
- You just gotta know whose palate it's balanced for. Taco bell is meant for white people. Their hottest sauce has a maybe jalapeño-level spice to it (and it tastes like shit). Go to any legit Thai or Indian place and their medium will destroy the hottest you can get at any tex-mex chain.
  
  Is it racist to say Taco Bell is meant for white people?
  
  We really need a decent scale for spicyness of foods. The mild/medium/spicy thing is by far too unspecific.
  There's an Indian place down the road that we sometimes order from. I like moderate levels of spicy, so it works well for me. But my wife dislikes hot spicy foods at all. So when I ordered the food I asked if the dish is completely non-spicy, and they confirmed that it was completely non-spicy, and it was too spicy for my wife.
  
  Seriously, why is the Diablo sauce so foul? I always get fire sauce because it actually tastes good. But I want it with more heat!
- Honestly the mild sauce taste better, even though I like really spicy like ghost pepper+ levels of heat I get mild at Taco Bell on the rare occasion I go.
  
  Yeah, it doesn't have to be that way, but it so often is. I like the Herndez brand mexican salsa you get at the grocery store (US), but the flavor of the medium is so much better than the flavor of the hot. It's like with the hot ones, the only care about getting the heat.
  I've had very hot sauces that had really good flavor, it just seems more rare.
  
  That should be the default spicy, so when I say 'very mild' it's doesn't turn out sweet.

A guy I work with once went with his two black friends to their local chip shop, owned by a big Jamaican guy.
He was the only white person in there, and when he placed his order, the owner went "Dja want gravy wit dat? White people always want graavyy".
He did want gravy.
- "How dare you! But yes."
- I'm white and I want gravy
- In fairness, gravy is the tits
  
  White. Brown. It's all good. Can't go wrong. Same goes for gravy.
- Racial profiling in food is just an attempt to deliver the customer what they want. It would be the most benign form.
  I'm oldish and pasty white, I have a hell of a time getting Mexican places to make it proper hot.
  That said, I do love me potatoes and gravy...
- "I knew when you walked in you were gonna order the chicken"
  
  "All these years I thought I liked chicken 'cause it was delicious! Turns out I was genetically predisposed to liking chicken."
- Hell yeah, I want gravy.
- My wife is white and every time she gets forks and spoons at a Asian restaurant, she's absolutely delighted. She can use chopsticks, just not well.

I'm a white man, I enjoy very spicy food. My partner is a southeastern Asian woman, who enjoys a bit less spicy food. I find it easier if we just order for each other and swap plates when the food comes. Because the servers assume that I can't handle spice, and my partner can. Which is incorrect. Also, my partner isn't very happy about it.

It's taco bell, it's all mild sauce
- Everybody watch out, we got a badass over here.
  
  They're not wrong, though. Even their Diablo sauce is only rated to around ~15,000 SHU (though some will argue that Fire sauce is hotter and thus Diablo is actually less than 1000, myself included).
  Even if the rating is accurate, that means at the very most Taco Bell sauce is barely hotter than a jalapeño, which any hot sauce enthusiast will confirm is on the lower end of the Scoville scale.
  The point I'm making is that they're not bragging, they're stating simple facts.
  
  I just believe words have meaning
  If Taco Bell has sauces that are Hot, Fire, and Diablo then what are other actual hot sauces called?
  It's hyperbole, like someone saying their chicken wings were AMAZING.
  If by some miracle Jesus came down from heaven and made sweet love to you all night what would you call it? They've already wasted AMAZING on a damn chicken wing.
  credit to Louis CK for the Jesus bit
- Their Diablo sauce is pretty good but still not that spicy
- Doesn't feel mild coming out the other end.
  
  Sounds like you might have gastrointestinal issues. Taco Bell hot sauce isn't potent enough to give you the shits.
  Could also be previously undiagnosed lactose intolerance, especially if you usually order it "supreme" (which adds sour cream).
  
  That probably has nothing to do with the sauce
- Salt is often a bit too spicy for me
  
  This is why we need better language describing spices in English. We have salty spices and spicy hot spices. Even if spicy hot spices there are three very different and distinct chemicals that make spicy hot spices.
  That's not even to begin to tackle the question of how to talk about the levels of the spice.
- Is taco bell mild sauce just a packet of air?
  
  Medium sauce is water with pepper sprinkled in.
- Ordered TBell over the weekend, and the order came with Diablo. Don't usually order sauce because I have my own. Decided to give it a try.
  It was like barely more spicy than hot Tobasco or Chalula. I was honestly disappointed
- but there's an onion in there sometimes!

NGL, getting profiled as a tender tongue is pretty fucking annoying. The only thing worse than no spice is mild spice.
- My go-to has been to tell the waiter, "If you make it so spicy I can't eat it, I'll double your tip." It's a dangerous game, but it often pays off.
  
  Back when subway was popular, I would jokingly tell the workers to try and kill me with jalapenos. One time they took it seriously and II had an inch thick layer across the whole sandwich. I was tickled pink, though pickled jalapenos kind of stink, and my coworkers about died.
- Truth. The one time i went with pickup instead of delivery for indian food, i swear my food from then on was suddenly more mild. I really like the heat :/
- And joking about it rubs a very small pinch of salt on the wound..
  
  Mmm. Spice.
  
  Yep.
- tender tongue
  Incredible phase
  
  The tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.

This is mild racism.
- Jokes aside it kinda is, but as a white guy who actually like hot food I've also been known to say "and don't make it white guy spicy, be real"
  
  I've heard that people with high tolerance for alcoholic beverages also have high tolerance for extreme spicy foods.
  
  I usually say that that in Indian restaurants because some of the ones near me will definitely hold back otherwise. One time the server asked me like 5 times if I was sure and there wouldn't be a refund if I couldn't handle it. I said bring it on and he watched me eat it from across the restaurant in amazement lol. It was the spiciest curry I've ever had, absolutely wrecked my stomach that night, 10/10.
- I worked at Denny's and I always asked "Ranch?" when people got fries. One day an AlphaMacho™ man literally got up from his seat and loudly said "is that because I'm white?!" and I was stunned, then my manager - a Cowboys loving, Harley riding, neon-red redneck - popped up from around the corner and said "Hey calm down little man, everybody always gets ranch with their fries, boy's just trying' to save time"

I once went to a Chinese restaurant and when food arrived they also gave me a fork, when I looked around all the Asian customers were given chopsticks.
- Just ask for chop sticks, I do all the time. They are just playing the odds.
- I was on a date with an Asian woman years ago, and she decided to order Chicken Fried Rice. I don't remember what I ordered, but it was something less stereotypically "white".
  They gave me the fried rice, and a fork. We just laughed, traded dishes, and asked for another pair of chopsticks.
- My first partner was adopted from China as a baby, so she looked Chinese but culturally she was 100% Canadian, raised in a very meat & potatoes kind of family.
  My mom is a bit of a hippy, so she loved cooking stuff from all different cuisines and we'd regularly use chopsticks at home if eating Asian foods.
  We went to a Chinese place together once and the staff were howling with laughter at the white kid using chopsticks opposite the Asian woman with a knife and fork. She learned how to use chopsticks shortly after, haha.
- My wife asks for forks and knives all the time at Chinese restaurants. It's more efficient for her.
- did you go to Dim Sum Paradise?

I'mma go with "yes", it's racist. But like, such a mild (pun intended) form of racism that the only appropriate response is a polite chuckle and shrug.
- Kinda like watermelons and chicken?
  
  I can't comment because neither of those stereotypes exist in Australia.

I feel like the stereotype has trended binary recently: white dudes are either the "black pepper is too spicy" type, or they're the chili heads who mainline reapers
- As a white girl, I like medium peppers and can occasionally enjoy a habeñero sauce but I'll feel it. The thing is it's just unremarkable, so I rarely say it. Most white people in my life like how spicy I cook things. That said my mom actually did think black pepper was too spicy.
  
  I like stuff that's hot but not to the point I can't taste anything in the food other than hotness. It's supposed to be a condiment not take over the whole meal.

That podcast is hilarious for all the wrong reasons. They are not only race reductionists but they basically boil everything down to individual attitudes and beliefs.
One of the most egregious ones was when they told people not to practice speaking people’s native languages with them and to hire a tutor! Dumbest fucking people, they are equally as smart as MAGA.
- The language tutoring lobby got to them...

I mean yes, but not in a way that's likely to result in significant harm, even in the long term. It's the kind of thing that being white myself (and having IBS on top), I would feel comfortable laughing at.
- not in a way that’s likely to result in significant harm
  Yeah, I wish there was a word for scenarios that are technically racist, be we don't want to devalue the word by invoking it for stuff that your privileged ass can easily live with. It'd make all the MAGA word game bullshit slightly harder for them to pull off.
  
  race-ish?
  
  Totally true that.
  Just having a single word for "I have to ask for more spices" and for "I got hanged from a tree" and everything in between these two makes it so easy to devalue the whole concept.

It always made my smile that on every coffee shop they assumed my girlfriend was drinking latte and I read drinking black Turkish coffee, when it was the other way around.
It was a bit embarrassing at the beginning, but then I remembered I was a college student and she was in the army, so any attempt of being the strong one in the relationship was already out the window
- Whenever my wife and I are at a restaurant and someone that is not our server brings the food to the table they always assume the vegetarian plate is hers and the one with meat on it is mine. They always seem confused when it is the other way around.

So, I went into Chipotle the other day, and approached the young black dude who was taking the order, and asked for a bowl. Then he asked which rice, and said "Let me guess: White?"
I don't know if he was being racist or what, but I've got a thick (white) skin, and can see the humor in anything, so I was laughing when I said "What the fuck is THAT supposed to mean?...but, yeah, I want white rice, but still, what the fuck, dude?"
He got really nervous at that point, thinking he offended me, and of course I took advantage and guilted him into extra steak and guac.
- Years from now he will wake up while falling asleep, randomly remembering this awkward encounter

My old manager used to take his team out to a Szechuan Chinese place and order for us, family style. It was awesome.
I'm white AF and it was the first time I had actually spicy Chinese food. He'd also order a few mild dishes for the pair of no-spice folk on the team.
Thinking back, manager was a Chinese immigrant, most team mates were Indian immigrants, and the spice-free teammates were both white. (I mention immigrant because my Indian teammates with kids would complain about their American-born kids' low spice tolerance.)
- Lmao speaking of immigrants complaining of how their kids like to eat, I have a Russian coworker who complains about how her kids only want to eat unhealthy American food and not the food she cooks.
  
  Maybe she's just a shite cook
- One of my indian coworkers from a few jobs back always used to ask for Tabasco when we went out to lunch together.

I am so white I reflect the sun at people... I had to beg the server to give me the actual hot. The server made a point to apologize when I asked if there was a way to make it hotter... spice is life!
- Same. Red haired very white gal - you almost can’t make it spicy enough, but it’s hell to get anyone to believe that!
  
  I've been in the service industry my entire life... so I've seen plenty of folk claim black pepper is too spicy. I just hate that I give the appearance of that lol. I wish we could get a badge or something that says "yes I'm aware of what spice level you are talking about"

I like that cultures that make spicy food, usually have a "mild" for their fellow countrymen, and a special "mild" for white people.
The white person mild.
I think that's hilarious.
For the record, I'm white and I appreciate having white person mild as an option.
- I get frustrated because I LOVE super-spicy food, but every time I go to a new Asian or Indian restaurant and ask for 5/5 spicy they're like, "We'll make you a 2/5" just to be safe because I'm very, very white.
  I have literally never had food served to me at a restaurant that was too spicy for me. I've basically damaged my tongue with all the spicy food I eat, and I literally don't perceive Sriracha as being any spicer than banana pudding.
  
  I literally don't perceive Sriracha as being any spicer than banana pudding.
  Genuine question: Are there many people who really perceive Sriracha as spicy? I never thought that it's meant to be really spicy, but more like a 'chili-flavored' sauce.
  
  I’ve had that happen at a few places as well, it’s pretty annoying. I’m also really short, and so I’ve had one restaurant swap what I actually ordered to whatever the closest equivalent on their kids’ menu is lol

Reminds me of a date with an Asian X, to a Chinese restaurant. We get seated, waitress comes by with chopsticks for my date, knife and fork for me. I shrugged, but my X went and got chopsticks from the waiting station for me cause she was pissed off at the blatant racism. I admit if the races were swapped, it'd likely get branded something like a 'micro-aggression' of racism I guess? idk.
But there are quite a few places where white folks get that sorta thing, its almost always quite benign.
- You'd get branded "ignorant" at most if the tables were reversed and your ex thinking it's "blatant racism" is way blown out of proportion in my opinion.
  Try getting mocked by some random shit spawns in Europe pull their eyes back and yell ching chong Chang on the train during your family vacation lol.
  Still, though, I get it. It's pretty ignorant to assume white people can't use chopsticks in the current millenium.
  
  Trying to construct a reverse situation:
  You are at a steak house and the Asian partner gets the steak pre-cut and served with chopsticks. Yeah, I'd guess that would be rather unpleasant.
  On the other hand, I really dislike using chopsticks even though I can use them. But the Asian restaurants over here all just give you chopsticks by default (no matter what you look like) and I always have to ask for fork and knife, and that's also kinda annoying. I guess, the restaurants have to make some kind of assumption if they don't want to serve double the amount of cutlery, and no matter what assumption they make it will be wrong in about 50% of the cases.
- Meanwhile, my whiter than Casper the friendly ghost ass carries around a pair of stainless steel smooth Japanese chopsticks. I carry the Japanese ones, as the Chinese ones are longer. If such a situation were to happen to me, I just pull out my chopsticks.
  Side note: I have been told by many Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people that apparently I could make good money as an extra in their TV/Movie industry, because I eat with chopsticks so well.
- We get seated, waitress comes by with chopsticks for my date, knife and fork for me.
  that shit is so annoying. It happened to me once when I ate on my own in chinatown. MF why assume?

I just say "come on man, look at me, of course it's gonna be mild."

The shibboleth for getting really spicy food at a Thai placed is to order it "phed phed". Phed means spicy and in Thai you can repeat some adjectives for emphasis.
This works equally well in Touristy places in Thailand as in Thai run restaurants back home (Switzerland) in my experience.
- My wife, who taught English in Thailand for two years, taught me to order food "nik noy" because Thai spicy isn't like my country's spicy.

Not spice but caffeine. Stopped at a reservation gas station on a road trip to grab water and fuel. I walk in and the lady at the counter says that the sodas are on the far wall, I ask why she thinks I want soda and she says it's cause I'm white but definitely not any type of Mormon since I don't hold myself like them. Anyways I grab my water and fuel after that rather amusing interaction, then I go to my car and make another thing of gamersupps. She was simply wrong about my source of caffeine.
- I've never heard of gamersupps before and omfg they have anime girl thigh flavour????
  
  It's mostly generic flavors, pretty sure that one is cream flavored. Gotta read the description.
- I’d never heard of gamersupps before either and that has got to be the cringiest weeb shit I’ve even seen.
  How long do you think it will take for my sample pack to arrive?
  
  Depends where you are, I'm in California so if it ships out Friday or Saturday it gets here round Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. It ships out from Hebron Kentucky so do the rough math I guess.
- Did not know gamersupps was a thing. Essentially pre-workout mix for gamers? Nice.
  I don't like that they don't list the exact amount of caffeine on the label though. Just that it's a proprietary blend. I think at least caffeine should be broken out into its own line item. But 154,000mcg for the blend, so not more than 150mg caffeine per scoop. On par with a normal Monster
  Edit: found it on the cans, 125mg. Still not seeing it on the nutrition label for the tub of powder, probably similar. I'm laughing at it but may buy some for days I skip the gym but still want my morning caffeine, coffee fucks my stomach
  
  Yeah I started drinking it to cut sugar and more specifically soda from my diet. Went from 220s to 170s since about February, if I actually tried I could probably get down to 150. But yeah it's pretty decent.

I get a lot of 'are you sure?' When I ask for hot sauce

I'd say yes. Yes that's racist.
- Lol, no this is not racist. Jesus, Lemmy seems to be filled with real sensitive white folk.
  
  Judging someone's personality or their likes/dislikes by their ethnicity is definitely racist, I don't see how you could possibly argue it isn't?
  Of course it's a bit racist, but not offensive. Nobody's going to be losing sleep over someone assuming they can't handle spice based on their skin colour.
  
  Someone being treated differently soley because of their race, how is that not fucking racism

I'm over 30 of course I want mild or I'll be up with heart burn.
....I mean in my SOUL I want my early 20s blow my head off heat but my body disagrees.
- I'm in this post and I don't care for it. My taste buds still want reaper but my intestines assertively beg to differ.
  
  I eat spicy things and got that Korean noodles with the extra spice. I couldnt handle it. My intestines reminded me how old I am.

Northern white mild boys vs. southern white anal prolapse hot sauce gang

The other day was my retirement party. We went to a local Chinese place, and while all the others were getting the touristy stuff, sweet sour and mu shu, I said "smoked bean pork." The waiter looked at me like I was from Alpha Centauri, like "what's an old white guy doing ordering the good stuff?"
- Mexicans are usually surprised that I order the lengua tacos. I have to assure them that I know that means beef tongue.

I am white but my name is not. I also don't do hotter than fresh jalapeños, but enjoy a tamed heat on the plate (like the BWW spicy garlic sauce). It's always a gamble ordering food. Usually it's either too mild or too hot. With too mild I can just put hot sauce on my own, at least.

This has happened to me too.
I just assumed it was because white people love a good complain when their food, that specifically has chilli as an ingredient, is too spicy for them.
- The Thai restaurant in my middle US city had to change mild to medium on their menus because people complained it was too spicy. Medium switched to hot and hot became 'Thai hot'.

I'd say it's racist if they try to "protect" you from spicier sauces. Like if you ask for medium and they try to give you mild.
- What if they give me exactly the sauce I request with a smile and say, "have a nice day, you white piece of shit?" Same question, but they gave me a hotter sauce? That one almost feels like a compliment.

I honestly didn't know that racism could go both ways. I'm just stupid.
- It's like mild racist though.
  We also have regular racist, extra spicy racist, and el diablo ass blaster racist.
  
  _<
- Two of the most of the most racist people I know are a Hispanic person and a Korean dude. They both think I am racist and will say some fucked shit about black people and assume I agree with them.

Have those sauces even really been spicy?
- Diablo has some kick, it's not pleasurable to put multiple packets per item for me.
  
  When diablo sauce first hit, it was reasonably hot. It burned for a good couple of minutes. They've reduced it a bit now, but it's still hot enough to scratch the itch for spicy, just not enough to trigger everyone's endorphins.

I saw a post once along the lines of: Only certain groups of white people don't do spicy, other groups eat hot sauces with names like The Asshole Scorcher. Personally, I love certain kinds of spicy. Like Korean food spicy is soooo fucking good. Eat a spicy noodle soup and be drenched in sweat at the end.

Those chili spice ratings on food packets and menus are always bullshit as well

When ordering at the local Indian restaurant (Indian? They're all Bangladeshi. ...Anyway~), it helps to say "Bangladeshi strength", to prevent them serving the bland stuff.

Ah yes, racism against whites 🙃
- Idk if there is any way to interpret this without you coming across terribly.
  GJ!
  
  Claiming that racism against whites is a thing
  Is nonsense bc there is no systemic prejudice
  It belittles the struggle of the people who actually suffers from racism
  Is it really that controversial of a position ? Am I missing something important ?
- I found the comment I knew would be here, with the text I knew would be in it, at the up/down ratio I expected it to be at.
  
  I think we're done here, folks. Pack it up! pats people's backs Great job, everyone.

203 comments