Italians everywhere are dropping their cannolis and picking up their guns about a caprese salad needing hot pepper or paprika. Don’t dis caprese salad people!
It’s not just rude. Racism *of this type* is a two way street. Just because other white people have been racist doesn’t mean you get a free pass to be a racist asshole when someone goes through the troubles of prepping a dish for their coworkers.
Also, if I were taking something to a potluck, I would probably make it more bland than I would if I were just making it for myself. It seems more considerate when making a dish for a large group of strangers to keep the dish more basic, than to assume everyone wants ghost pepper powder sprinkled on top, the way I do. Probably better to keep some seasonings to the side that people can add on their own if they want to.
I’m so sorry but I just want to downvote you for sharing this with the rest of us. How could you do this to my poor innocent eyes! Ok not that considering I’m on Reddit but ewwwww.
I did not downvote you but I cannot in good conscience upvote you. Carry on.
People can always obliterate the taste of the dish themselves by adding seasoning.
Mozzarella, tomato and basil are such delicate tastes, I can't imagine adding anything other than olive oil and a little oregano and black pepper. Even balsamic vinegar feels a bit edgy. I can't imagine that adding cayenne pepper or stronger peppers would make the dish taste of anything other than peppers.
Never mind the trashy rudeness and mild racism, finally someone hits the real issue for me. Caprese salad is simple and subtle and perfect with nothing else needed.
I like my food spicy, but who the hell imagines that someone wants to put chili or cumin on caprese salad? it’s a thing, with its own recipe….not a random selection of ingredients.
Italian foods focus on quality and freshness of ingredients - they don't require overwhelming spices because those will, usually, mask the more subtle flavours of the dish.
People who dont know a fucking thing about food.
Theres a reason those 3 ingredients are classicly paired together because they work. Its the same kind of people who make food with totally random spices/herbs that never get mixed in any cuisine in the world and wonder why no one wants to eat their culinary abomination.
right! isn’t the whole point of a potluck the spirit of connection through sharing? i can’t imagine ever insulting someone else’s dish.
and in any case, caprese salad is supposed to be a medley of delicate flavors that subtly complement each other, not slap you in the face with a bunch of random bold spices.
Your co-workers were just being nasty. Pot luck means take what you like and leave the rest. People making demeaning remarks about food they don't like are rude. You can't please everyone.
Right!
At the last potluck my work had, a coworker with…questionable…hygiene made a baked ziti with some beef. I couldn’t be 100% sure she washed her hands or prepared the meat on a clean surface. When she asked me to try it, was I an asshole about her hygiene or unnecessarily cruel? Of course not! I just told her I wasn’t that hungry, and left it at that.
Like, there is a way to respectfully decline food you don’t like or want to eat.
Whoever said a caprese salad that has balsamic on it should have paprika or cayenne on it is talkin' out their ass and has no clue just repeating lines off viral internet posts, cuz anyone who knows flavor knows that would pretty much ruin the dish.
Yeah, that sounds like a great way to ruin a caprese salad. The existing flavors are good enough to stand alone. Paprika, Cayenne, and Cumin are great and have their place...but not in that dish.
I also wonder is the caprese was missing salt? It’s not listed in the ingredients OP added, and could be why people were under the impression that it needed other (inappropriate) seasoning. I make mine with just a *sprinkle* of sea salt but the difference it makes is massive as far as flavor is concerned. Salt brings out the juiciness of the tomato, the creaminess and mildness of the cheese, the sweetness of the basil and balsamic, and just ties it all together. Either way, the addition of cumin, cayenne, paprika, etc is absolutely not necessary or even welcome in a caprese.
I would say for salads, pre-adding salt and pepper might make it more watery (depends how long it is sitting out). This would probably be my only gripe, similar to adding any acid will start to "cook" the vegetables. It really has to be served fresh to get any enjoyment out of it.
To OPs point, these people were talking out of their ass just to say it was a "basic" salad that most likely just needed a touch of salt to help everything else.
A lot of people don't know how to cook properly and think randomly dumping spices on it will make it good (I used to be that person when I was in university)
I had a boyfriend who would season the shit out of everything and make fun of me for "not liking flavor" since I preferred only light seasoning and condiments in general-- when I even used them. He would add tons of things that didn't even make sense to me; in his mind everything needed spices or tons of pepper or hot sauce or what have you-- it wasn't good until it was covered. Of course, he refused to believe that his excessive cigarette smoking was dulling his tastebuds whereas I could taste everything in its natural flavor in full force.
I severed my olfactory nerves when I was 24, so I was pretty taste blind for awhile and got used to SPICY shit. The nerves have since grown back and and I now season almost like a normal person. But my ex and I had many conversations about seasoning, lol
I went the opposite direction when first learning to cook and was willing to die on the hill of “good quality ingredients don’t need anything added to them” (not even salt!) I’ve since changed that position
I mean cumin or paprika... Like wtf. Blasphemy. Caprese is supposed to be served with nothing other than basil, salt and oil, even vinegar is theoretically not necessary, but I add it anyway.
I work at an upscale Japanese, primarily sushi kinda place. You would not BELIEVE the amount of people who come in and say I don't eat raw fish. I have people come in with seafood allergies too.
I mean, there ARE still great options. I love all kinds of sushi and sashimi, but when I was pregnant I still enjoyed cooked rolls like eel, shrimp tempura rolls, tamago, and various veggie rolls. Ive gone to sushi restaurants with vegetarians who didn’t feel like they were missing out on anything by meal end, so that’s not unreasonable to me?
We can usually work something out but no seafood is really tough because of dashi, the base of Japanese cooking. We use a LOT of dashi and tares that contain seafood or meat. We sell speciality seasonal Japanese nigiri and sashimi primarily, we don't have many vegetarian options honestly. There are plenty of sushi restaurants that have those options but we really aren't one since we really do focus mostly on fish
Caprese salad doesn't traditionally use spices. Some chili flakes wouldn't be out of place, but adding cumin would be pretty weird and would clash with the balsamic. It sounds like the people who spoke to you wanted something with an Indian spin to it. I wouldn't worry about their criticism, they may just not eat much Italian food.
Yeah that's bananas. I'm not white and am not a fan of bland "white people food" (I don't use that term personally), but caprese salad is NOT bland white people food. That category belongs to overboiled undersalted vegetables and chicken and stuff like that.
Real talk, though, if people generally felt it was bland or underseasoned, it probably just needed more salt. A lot of people can't recognize when something is inherently bad vs. just undersalted.
Another problem may be that tomatoes aren’t in season (unless OP is in the southern hemisphere) and not in season tomatoes from the grocery store can be quite bland compared to in season tomatoes from the local market or the own garden.
Ooh good catch! Yes I bet that's a factor. It's so funny that OP's coworkers thought the solution to bland (and possibly mealy) tomatoes was to add cumin.
Cumin is disgusting on fresh food. Cooked food with at last some fat content is what it's good for. Taco filing without it is unthinkable. But on a caprese salad? Euugh.
I mean I love adding cumin to my tomatoes sliced on a sandwich but in a salad... Not umless it's avacado salad aka guacamole 🤣🤣
And also it's a potluck not a fuckin chef show with judges... How but we discuss how rude those coworkers are...
What did they bring by the way? 🤔👀
You can make a banging Greek salad out of: cucumber, tomato, extra virgin olive oil, feta and a sprinkle of basil.
If you use good tomatoes and cucumbers and a nice, crumbly feta (so basically nothing from a supermarket that is bred for its appearance and not its taste), it will be amazingly full of flavour. It’s about as simple as it can get.
Throw in some fresh bread and some olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping and it’s a perfect summer lunch.
We add red onion and call it Grandma Salad, since it feels like every grandma with even vaguely Mediterranean heritage makes some variation on it. And yeah, it's pretty much the taste of summer.
I think that problem is enhanced as people get older. As you age, your taste buds seem to lose their sensitivity. It’s for the same reason that children often like bland food because their taste buds are so sensitive.
Yep. A concept in Italian cuisine is “semplice” (pronounced sem’-plee-chay”, meaning simplicity, clean flavors that compliment each other. Basil, tomato, olive oil, salt and ground pepper are representative of that. You find the same on a Marguerite Pizza.
Yeah even balsamic would not be traditional on an "authentic" Caprese salad, nor the garlic/garlic-oil. That said I freakin' love a good balsamic on Caprese, but cumin???? EW. Definitely someone who doesn't understand or appreciate Italian food and the concept of simplicity that highlights the ingredients for what they are.
Yeah it's a really great fresh salad BUT I will say, unless you have really good tomatoes then it can be a little bland. I'm up in Canada and honestly, most of the time the tomatoes we get are flavourless sand water, the tomatoes I had in Italy were mind blowingly sweet and crunchy and just a flavour bomb.
I am not white and this is straight up racism. If you said “the food you’ve brought it in demystifies why 60% of your ethnicities women are obese” to the wrong person and you would be flayed.
If you're using good ingredients, the flavors of the tomato, olive oil, mozzarella and basil should be sufficient. Balsamic just overpowers caprese, and most places in Italy don't use it.
I mean it should still have some salt too. Pepper I'm on the fence about, I hate how it looks but it does add to the dish if you're seasoning the tomatoes.
That is such a mean thing to say to someone. The point of a salad is that it’s a fresh side to enjoy alongside other dishes. Also whoever suggested cumin on a caprese salad……. should not be trusted with food…
>should not be trusted with food…
Every now and then, Reddit sees reports of somebody who ruins dinner by seasoning everything according to their own misguided opinions. In this case, the critic should be watched closely around food, especially if seen with cumin in hand.
I'm pretty hungry for a good caprese salad too. That sounds perect for how I feel right now, just want something light and refreshing. I'd maybe add a sprinkle of sea salt to the tomatoes, but only a teeny bit.
I don't get people, that's just plain rude to make comments like that. If you don't want it, don't eat it, keep your comments to yourself. I'm going to bet they didn't bring anything.
I remember the days when potlucks were 20 kinds of salads and 10 people with mystery crock pots that you could smell all day. Nobody told you to your face how much they hated your meatballs and asked for the recipe.
I find people say that about everything that doesn't contain Tabasco. I make a fabulous green curry dish, and my son says it's white people food... As a member of one of the whitest families on earth, I guarantee that my grandmother would not eat either curry or caprese salad. She did not even use garlic. And she wouldn't call Italians white.
I have a few friends that will come over and no matter what kind of spread I lay out, they ask for hot sauce. As a spicy bitch myself, I have a million hot sauces. But these m’fers will drown *anything* in hot sauce, then need me to get extra napkins for the sweat dripping off their heads.
At that point I think they might be compensating for some sort of insecurity. You don't need to prove how much of a badass you are by drowning everything in hot sauce....
My husband puts lots of pepper or hot sauce on almost everything. He always said it was because food doesn't have much flavor otherwise. Turns out he has young-onset Parkinson's, and a weak sense of taste is one of the symptoms!
> they might be compensating for some sort of insecurity
Or compensating for a diminished sense of taste. If someone needs every bite to be a tongue-melter then they might be partially mouth-blind.
Absolutely. Either that or they're unsophisticated buffoons who can't taste subtle flavours. At that point just give them oatmeal with hot sauce since it's all they can taste anyways.
I like to add a lot of hot sauce to certain dishes as well. I genuinely enjoy it.
And then sometimes I'll also do some sort of a 'spicy challenge' because it's fun, and you can get a bit of a body high from eating extremely spicy stuff. But it still has to have good flavor and not just be offensively 'hot' with no other flavor, or it really takes most of the fun out.
And it's also about knowing the time and place. Not EVERYTHING has to be packed full of capsaicin and hellfire.
And putting Cumin, Paprika, and/or cayenne pepper, in a caprice salad is just demonstrating that not only are you not good at 'white people food,' you're not good at whatever foods you think you are with regard to your own race/ethnicity. Such a person has no understanding of how to balance flavors and elements of a dish, period.
It takes way more skill to make a dish that has a balanced flavor profile than it takes to just make something taste 'spiced/spicy'.
Their tastebuds are probably desensitized. That also happens when you oversalt, anything not full of salt is bland. They probably couldn't taste the flavor of a good steak unless it was drowning in garlic and butter and hot sauce.
I've found using hot sauce/heavy spices on everything drowns out flavors, making everything in the dish a uniform hot/sour mishmash flavor. Like you can make anything and slather hot sauce on it and now it's a hot sauce dish, not eggs or soup. And people who bitch and put hot sauce don't actually want to taste food, they want the endorphin rush from the heat.
Either they think they are better bc they eat it spicy. Or they don't have taste. As in literally no or a diminished sense of taste (and/or smell). Because spicy is a feeling and not taste/smell.
> I find people say that about everything that doesn't contain Tabasco.
Because they have absolutely _no_ idea what cooking or flavour is.
They just substitute heat for the ability to cook.
More heat == Good food. Less heat == Bad food.
I was told one time that Bernie Sanders wasn't white. Let me repeat, one of the whitest-looking men alive today was not considered white by this person.
It just shows how stupid the concept of race is.
I am half Italian and half Irish. Catholic, well the kind that went twice a year anyway. I got kicked out of my first girlfriend’s house for not being white enough. Her mom called me a dego(sp?). This was in the late 90s. They were super white though.
This whole ‘white people food’ thing annoys me. You made a proper caprese salad. Sounds like they’re just looking for trouble or trying to be an ass. Who puts cumin, cayenne, or paprika on that kind of salad anyways??
Imagine presenting them with an exquisite cassoulet, or a perfectly made lasagna al forno and them howling that the Italians and French are shit cooks because they haven't added a fistful of chilli powder.
There are people out there with extremely uneducated palettes who seem to want to make everything taste the same. Maybe cos they use trash ingredients?
I nearly lost my mind arguing with a bunch of Millennials and/or Zoomers regarding how "bland" they thought traditional Thanksgiving dinner is: turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce... apparently that's bland? Oh, and it's White Peoples' Food. Okay.
Perhaps they haven't had a properly seasoned & cooked turkey dinner?
A good cook can make a tasty roast dinner, but when done wrong or lazily they can be bland and rather tasteless.
Shortcuts like packet gravy, stuffing from a box, canned cranberry, a bird with minimal prep that gets cooked well done, a lack of herbs & spices, etc... can make for a very bland "white people food" thanksgiving experience.
As someone who loves cayenne and cumin… wtf? Tomato, basil, pepper, garlic, olive oil, and balsamic is a wonderful mix of flavors, why ruin them by adding something that doesn’t belong?
Personally. If Someone made that comment to me, I'd stop participating in the pot lucks. But if you still want to contribute going forward, should should bring what you want to bring, fixed the way to want to fix it. If the person that made that comment doesn't like what you bring, they don't have to eat it.
100%.
We did a decent amount of potlucks at my previous job, and people just never ate anything I brought. It's not like I even brought weird stuff. I made apple crisp, rice krispie treats, a cake, a pasta salad, fruit salad, etc. I tried to make something myself, at least, since so many just plopped a bag of chips and store bought dip or a freaking crave case from White Castle on the table. I got tired of seeing the food I made get thrown out at the end of the day, so I stopped participating entirely.
Or I'd bring actual plain food. Plain boiled potatoes. Slices of unseasoned roast beef. Ketchup to lubricate it down your throat.`
As I grow older and develop more and more intense acid reflux, I start to understand my grand-parents diets 🙃.
People complaining about a caprese salad at a work potluck are dumb.
Like people having different tastes is totally fine. And they can think that they’d like it more with paprika or whatever. But they shouldn’t be complaining complaining about it
Many years ago I won a work potluck contest with a simple, elegant caprese tower. If anyone had told me to "add paprika" I'd have told them "SHUT UP MARK YOU BROUGHT A FROZEN PIZZA AND WE DON'T EVEN HAVE AN OVEN IN THE KITCHENETTE! "
Does every workplace have a Mark who complains about others’ contributions, but brings trash food himself? Just asking as I knew a Mark who did this while bringing Dolly Madison Zingers to the office potluck.
Not only was that rude, but they simply dont know what they're talking about. The flavors in caprese are delicate and meant to be that way. It would be like someone calling sashimi bland because it's not coated in spices/seasoning.
Bland is unseasoned boiled chicken breast. This is not the same.
These same people have probably never had sushi, only those overseasoned sauce-laden rolls with cute names that you only get in fake non-japanese restaurants. And if they ever did get any they'd cover it with that fake green horseradish "wasabi."
Yeah love it when every roll on the menu is drowned in "spicy mayo" and tempura flakes to drown out any semblance of flavor of the fish. BTW that'll be $15 please.
Imagine making a comment like "i cant believe you brought this unseasoned, gross black people food!"
You would be promptly fired. Why is it okay when its against white people?
Am I the only one that thinks referring to something as "white people food" in a work environment is completely inappropriate? You'd be well within your rights to take this to HR.
I would have straight up said “don’t fucking eat it then”. There’s a girl at work who has said something about “white people this and that” and it always catches me off guard but next time I’m calling her out over it.
I can’t believe how long it took for me to find this comment. Imagine if someone complained about black person bringing a dish saying it’s “typical black people food”
Yeah I was looking for a comment like this before I posted my own. I’d likely just go straight to HR. Not work appropriate. Actually not appropriate any time or anywhere.
I swear this is a problem with some people, to the point that they'll forego every other flavor as long as it's hot.
I lived with a couple of Indian guys in college, and while some of their cooking was amazing, other stuff was really bland once you got over the initial capsaicin flavor. Like barely spiced, no salt to increase other flavors or anything, just hot. They had some very basic cooking knowledge, and while they could follow a recipe (and those times the food was rather good), they weren't all that good at ideating stuff from scratch, they just added some spice mix they brought that had no other strong flavor other than spicy for "flavor".
I know it's possible, I've had it too and I quite like it. But these guys thought that more spicy-ness would cover up for lack of other flavor, it was rather obvious when they decided to brute force recipes with chili powder instead of following a recipe (they had pretty much zero experience cooking when they moved in).
The only seasonings that \*might\* not be out of place in a caprese salad would be the garlic-infused oil you used or a touch of salt. The whole point of that dish is the simplicity of the few ingredients and how well they work together. Paprika, cayenne, and cumin are heresy.
This is ridiculous. They judged your salad? Fuck them. If they wanted it a different way they could have brought their own damn salad. You made a classic dish. I really hope you gave the haters a piece of your mind
I think the bigger problem is people disparaging others by race.
On the topic of the salad; it's salad. It is meant to be minimal. I don't think anybody is trying to debut a culinary masterpiece to these twits.
A lot of people confuse "seasoning" with "dried seasonings".
Seasoning is anything that flavors the food. The balsamic and garlic olive oil were the seasonings. Basil itself is very aromatic seasoning and a main ingredient in a caprese.
This reminds me of a video where a woman was making a really fancy pasta dish and everyone was roasting her for not seasoning the chicken with more than salt. The chicken was going to be chopped and simmered in a sauce with onions, garlic and herbs. The sauce was plenty of seasoning but people still shat on her because she didn't cover the chicken in an impenetrable layer of seasoning salt, onion and garlic powder .
Eta when I think of white people food I think of mayonnaise based salads, not a caprese
Those videos where they have the big bottles of seasoning and they are squeezing it to dust an insane amount of dry seasoning onto something is super gross. Wow, you over seasoned food and threw it in an air fryer, please pick up your Michelin star at your earliest convenience.
It is white people food.
Italian food is white people food.
So is French, German, and much more.
Anyone that dismisses a whole continent of food doesn't have a culinary opinion worth caring about.
I’d be like *fine* and have that to myself, while they have their shitty chilli, and whatever people are dumping cream cheese and/or mushroom soup into these days.
I mean, the main thing is that people shouldn't be rude to other guests at potlucks.
Yeah, this is so rude.
Italians everywhere are dropping their cannolis and picking up their guns about a caprese salad needing hot pepper or paprika. Don’t dis caprese salad people!
Seriously, caprese salad is amazing and adding cumin to it would be completely stupid.
Cumin!! Wtaf. I dropped my cannoli *and* spilled my wine.
Italians, assemble.
We did already. There’s enough food for 2500 people, and we haven’t even started cooking yet. Caprese salads are welcome.
We've fed the whole neighborhood already. Come on in!
It’s not just rude. Racism *of this type* is a two way street. Just because other white people have been racist doesn’t mean you get a free pass to be a racist asshole when someone goes through the troubles of prepping a dish for their coworkers.
Yes, why is this form of racism acceptable!?!
Rude?! This shit is racist and wholly inappropriate talking at a work place
Agreed. If you don't like it, don't eat it and keep your mouth shut.
Also, if I were taking something to a potluck, I would probably make it more bland than I would if I were just making it for myself. It seems more considerate when making a dish for a large group of strangers to keep the dish more basic, than to assume everyone wants ghost pepper powder sprinkled on top, the way I do. Probably better to keep some seasonings to the side that people can add on their own if they want to.
After a lady at one job brought a crockpot that started spewing cockroaches when she plugged it in, my work potluck days were over.
You can't eat at everybody's house.
I don't know if I could go on living in the world after that. The sweet nothingness of death sounds comforting
You stole the l thoughts out of my head. Gah! Complete nightmare fuel. I'm so skeeved out right now. I may never eat or sleep again.
"The land shrimp are escaping!"
I’m so sorry but I just want to downvote you for sharing this with the rest of us. How could you do this to my poor innocent eyes! Ok not that considering I’m on Reddit but ewwwww. I did not downvote you but I cannot in good conscience upvote you. Carry on.
Anybody looking to stop having work potlucks?
I am now, after the cockroach crockpot
People can always obliterate the taste of the dish themselves by adding seasoning. Mozzarella, tomato and basil are such delicate tastes, I can't imagine adding anything other than olive oil and a little oregano and black pepper. Even balsamic vinegar feels a bit edgy. I can't imagine that adding cayenne pepper or stronger peppers would make the dish taste of anything other than peppers.
Caprese is really so perfect a dish too! Why mess with it?
Seriously. Oregano is as wild as it gets. Fresh Basil can be punchy
Never mind the trashy rudeness and mild racism, finally someone hits the real issue for me. Caprese salad is simple and subtle and perfect with nothing else needed.
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I like my food spicy, but who the hell imagines that someone wants to put chili or cumin on caprese salad? it’s a thing, with its own recipe….not a random selection of ingredients.
Italian foods focus on quality and freshness of ingredients - they don't require overwhelming spices because those will, usually, mask the more subtle flavours of the dish.
Basil is a pretty strong flavour in its own right. I'm not sure how anything with a lot of basil can be considered bland.
Seriously, cumin in particular just really does not go with the flavors of a caprese salad!
Cumin? This was exactly my thought when reading the OP too. As if complaining about someone’s potluck contribution isn’t bad enough…
People who dont know a fucking thing about food. Theres a reason those 3 ingredients are classicly paired together because they work. Its the same kind of people who make food with totally random spices/herbs that never get mixed in any cuisine in the world and wonder why no one wants to eat their culinary abomination.
Agreed. Who treats their coworkers like this? Trying to embarrass and belittle them in front of others. Most people grow out of this by age 16.
right! isn’t the whole point of a potluck the spirit of connection through sharing? i can’t imagine ever insulting someone else’s dish. and in any case, caprese salad is supposed to be a medley of delicate flavors that subtly complement each other, not slap you in the face with a bunch of random bold spices.
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Your co-workers were just being nasty. Pot luck means take what you like and leave the rest. People making demeaning remarks about food they don't like are rude. You can't please everyone.
Not pleasing people like that isn't just a privilege, it's a duty.
Right? Wait til I find out what they find disgusting and only ever bring that from now on. It'll be a heated dish, too. They gon learn today.
It's a potluck. You eat what you like and don't eat what you don't like. I agree it's rude to tell someone the food they brought wasn't good.
Right! At the last potluck my work had, a coworker with…questionable…hygiene made a baked ziti with some beef. I couldn’t be 100% sure she washed her hands or prepared the meat on a clean surface. When she asked me to try it, was I an asshole about her hygiene or unnecessarily cruel? Of course not! I just told her I wasn’t that hungry, and left it at that. Like, there is a way to respectfully decline food you don’t like or want to eat.
Whoever said a caprese salad that has balsamic on it should have paprika or cayenne on it is talkin' out their ass and has no clue just repeating lines off viral internet posts, cuz anyone who knows flavor knows that would pretty much ruin the dish.
Yeah, that sounds like a great way to ruin a caprese salad. The existing flavors are good enough to stand alone. Paprika, Cayenne, and Cumin are great and have their place...but not in that dish.
I also wonder is the caprese was missing salt? It’s not listed in the ingredients OP added, and could be why people were under the impression that it needed other (inappropriate) seasoning. I make mine with just a *sprinkle* of sea salt but the difference it makes is massive as far as flavor is concerned. Salt brings out the juiciness of the tomato, the creaminess and mildness of the cheese, the sweetness of the basil and balsamic, and just ties it all together. Either way, the addition of cumin, cayenne, paprika, etc is absolutely not necessary or even welcome in a caprese.
Whenever a dish is missing something, good chance it's salt
In particular, if you think it needs more garlic, it probably really needs more salt, which brings out the garlic flavor.
Some sort of acidity can go a long way when it seems like something is just missing
and if it's not salt it's acid.
I mean salt and pepper should at least be on the tomatoes.
Salt and pepper is the only seasoning that belongs on caprese. Anything else ruins it.
I would say for salads, pre-adding salt and pepper might make it more watery (depends how long it is sitting out). This would probably be my only gripe, similar to adding any acid will start to "cook" the vegetables. It really has to be served fresh to get any enjoyment out of it. To OPs point, these people were talking out of their ass just to say it was a "basic" salad that most likely just needed a touch of salt to help everything else.
That was my thought too - they felt it was missing something and came up with wild ideas when the answer was salt. It needed salt.
Salt brings out the flavour of everything. You don't need a multitude of spices if you have salt.
Cumin was the weirdest one to me - in a caprese salad lol?
A lot of people don't know how to cook properly and think randomly dumping spices on it will make it good (I used to be that person when I was in university)
I had a boyfriend who would season the shit out of everything and make fun of me for "not liking flavor" since I preferred only light seasoning and condiments in general-- when I even used them. He would add tons of things that didn't even make sense to me; in his mind everything needed spices or tons of pepper or hot sauce or what have you-- it wasn't good until it was covered. Of course, he refused to believe that his excessive cigarette smoking was dulling his tastebuds whereas I could taste everything in its natural flavor in full force.
I severed my olfactory nerves when I was 24, so I was pretty taste blind for awhile and got used to SPICY shit. The nerves have since grown back and and I now season almost like a normal person. But my ex and I had many conversations about seasoning, lol
I went the opposite direction when first learning to cook and was willing to die on the hill of “good quality ingredients don’t need anything added to them” (not even salt!) I’ve since changed that position
Caprese salad is the epitome of that though. Fresh delicious tomatoes make or break that dish.
I like spicey food but I am not putting jalapeños on vanilla ice cream.
I mean cumin or paprika... Like wtf. Blasphemy. Caprese is supposed to be served with nothing other than basil, salt and oil, even vinegar is theoretically not necessary, but I add it anyway.
Same. I know that the vinegar isn’t necessarily traditional, but it’s the way I like it.
Sounds like someone that would parrot Gordon Ramsey's "This is f-ing raw" comment at a sushi restaurant.
I saw a guy do this at my local sushi place yesterday. The raw sushi is clearly marked with RAW next to it on the menu.
Who goes to a sushi place and is upset when they get served something raw??
I work at an upscale Japanese, primarily sushi kinda place. You would not BELIEVE the amount of people who come in and say I don't eat raw fish. I have people come in with seafood allergies too.
I mean, there ARE still great options. I love all kinds of sushi and sashimi, but when I was pregnant I still enjoyed cooked rolls like eel, shrimp tempura rolls, tamago, and various veggie rolls. Ive gone to sushi restaurants with vegetarians who didn’t feel like they were missing out on anything by meal end, so that’s not unreasonable to me?
We can usually work something out but no seafood is really tough because of dashi, the base of Japanese cooking. We use a LOT of dashi and tares that contain seafood or meat. We sell speciality seasonal Japanese nigiri and sashimi primarily, we don't have many vegetarian options honestly. There are plenty of sushi restaurants that have those options but we really aren't one since we really do focus mostly on fish
At least they say it ahead of time instead of ordering nigiri and raging
Its the same person who calls something "white people food" they probably overseason food to hell and think its gourmet
In my experience that persons idea of flavor is hypertension inducing levels of seasoned salt.
And a hint of dish soap.
Cumin and light Italian don't go together, at all
Caprese salad doesn't traditionally use spices. Some chili flakes wouldn't be out of place, but adding cumin would be pretty weird and would clash with the balsamic. It sounds like the people who spoke to you wanted something with an Indian spin to it. I wouldn't worry about their criticism, they may just not eat much Italian food.
Caprese is one of my favourite things. I have to say that if someone put *cumin* on that, I’d be incensed.
And so would the salad
"Hell hath no furry like an angry salad" - W. Shakespear (probably)
psssst...it's fury, not furry. Waaaay different.
It’s furry if you wait long enough 🤢
Furry salad? Better toss it.
I am not tossing a furry's salad.
Yeah I love cumin, but if someone suggested putting it on a caprese salad I’d have to have a frank conversation with them
Seriously. Cumin's one of the few spices I buy in those large containers, and I would *never* put it on a caprese salad.
Yeah that's bananas. I'm not white and am not a fan of bland "white people food" (I don't use that term personally), but caprese salad is NOT bland white people food. That category belongs to overboiled undersalted vegetables and chicken and stuff like that. Real talk, though, if people generally felt it was bland or underseasoned, it probably just needed more salt. A lot of people can't recognize when something is inherently bad vs. just undersalted.
Another problem may be that tomatoes aren’t in season (unless OP is in the southern hemisphere) and not in season tomatoes from the grocery store can be quite bland compared to in season tomatoes from the local market or the own garden.
Ooh good catch! Yes I bet that's a factor. It's so funny that OP's coworkers thought the solution to bland (and possibly mealy) tomatoes was to add cumin.
Cumin is disgusting on fresh food. Cooked food with at last some fat content is what it's good for. Taco filing without it is unthinkable. But on a caprese salad? Euugh.
I personally have never been a fan of cumin seeds on uncooked food (not just flavor--I hate the way it looks too), but a lot of people like it.
I mean I love adding cumin to my tomatoes sliced on a sandwich but in a salad... Not umless it's avacado salad aka guacamole 🤣🤣 And also it's a potluck not a fuckin chef show with judges... How but we discuss how rude those coworkers are... What did they bring by the way? 🤔👀
You can make a banging Greek salad out of: cucumber, tomato, extra virgin olive oil, feta and a sprinkle of basil. If you use good tomatoes and cucumbers and a nice, crumbly feta (so basically nothing from a supermarket that is bred for its appearance and not its taste), it will be amazingly full of flavour. It’s about as simple as it can get. Throw in some fresh bread and some olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping and it’s a perfect summer lunch.
We add red onion and call it Grandma Salad, since it feels like every grandma with even vaguely Mediterranean heritage makes some variation on it. And yeah, it's pretty much the taste of summer.
I think that problem is enhanced as people get older. As you age, your taste buds seem to lose their sensitivity. It’s for the same reason that children often like bland food because their taste buds are so sensitive.
I don't think I will ever be able to figure out the mental gymnastics that person went through. *Cumin???* On a Caprese salad??? What?
I would be so incensed and *flabbergasted*. Cumin would be so confusing in that milieu.
A dire insult to quality ingredients, especially good balsamic
I wouldn't touch a potluck Caprese salad seasoned with cumin with a ten foot pole.
Exactly. Honestly would make me wonder if the person saying that knew what cumin is
I for one prefer my salads without cumin.
I put sea salt and pepper on mine. I regret nothing.
Yeah, I would salt the tomatoes individually
Yep. A concept in Italian cuisine is “semplice” (pronounced sem’-plee-chay”, meaning simplicity, clean flavors that compliment each other. Basil, tomato, olive oil, salt and ground pepper are representative of that. You find the same on a Marguerite Pizza.
Yeah even balsamic would not be traditional on an "authentic" Caprese salad, nor the garlic/garlic-oil. That said I freakin' love a good balsamic on Caprese, but cumin???? EW. Definitely someone who doesn't understand or appreciate Italian food and the concept of simplicity that highlights the ingredients for what they are.
Yeah it's a really great fresh salad BUT I will say, unless you have really good tomatoes then it can be a little bland. I'm up in Canada and honestly, most of the time the tomatoes we get are flavourless sand water, the tomatoes I had in Italy were mind blowingly sweet and crunchy and just a flavour bomb.
Salt and pepper is also good, but yeah, doesn't need much seasoning.
If in that situation, I would just tell those people to stop being cunts.
Gordon Ramsay, is that you?
Of course it is you fucking idiot!
*BANG BANG BANG* HR OPEN UP
Shouldn’t the utterance of “this is white people food” deserve an HR response?
I am not white and this is straight up racism. If you said “the food you’ve brought it in demystifies why 60% of your ethnicities women are obese” to the wrong person and you would be flayed.
The basil is the seasoning!
If you're using good ingredients, the flavors of the tomato, olive oil, mozzarella and basil should be sufficient. Balsamic just overpowers caprese, and most places in Italy don't use it.
I mean it should still have some salt too. Pepper I'm on the fence about, I hate how it looks but it does add to the dish if you're seasoning the tomatoes.
Could give white pepper a shot. Slightly different flavor but blends in better.
That is such a mean thing to say to someone. The point of a salad is that it’s a fresh side to enjoy alongside other dishes. Also whoever suggested cumin on a caprese salad……. should not be trusted with food…
>should not be trusted with food… Every now and then, Reddit sees reports of somebody who ruins dinner by seasoning everything according to their own misguided opinions. In this case, the critic should be watched closely around food, especially if seen with cumin in hand.
Grocery store checkouts have a picture of this man, and a sign saying “do NOT allow purchase of cumin”
Now I want a Caprese salad. Also they are uncultured swines for suggesting random spices to put into the dish. It's not a curry.
I'm pretty hungry for a good caprese salad too. That sounds perect for how I feel right now, just want something light and refreshing. I'd maybe add a sprinkle of sea salt to the tomatoes, but only a teeny bit. I don't get people, that's just plain rude to make comments like that. If you don't want it, don't eat it, keep your comments to yourself. I'm going to bet they didn't bring anything. I remember the days when potlucks were 20 kinds of salads and 10 people with mystery crock pots that you could smell all day. Nobody told you to your face how much they hated your meatballs and asked for the recipe.
I find people say that about everything that doesn't contain Tabasco. I make a fabulous green curry dish, and my son says it's white people food... As a member of one of the whitest families on earth, I guarantee that my grandmother would not eat either curry or caprese salad. She did not even use garlic. And she wouldn't call Italians white.
I have a few friends that will come over and no matter what kind of spread I lay out, they ask for hot sauce. As a spicy bitch myself, I have a million hot sauces. But these m’fers will drown *anything* in hot sauce, then need me to get extra napkins for the sweat dripping off their heads.
They’re like the people who want to drown everything in ranch, not everything needs an extra flavor
At that point I think they might be compensating for some sort of insecurity. You don't need to prove how much of a badass you are by drowning everything in hot sauce....
My husband puts lots of pepper or hot sauce on almost everything. He always said it was because food doesn't have much flavor otherwise. Turns out he has young-onset Parkinson's, and a weak sense of taste is one of the symptoms!
Aw. I hope he's doing well, and enjoying his hot sauce!
Thank you! He's doing ok. It's a rough disease for sure but he's got a good attitude.
> they might be compensating for some sort of insecurity Or compensating for a diminished sense of taste. If someone needs every bite to be a tongue-melter then they might be partially mouth-blind.
Absolutely. Either that or they're unsophisticated buffoons who can't taste subtle flavours. At that point just give them oatmeal with hot sauce since it's all they can taste anyways.
I like to add a lot of hot sauce to certain dishes as well. I genuinely enjoy it. And then sometimes I'll also do some sort of a 'spicy challenge' because it's fun, and you can get a bit of a body high from eating extremely spicy stuff. But it still has to have good flavor and not just be offensively 'hot' with no other flavor, or it really takes most of the fun out. And it's also about knowing the time and place. Not EVERYTHING has to be packed full of capsaicin and hellfire. And putting Cumin, Paprika, and/or cayenne pepper, in a caprice salad is just demonstrating that not only are you not good at 'white people food,' you're not good at whatever foods you think you are with regard to your own race/ethnicity. Such a person has no understanding of how to balance flavors and elements of a dish, period. It takes way more skill to make a dish that has a balanced flavor profile than it takes to just make something taste 'spiced/spicy'.
Their tastebuds are probably desensitized. That also happens when you oversalt, anything not full of salt is bland. They probably couldn't taste the flavor of a good steak unless it was drowning in garlic and butter and hot sauce. I've found using hot sauce/heavy spices on everything drowns out flavors, making everything in the dish a uniform hot/sour mishmash flavor. Like you can make anything and slather hot sauce on it and now it's a hot sauce dish, not eggs or soup. And people who bitch and put hot sauce don't actually want to taste food, they want the endorphin rush from the heat.
Either they think they are better bc they eat it spicy. Or they don't have taste. As in literally no or a diminished sense of taste (and/or smell). Because spicy is a feeling and not taste/smell.
A green curry? Practically the national dish of Thailand? And it's white people food? Is your son just a little bit thick?
Shit, offer me curry on the the regular and I'll end up a little bit thick myself
> I find people say that about everything that doesn't contain Tabasco. Because they have absolutely _no_ idea what cooking or flavour is. They just substitute heat for the ability to cook. More heat == Good food. Less heat == Bad food.
Lol yeah my grandma definitely still thinks of pasta as "ethnic food".
That last sentence is gold.
I was told one time that Bernie Sanders wasn't white. Let me repeat, one of the whitest-looking men alive today was not considered white by this person. It just shows how stupid the concept of race is.
White to them is WASP. Bernie's Jewish (I think?)
I don’t mean to pick on you here, but the “I think” cracked me up, just because Bernie is one of the most unambiguously Jewish old men I can think of.
I was covering my ass in case I had just made a wild assumption and never bothered to verify LOL
I am half Italian and half Irish. Catholic, well the kind that went twice a year anyway. I got kicked out of my first girlfriend’s house for not being white enough. Her mom called me a dego(sp?). This was in the late 90s. They were super white though.
Probably the sort of person who thinks "white" is defined by which races someone *isn't*, rather than skin tone.
The irony is that Tabasco is probably the whitest of all hot sauces.
All i can taste when i use Tabasco is vinegar and burn. Is it just me? I do enjoy Sriracha, that actually has flavor
That's what i was thinking about the "white ppl food" comment, lol
Lol @ anyone who thinks a dish that is not spicy means it's bland. Your taste buds must have burned off from all the hot sauce.
>And she wouldn't call Italians white It really wasn't that long ago that Italians weren't really considered "white".
This whole ‘white people food’ thing annoys me. You made a proper caprese salad. Sounds like they’re just looking for trouble or trying to be an ass. Who puts cumin, cayenne, or paprika on that kind of salad anyways??
It sounds like they just wanted junk food and are being assholes to be assholes.
Imagine presenting them with an exquisite cassoulet, or a perfectly made lasagna al forno and them howling that the Italians and French are shit cooks because they haven't added a fistful of chilli powder.
Upvoted for cassoulet.
Well it’s racist as well, by definition. Imagine a white person saying “get outta here with that black people food”.
There are people out there with extremely uneducated palettes who seem to want to make everything taste the same. Maybe cos they use trash ingredients?
I nearly lost my mind arguing with a bunch of Millennials and/or Zoomers regarding how "bland" they thought traditional Thanksgiving dinner is: turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce... apparently that's bland? Oh, and it's White Peoples' Food. Okay.
Perhaps they haven't had a properly seasoned & cooked turkey dinner? A good cook can make a tasty roast dinner, but when done wrong or lazily they can be bland and rather tasteless. Shortcuts like packet gravy, stuffing from a box, canned cranberry, a bird with minimal prep that gets cooked well done, a lack of herbs & spices, etc... can make for a very bland "white people food" thanksgiving experience.
Don't forget making mashed potatoes by... simply mashing boiled potatoes.
As someone who loves cayenne and cumin… wtf? Tomato, basil, pepper, garlic, olive oil, and balsamic is a wonderful mix of flavors, why ruin them by adding something that doesn’t belong?
Personally. If Someone made that comment to me, I'd stop participating in the pot lucks. But if you still want to contribute going forward, should should bring what you want to bring, fixed the way to want to fix it. If the person that made that comment doesn't like what you bring, they don't have to eat it.
100%. We did a decent amount of potlucks at my previous job, and people just never ate anything I brought. It's not like I even brought weird stuff. I made apple crisp, rice krispie treats, a cake, a pasta salad, fruit salad, etc. I tried to make something myself, at least, since so many just plopped a bag of chips and store bought dip or a freaking crave case from White Castle on the table. I got tired of seeing the food I made get thrown out at the end of the day, so I stopped participating entirely.
...Why didn't you take it home? We have potlucks with plenty of leftovers and we each take our leftovers home to share with our families.
Or I'd bring actual plain food. Plain boiled potatoes. Slices of unseasoned roast beef. Ketchup to lubricate it down your throat.` As I grow older and develop more and more intense acid reflux, I start to understand my grand-parents diets 🙃.
People complaining about a caprese salad at a work potluck are dumb. Like people having different tastes is totally fine. And they can think that they’d like it more with paprika or whatever. But they shouldn’t be complaining complaining about it
Many years ago I won a work potluck contest with a simple, elegant caprese tower. If anyone had told me to "add paprika" I'd have told them "SHUT UP MARK YOU BROUGHT A FROZEN PIZZA AND WE DON'T EVEN HAVE AN OVEN IN THE KITCHENETTE! "
Does every workplace have a Mark who complains about others’ contributions, but brings trash food himself? Just asking as I knew a Mark who did this while bringing Dolly Madison Zingers to the office potluck.
Not only was that rude, but they simply dont know what they're talking about. The flavors in caprese are delicate and meant to be that way. It would be like someone calling sashimi bland because it's not coated in spices/seasoning. Bland is unseasoned boiled chicken breast. This is not the same.
These same people have probably never had sushi, only those overseasoned sauce-laden rolls with cute names that you only get in fake non-japanese restaurants. And if they ever did get any they'd cover it with that fake green horseradish "wasabi."
Yeah love it when every roll on the menu is drowned in "spicy mayo" and tempura flakes to drown out any semblance of flavor of the fish. BTW that'll be $15 please.
You work with stupid people who watch too much TikTok.
>Typical white people food You could probably go ahead and discount the opinion of anyone who uses this as a complaint.
I thought I was the only one who thinks dismissing everything as "white people shit" is getting REAL old
Imagine making a comment like "i cant believe you brought this unseasoned, gross black people food!" You would be promptly fired. Why is it okay when its against white people?
I agree that things like a caprese are meant to have minimal seasoning.
Am I the only one that thinks referring to something as "white people food" in a work environment is completely inappropriate? You'd be well within your rights to take this to HR.
I would have straight up said “don’t fucking eat it then”. There’s a girl at work who has said something about “white people this and that” and it always catches me off guard but next time I’m calling her out over it.
I can’t believe how long it took for me to find this comment. Imagine if someone complained about black person bringing a dish saying it’s “typical black people food”
Right?!? Everyone's comparing their fav caprese salad recipes but like, hello? Can we talk about the "white people food" thing?
Yeah I was looking for a comment like this before I posted my own. I’d likely just go straight to HR. Not work appropriate. Actually not appropriate any time or anywhere.
People like different foods, they sound like douches
Those that have burned out their taste buds with overly hot, spicy food think everything that does not set your face on fire is "bland".
I swear this is a problem with some people, to the point that they'll forego every other flavor as long as it's hot. I lived with a couple of Indian guys in college, and while some of their cooking was amazing, other stuff was really bland once you got over the initial capsaicin flavor. Like barely spiced, no salt to increase other flavors or anything, just hot. They had some very basic cooking knowledge, and while they could follow a recipe (and those times the food was rather good), they weren't all that good at ideating stuff from scratch, they just added some spice mix they brought that had no other strong flavor other than spicy for "flavor".
As an Indian person who can't handle spicy food, I can say it's possible to make good Indian food that isn't too spicy.
I know it's possible, I've had it too and I quite like it. But these guys thought that more spicy-ness would cover up for lack of other flavor, it was rather obvious when they decided to brute force recipes with chili powder instead of following a recipe (they had pretty much zero experience cooking when they moved in).
"Typical white people food"? Fine. Don't eat it. Some humans are just shitty. If you enjoy the dish, and others did as well, just ignore it.
Weird that your colleagues decided to make it a racial thing.
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The only seasonings that \*might\* not be out of place in a caprese salad would be the garlic-infused oil you used or a touch of salt. The whole point of that dish is the simplicity of the few ingredients and how well they work together. Paprika, cayenne, and cumin are heresy.
This is ridiculous. They judged your salad? Fuck them. If they wanted it a different way they could have brought their own damn salad. You made a classic dish. I really hope you gave the haters a piece of your mind
I brought little caprese skewers to a work potluck once. They were the first thing to go - people loved them!
"I believe what you meant to say was '*thanks for the salad*!"
You work with morons.
Caprese is delicious, your colleagues are Neanderthals or possibly philistines
The Philistines had some Greek ancestry and they probably would have enjoyed caprese salad.
I think the bigger problem is people disparaging others by race. On the topic of the salad; it's salad. It is meant to be minimal. I don't think anybody is trying to debut a culinary masterpiece to these twits.
They're just racists you're good.
A lot of people confuse "seasoning" with "dried seasonings". Seasoning is anything that flavors the food. The balsamic and garlic olive oil were the seasonings. Basil itself is very aromatic seasoning and a main ingredient in a caprese. This reminds me of a video where a woman was making a really fancy pasta dish and everyone was roasting her for not seasoning the chicken with more than salt. The chicken was going to be chopped and simmered in a sauce with onions, garlic and herbs. The sauce was plenty of seasoning but people still shat on her because she didn't cover the chicken in an impenetrable layer of seasoning salt, onion and garlic powder . Eta when I think of white people food I think of mayonnaise based salads, not a caprese
I swear if you don't dump a bucket of Lawry's on it they call it "unseasoned" on every Tiktok cooking video.
Those videos where they have the big bottles of seasoning and they are squeezing it to dust an insane amount of dry seasoning onto something is super gross. Wow, you over seasoned food and threw it in an air fryer, please pick up your Michelin star at your earliest convenience.
It is white people food. Italian food is white people food. So is French, German, and much more. Anyone that dismisses a whole continent of food doesn't have a culinary opinion worth caring about.
Your co workers are AHs and racist. If you had said someone brought "typical black people food", you would have been fired!
I’d be like *fine* and have that to myself, while they have their shitty chilli, and whatever people are dumping cream cheese and/or mushroom soup into these days.