A piece about learning to love your culture your own way, and love yourself for who you are.

I had always been a picky eater. My obsessions with cooking shows started at a young age. My mom had always called me the “pickiest person” to make food for.

“If you don’t like my food, make food with all that knowledge you get from those shows then.”

She was right, I was finicky with my food, always had been. 

My family originates from the Indian state of Gujarat, which can be attributed with its own distinct food and culture. And I had a, not so well kept, secret. I didn’t like Gujarati food. Ashamed of not liking my own culture, I would try to shovel the food down my throat, forgetting about the taste. Trying to hide the shame. 

My mom is a first generation Indian-American, and she had dealt with problems that I would never know. “I experienced them, so you wouldn’t have to,” she would tell me. 

I didn’t know the Gujarati language, and I didn’t like Gujarati food. I felt like an imposter in my own skin, like I wasn’t really Indian. I felt like being Indian was wasted on me. Someone else deserved the honor to have such a vibrant culture. They would speak Gujarati, and they would love their culture.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my culture, but I felt detached. Growing up, my only real South Asian friend was my sister. I was raised on peanut butter jelly sandwiches, and I liked them more than the Gujarati food that I would eat once a week. Every week when that day would come, I would shove the food down my throat, smile and say thank you. I thought I was great at hiding it. 

I wasn’t.

My parents would drop me and my sister off at my Dada and Dadi’s (grandparents) house when they had to do something. I dreaded it when I was young. It would mean more Gujarati food. More times I would have to pretend. More times I felt like an imposter.  There was one specific time where I remember my embarrassment clearly. 

My grandparents had just moved to their new house, a one floor brick house with an open floor plan in an age restricted community, coming with a bigger kitchen and room for all their plants. My Dadi was in the kitchen making food as my sister looked on  and I sat on the living room floor, drawing and watching what was on the TV with my Dada.

Dada sat on the couch, watching the show silently. He had always been a man of very few words and I never really had a full conversation with him. I sat quietly while the man on the screen was talking in a language I didn’t know; most likely Gujarati. I must have made a face of confusion because my Dada looked at me, looked back at the TV, and put the subtitles on. 

I suddenly felt a lump in my throat, felt myself getting warmer, and looked down at the floor. My grandparents knew I couldn’t speak Gujarati, but that just made it hurt even more somehow. It was awkward, sitting there in silence, the sounds of a distinct language I couldn’t comprehend on the TV filling in the gaps. I tried to just stare at the TV, reading the subtitles, in hopes that my problem would just go away. 

After a while, my Dadi had gotten done making food and she called us all over. I was preparing for it. Preparing to feel like I was nothing more than some boring kid from the suburbs, who couldn’t even like their own culture’s food. I lugged myself over to the table, glancing at what was waiting for me.

But instead of the regular Gujarati shaak (spiced vegetables) or khichdi (rice with lentil), I was faced with some kind of spaghetti. I was confused, and tried to mask it by sitting down and smiling. My sister sat on the other end, looking just as confused as I felt.  

It felt mismatched, noodles were in front of me, yet it didn’t smell like noodles. Its aroma was one of every other dish that my Dadi would make. It had cumin seeds and the sauce was some kind of tomato sauce. A mismatched version of spaghetti was in front of me, my Dadi gesturing to me to eat it, an excited smile on her face. I immediately felt guilt for questioning the dish in front of me.

So I ate it. The spicy but bitter taste of the noodles felt unfamiliar on my tongue. It wasn’t quite spaghetti, but wasn’t quite Indian food, a mix of in between. A smoky undertone came through from the noodles, one of spices that my grandmother had used in shaak, one that I didn’t know would be used in spaghetti. And I didn’t mind it. In fact, I didn’t mind it at all. I got used to the smoky taste of the noodles, and liked it even. It was just what my grandma said after that made me feel…terrible. 

“You like spaghetti? I made spaghetti because I thought you like it.”

She looked at me like she saw past my pretending, which was easy to do as I wasn’t a very good actor at all, that award had gone to my sister. And once again, I felt a lump in my throat, a pit in my stomach. Like I was a mismatched pair of socks, a piece that belonged to a different puzzle, and I couldn’t even hide it well. If I couldn’t even hide my distaste from the one person I wanted to hide it most from, who could I hide it from?

I went home, crying to my mother, unconsolable. I failed at the one thing I tried to hide, the one thing I tried to keep buried deep in the recesses of my mind.

My mother had sat next to me for a while, silent before talking to me, asking me what was wrong. I told her. To this day, I believe that a wonder of the world is a mother’s intuition that never fails, because she already knew. And she had told me what I had been hoping to hear all along. 

“You have some Gujarati foods you like, hmm?” I nodded in response. “You know I have some foods I don’t like. Dadi used to cook them all the time.”

My mother went on to explain about what she didn’t like, foods that she would dread eating, and I sat there in disbelief. I chuckled a little, imagining a little version of my mother, unenthusiastic about food placed in front of her. The lump in my throat cleared up, dissolving like it never existed in the first place. 

“At the end of the day, it’s just foods you like or dislike. It doesn’t make you less Indian to not like some Gujarati foods, it makes you normal. We all have things we like and don’t like. But what you should be grateful for is the food brought onto the table, whether it’s what you like or not, right?” I nodded again, wiping tears off my face.

It makes us all human, our preferences. I realized that it didn’t make me less Gujarati, it just made me, me. Although now I love Gujarati food, even some of my past dislikes, I find myself not liking things here or there. And I come to realize that this is part of life, part of finding who you are, and I’m incredibly grateful for that Masala Spaghetti that my Dadi made and my mother who gave me a talk after to make me realize that.

Process

When I first got accepted to Print 360 as a learning journey, I didn’t know what I could write about in food and culture. I wanted to challenge myself and I decided that I wanted to write a narrative piece about a moment in my life that changed my perception.