"AITA for having and using emergency spices at dinner?"
I (28M) was raised by my parents to always smile and stomach it when I’m a guest in someone’s house and they serve food that I didn’t enjoy. I’ve carried this into adulthood because I think it’s just polite. If I really don’t like a meal I’m served, I’ll just eat a little bit of it and maybe grab food on the way home.
But recently I was in a store and found little tiny bottles of the spice Tajin, which I love. They were 50 cents so I got like 12 of them and now when I have a bad meal I just wait for attention to be away from me and pop a dose of Tajin in and that masks whatever flavor I don’t like.
Recently I was at a family gathering and my aunt served this weird concoction of chicken sausage, peppers, and onions in a cream sauce on plain white rice. It tasted both bland and weird. So when attention was away, I doused it with the Tajin. But my food had bits in it and looked red so my family noticed and I had to come clean and explain.
My aunt was very offended and asked if I just hated her cooking. I said no. She has made great food. I just didn’t like this meal. She asked why I didn’t say anything and I told her I was raised to just smile a bear it when I had a meal I didn’t enjoy as a guest, the Tajin was just my way of helping me do that. This made her more upset and start an argument with my parents. So now the whole family is annoyed with me.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
Maleficent_Web_6034 said:
I personally feel that adding things like salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, hot sauce, etc is fine as long as you are polite, so I suppose I can extend that concept to Tajin for the sake of this post.
But I'm going to vote YTA because of what you said, not what you did. "I told her I was raised to just smile a bear it when I had a meal I didn’t enjoy as a guest". That was rude. You could have said, "I just love spicy food and I found these cute mini packs at the store.
It's like powered hot sauce, do you want to try one?" or really any variation on that that implies you enjoy her meal, you've just got a thing for heat like many people do. Instead you told her that you hate her cooking so much you have to bear it. That's rude and clearly not inline with how you were raised and the values you proclaim to have, even if her cooking is butt.
agreywood said:
NTA for adding seasoning but YTA for how you explained this. I can’t think of a worse way to phrase it than what boils down to “if I have to bear eating your food without complaining I need to add spices." Seriously how hard is it to just say “I really like spicy food so I bring this everywhere so nobody feels obligated to make food spicier for my sake?"
Something-bothersome said:
Hilarious! Ok, so here is the thing! You need to look at the central message of the “polite” behavior you were taught - and that is not causing offense to the person who is providing you food (amongst other things). You failed.
You absolutely embarrassed and caused offense to your aunt. You need another trick up your sleeve. The cover of this one has been blow wide open. YTA - the system of being polite is a fine and delicate balance of manners. Next time just apply a greater level of polite plausible deniability and polite compliments.
Ordinary-Conflict401 said:
NTA for carrying the Tajin, soft YTA for how you framed it. "Emergency spices" implies the food was so bad you needed rescuing. If you'd just said "oh I put Tajin on everything, I'm kind of addicted" nobody would have blinked. People add hot sauce and ketchup to stuff all the time and nobody calls it an emergency.
Teamtunafish said:
YTA. You dump spice on her food and then tell her it's the only way you can eat it (excuse me, "bear it") and you're surprised she gets hostile?
General_Relative2838 said:
YTA. Bringing your own spice is rude. It screams that you were prepared for not liking the host’s food. You must not have gotten the lesson in etiquette your parents were trying to teach.
Sea_Current_ said:
Sorry YTA. I would also be offended if a guest brought their own spices.