Every month my friends and I will meet for dinner. We can never agree on a restaurant that is kosher/halal certified and is nut-free so we decided to cook for eachother. We don’t depend on one person to eat the cost for the month and instead have a kitty we all put money in and then that is used to purchase groceries for the dinner.
We are a pretty diverse group (Ethiopian, Greek, Kurdish, Polish, and Pakistani), partners are more than welcome, last year a friend’s partner wanted to make Chinese food for us so we added her into the rotation. I’ve been with my boyfriend since university and he’s always been a part of these dinners. There’s never been any issues and we are very careful with dietary requirements.
For the past five months another partner was introduced to the dinners and I liked her well enough. Last week it was my dinner and I made a full Pakistani spread since I missed my last dinner because I was sick. I made vegetable and meat samosas for the starters and vegetable biryani with achari chicken, and palak aloo and tandoori naan as the main and carrot halwa with vanilla ice-cream as the dessert. I was very proud of it, it took two days of prep between work and other errands.
My friend’s girlfriend is Korean and when we sat down for dinner I noticed she had brought a tub of kimchi and she was eating it with everything. She put it on the samosa and was about to add it to her biryani when I asked her if she would try the food without the kimchi. I don’t have anything against it, I love the stuff and I’ve made my own but it does have a very strong taste and I wanted her to try my food without it. She said she needed to eat everything with kimchi and someone pointed out that she had never brought it to any previous dinners. Then she said the kimchi was the only thing making my food taste good so I asked if she had eaten Pakistani food before and she sneered and said no. This whole interaction was so weird and I felt this sense of superiority from her, I felt demeaned by her behaviour. I don’t know if she was feeling ganged up or realised she was being a bad guest or something because she got up with her tub of kimchi and told her boyfriend she wanted to leave. He agreed and they both left and we finished our dinner. It kind of ruined the night for me after putting in so much effort. The next day my friend texted me and apologised on his girlfriend’s behalf and said she felt I was trying to embarrass her. I told him I had no such intentions and he was on my side about it and said he told her she was out of line and offensive. I told him it was fine and that I wanted to move on but I don’t want her at our dinners and he agreed.
He obviously told her and then I got a long text message from her saying that I was holding a grudge for no reason and trying to come between her and her boyfriend. She said if I said it was fine she would be allowed back but I don’t want her there. Was that unreasonable of me to ask? Would I be the asshole?
NTA, her saying “it’s the only thing that makes it taste good” is so condesending. However, it’s not up to you on other hosting parties to not have her there. At your door? For sure. Especially with how rude that interaction has come across.
Tbh her comment put a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. I didn’t have space to add this but some added context of our dinner is that we try and educate eachother on our cultures. I didn’t know how to use chopsticks until my friends girlfriend taught me last year. We celebrate cultural holidays, my Kurdish friend gave us a presentation on Kurdish independence when it was her night. The first time I made Pakistani food everyone wanted me to teach them how to eat with their hands. It was a safe space for us to share a part of ourselves and we’re all open-minded when it comes to any differences. My feelings were hurt, I admit that but she didn’t even bother apologising to me herself.
This event aside, your dinners with your friends seem like a beautiful cultural exchange. Try not to let her ruin it.
NTA
“This isn’t about holding a grudge. This is about the fact that you were rude and disrespectful to me in my own home. I will be polite and civil when we are at other dinners together, but I won’t have you in my home. This is what we call a boundary and the consequences of your own actions.”
NTA. Why is everyone ignoring that she’s never brought kimchi before and pointedly used it for your food???
Exactly. I think if she had brought the kimchi to other meals over the last 5 months OP probably wouldn’t have thought much of it. But she had never done it before. And she admittedly had never eaten Pakistani food before either. She had already made up her mind that she wasn’t going to enjoy the meal BEFORE she arrived. That makes her TA. And not for nothing, but her BF had to have seen the tub of kimchi. He should have shut that down before they entered the house, making him a contributory AH. If she had that much of an issue with the OP’s food, she shouldn’t have come that month. But she did and obnoxiously insulted OP’s food with the kimchi and then with her comments.
OP is NTA for not wanting her to come to any dinners he makes in the future. I would totally feel way, too. No one wants that negative energy in their home. But he can’t dictate what other members of the group do, which may make future meals awkward if she’s there and acting outwardly against the OP because of he banned her from his house. This is an unfortunate situation going forward. It would be nice if the friend told the GF she’s not invited going forward because of her attitude. Relationships don’t mean you’re glued at the hip. It already sounds like this is what he’s done. But as I and others have said, you can’t dictate what others do. If other hosts say it’s fine and your friend decides to bring her, you have two choices… go and tolerate her, or don’t attend if she’s there.
NTA – lot of white people here not realising she was being very very racist.
She was racist dude. She admitted she had never had your food, refused to stop eating the kimchi and had never brought it to anyone’s else’s house. She was an incredibly RUDE and inappropriate guest notwithstanding her outright racism.
literally. it would be different if she does this with every meal. clearly she looked down on the food from the way she talked about it.
White person here, and the fucking AUDACITY of this girl. I feel like I’m being gaslit by some of these comments. If you think the food is incapable of tasting good and you have to make it tase like something entirely different, don’t go?? Don’t show up and spend every second insulting the host?? What the hell is happening??
I’m also white which is why I’m BAFFLED.
I would lose my shit if someone did that at my white damn house. Let alone someone actively being racist and acknowledging she has never tried it.
JFC read some books people. Koreans can be racist.
She also knew I was making Pakistani food, if she didn’t want to eat it she didn’t have to come. Tbh I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt but my boyfriend said the same thing you did. I’m always wary of calling anyone racist the last thing I want to be is the girl who cried out racist.
Your own mate agrees his girlfriend was out of line.
This is a bigger conversation with your friends about whether his girlfriends racism is okay to him
Kimchi with biryani? And samosa? And gajjar halwa? This is so insane I’m not even sure where to begin! If ethnicities were changed, like for instance if a South Asian brought spicy chilli pickle to a feast made by an Italian or French friend and insisted on eating everything with that without ever trying the food as it’s intended to be eaten, would everyone here still be saying people can do what they like? The South Asian would be considered ignorant and the Westerner justified in being offended. But suddenly, the rudeness is fine and you should deal? Nope, your friend agrees and this girl hasn’t apologised to you, just complaining about being excluded. NTA
NTA why are y’all acting like this wasn’t a racial microaggression when it clearly was. She didn’t being it to other dinners.