'Curry People' not welcome in Texas apartment building - Page 2

I find it difficult to believe that anyone could not like curry, it is literally one of the planet's best food. Thai curry, though generally lacking the hotness, is also really good. The only place we can find dishes that are even remotely as delicious as they are in Thailand is in Chinatown, where people generally (and for no good reason) seem reluctant to tread.

I actually would like to make my own curry but I'm quite picky about my food and as a result like to use the freshest of ingredients. Now while curry spices tend to keep for a long time, the problem is that they do lose their potency within 2 weeks. Which is why people who is used to cooking with them only buy small amounts at a time or as needed.

I really don't have an specialty Indian store near me so it's not easy.

Btw Geoff, I was surprised as well when someone told me the fact Indian/Banglaeshi/Chinese restautrants serve fish and chips too. Only in UK...

I've never been a fan of fish and chips because they are just so heavy and stodgy, when you've had a portion it's like having a heavy weight in your stomach. And, the only thing that makes it nice is curry sauce!

Jesus yes, some of you guys are coming off as if you grew up in a culinary cave or some backwater nowhere where you ate nothing but meat and two veg for fucks sake.

You're embarrassing yourselves. I'm actually embarrassed for some of you.

I wouldn't even call the smell "pungent" so much as "Fragrant". I can't believe I live in a universe were people haven't eaten, or think badly of curry. Vindaloo=Universal Harmony.

Mmmyep.

Aside from taste, I think another reason curry has overtaken fish & chips as Britain's favourite dish is the size of the portions. They are almost always A LOT larger. I know some notoriously stingy chippies where I'm sure they WEIGH the potato content before they hand the tray over. And things have gotten a lot worse since the price of cod went orbital

Also, in Bradford at least, most chippies shut by 10pm whereas most Curry Houses are open until 2 or 3 in the morning.

I've spent some great nights in Bradford's curry houses. The city is right up there with Birmingham as the Curry Mecca of Britain.

I'm a huge, huge fan of curry in all of its forms, but there's some truth here (and Chris had the appropriate reaction - I'm by no means siding with the Texans here). For a while, my dad lived in an apartment in a building and neighborhood with a significant Indian population. It really did smell like curry very often for extended periods of time, and it did get into his apartment pretty regularly. For me, it was fine, since I was just visiting. For him - well, he loves eating curry, too, but I don't think he was too keen on the smell being quite so persistent.

Now you can gush about how much you love eating any food, but that's just not the same as smelling it all the time. I worked in a breadstick factory for a summer when I was an undergrad - nearly everyone loves bread and breadsticks, but it's quite another matter to have to smell dough constantly for nine hours a day. And dough is pretty neutral; curry isn't nearly as adaptable, as far as smells go. It's not going to mix well with everything you might want to eat.

Yes, fragrant is a much better word. And Vindaloo is the shiznit!

so fucking hungry for Indian food now

If I have one regret in life, it's that I'm not tall. If I have two regrets in life, it's that I'm not tall and it took me 30 years to get into Indian and Thai food. It's delicious.

And curry's also on the menu in every Irish restaurant I've ever been to.

And most leftovers of any ethnicity smell disgusting.

And proving the accusations aimed at this apartment building should take, what, 20 seconds of investigating to confirm?

It's always funny watching teenage curry newbies trying to cool a hot curry with beer.

Oh, and ... Phaal/Vindaloo & Newcastle Brown Ale mixed overnight in the gut = WMD!

Indian curry and good beer is as great a food and drink combination as good wine and cheese.

...and I think it's definately a good idea to characterise Indian and Thai curries serperately. They're really two completely different cuisines.

Finally, a voice of sanity.

I agree, as by my first post, not that I don't like indian curry and food.

How is this different from any other smell that permeates? A smell that is constant is going to irritate. It seems stupid to single this one out. My neighbor cooking fish all the time is way worse to me than smelling curry. I think part of people's offense to smelling curry is that they aren't used to it. It's not a bad smell in and of itself.

I went and had Indian for lunch this afternoon. I thought of you guys while sopping up sauce with Naan. Red Pepper on Bourke St, Rain Dog; you haven't eaten there yet, do. it's the shit.

yeah, next week's meal out is gonna be Indian.

Definitely having Indian tomorrow. There's a great spot by my school that is so cheap but gives you tons of food.

Complaining about the smell of curry? Pfft... Have none of you ever had Korean bean paste stew? That stuff smells like shit. Literally. The worse it smell, the more amazing it tastes.

Yeah exactly, there's a real knee-jerk culture-cringe thing going on here I reckon. If the building was full of Italian Americans and the whole place smelled like garlic I just don't see this being the issue it is.

The situation in the article is certainly very questionable because it sounds like they were preemptively treating people of certain races/nationalities differently using not only the smell thing as an excuse but also that they're supposedly "dirty." Obviously that's wrong. But generally speaking is it so crazy that not everyone might like the same smells or foods, or that one might be bothered by ANY smell, familiar or not, if it's too strong and pervasive? That's all DaveB was saying, and it sounds totally sensible to me (and it's funny that Diva indirectly repeated it back to him as though it was a counterpoint). Surely those things don't automatically make a person some kind of xenophobic or closed-minded asshole, right? Maybe you weren't trying to say that but considering only two or three people in the whole thread said they don't like curry your repeated statements to that effect come off a bit sweeping and extreme.

Who in the thread has been called xenophobic or closed-minded? We're telling people to try it because it's delicious.

And as far as the article goes
Yes, very xenophobic and closed-minded, particularly considering that Middle Easterners and many Asians do NOT cook with curry.

I don’t know if it’s the same in Australia but in the UK complaining that something stinks of Curry has real nasty connotations. It’s a common phrase and tautology of the National Front and BNP over here and as such complaints like that always make me think of hardcore, and utterly violent, racists.

Yes, well, as I said, that shit is obviously wrong. I'm in no way defending them. (responding to Evi here)

Just saying RD's reactions were a bit much in light of the fact that the vast majority of people in this thread have tried curry and apparently love it. I agree, anyone who hasn't should try it because it's awesome, but acting like that person is a backwards rube isn't going to convince him to, nor will it change the minds of the people who don't like it.

Was also reacting to RD and Diva pseudo disagreeing with DaveB and Jacob even though neither of them were defending the idiots in Texas either. I think we can all agree that a strong pervasive smell can easily become annoying and that seemed to be the extent of Dave's point.

Oh boy, does it ever.
See: Vindaloo does bring harmony

"LAWLZ dey don't like curry. They must be racizt!"

Not wanting strong-smelling cooking smells, whatever they may be, seems to be a fairly reasonable restriction to place on an apartment complex if you don't mind limiting your potential tenant pool.

Singling out on particular strong-smelling food that tends to be favored by a specific ethic group while ignoring any restriction on all other strong-smelling food seems pretty fucking racist, yeah.

It's the difference between telling customers they can't wear hats into your store, and telling them they can't wear yarmulkes.

I wasn't talking about the article, I was talking about the folks in the thread.

Goddamn the lot of you for tempting me to go off my diet today and binge on some Indian or Thai. Ugh.

When's my next cheat day again?

The discussion, as I see, are in response to what can be boiled down to two topics: 1) whether curry "stinks" (as Tim Q posted) and 2) that the curry "stink" lingers when people cook with it (as Chris Olson posted, and to what DaveB was commenting to). To me, Dave's post read that he wasn't making a statement that all food smells linger. He used an analogy so that people could get his point, but he specifically mentioned there was "some truth" to people annoyed by the powerful curry smell and that it was more powerful and less adaptable a smell than his example of bread dough. My point is that people can get used to any smell, and that curry is no exception. It's singled out because its different and linked to "dirty" brown people.

man I'm sure glad I only live around white people whose food doesn't stink

I used to live next door to a newly married couple from India (I can't remember which part, they did tell me); they were the nicest people in the world and would do anything for you. Anyway they were both doctors and worked odd hours so quite often I would wake up to the smell of Paprika at 4am in the morning. I'll admit at first it was annoying but to be honest you get used to it and don't notice it after a while.

As for the smell lingering, having cats we invested in Glade Plug-In's a long time ago to mask the litter tray. If the smell bothers you that much buy a couple as nothing gets through those buggers.

No one said there aren't other foul smelling foods. Curry is the topic at hand though.

Can you guys just not buy that some people really don't like the smell? It really has little to do with being a backwards rube or a racist. Is it really impossible for someone to have a different preference?

Not being used to it isn't the only reason. Animal dander in a person's home is a bad smell, but one the home owner doesn't often recognize because they are used to it. Their house still stinks though.

Just to be clear...no one is disagreeing with the idea that it seems like terrible racial profiling is going on in the subject matter of the article.

In the context of the article that started the thread, I would say that this is probably true. Race seems to be a bigger factor here than legitimate olfactory assault. Out of context of the article I would say that yes, in plenty of other cases it's probably also true. Personally, I've heard people bitch about the "filthy stink" that wafts from their Indian neighbors' homes more times than I can count, as though the smell of the spices they cook with is connected with their grooming habits. Such comments never fail to floor me.

But at the same time, the aroma of curry is undeniably powerful and can be quite pervasive. While I don't always have a problem with that (while helping my brother apartment hunt, I stood out in the hallway while he inspected a potential living space to take in the scents slowly rolling out from behind the closed door of the Indian tenants living two spaces down), sometimes I just plain don't want to fucking smell curry. Just like how, when cooking dinner, I hate that I can still sometimes smell the aroma of the pancakes I'd made earlier that morning. It's nothing against curry. Or pancakes. I just don't want to think of curry (or pancakes) when I'm trying to enjoy a roasted chicken.

Oh, I was just bullshitting. I agree that you'd get sick of constant smells real fast.

I can't believe you are comparing curry to cat dander. But yes, I can buy that people just don't like the smell. That doesn't seem to be the sentiment behind people's comments though.

Again, I agree with all of the above. But I don't get why people are bringing up the second point in this discussion at all. The article, and thus thread, is about how a specific food is used to racially profile. Who cares whether you don't want to smell curry all the time. As has been mentioned, no one wants to smell any food all the time. The argument doesn't seem relevant to the topic at hand and takes the emphasis off the bigots and and places it on that "stinky" curry.

While not wanting to derail the thread into my curry cooking skills. I have to say the curry I made yesterday was awesome. Onions just right and the peas(I love peas in my curry) pop in my mouth. Lovely. So lovely, that I'll be eating it for lunch today and maybe dinner tonight. So it doesn't much worry me that my house stinks up a storm. I don't want to evict myself though, if that makes anyone feel better.

Oh and Diva....do you own that shirt in your Avatar....I gotta get one for my GFF....

you sonofabitch this is all your fault

I would if I knew where to buy it.

You know what's really sad and pathetic?

My grandmother (Dad's side) is fucking FROM Calcutta, India. She's half Indian (father was British military, of course), and has always lived nearby. And until two years ago, I'd NEVER tasted Indian food.

Soooooooooo........That's a no then?.....

After a quick search....Search for NinTITdo on dirtyteesplease dot com. $15! bargain....

And yes...it's all my fault...but it was and is so tasty....

Curry, like spaghetti, in my opinion... tastes much better a day after you make it. YUM!

Sorry double post!

Well, it branches off from the discussion of the article, I think. That aside, it's not like this thread was on-topic regarding the contents of the article-- most of it consists of Chewers professing their shared love of curry (rightfully so). I mean, the bulk of the thread is most certainly not about how the assholes and the dickheads in the article use curry to racially profile. It's about how delicious curry tastes.

Sure, but the comments about the pervasive smell were in regards to the article, in as much as that seemed a legitimate argument to make. "Curry does stink so I can understand why people wouldn't want it around." My posts are in reference to these sorts of comments.

That was actually me (I guess we all look the same, Chris-ist).
Let me re-iterate, though, I said it was a strong aroma, but I never said stink. If I'm in the minority about foods cooked heavily with curry have an intense and persistent smell to them, maybe my previous neighbor just had a thing for the strongest kind of curry. All I remember is, it was a very strong, somewhat overwhelming smell that never went away. I love eating buffalo wings, but if my hallway smelled like Franks Red Hot Sauce 24/7, it would irritate me. If my hallway had always smelled like chocolate chip cookies and fairy dust, I probably wouldn't have tried to run through it as quickly as I could, but the smell of curry isn't something I dug smelling all the time. Again, (and not that we should have to keep clarifying this), I'm not siding with biggots who use things like this as a smokescreen for reasons to complain about other races, but you don't have to be a racist yokel to not like the smell of your neighbors cooking.

I used to live in an apartment complex that was filled with Indian tenants. I don't personally care for a really strong, pungent curry smell either, but I can get used to it after a few minutes. Hell, the Indians probably didn't care for the smell of the steaks and hamburgers coming from my apartment. Open a window, turn on a fan, whatever. If a cooking smell is the biggest problem that you have in your apartment complex, you're ahead of the game.

NOTHING dissipates a burnt microwaveable popcorn smell, though.