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He even offered him Italian alternatives, but he stormed out anyway.
By John Sundholm — Written on Feb 12, 2023
For some, cooking is a perfunctory chore, but for many of us, it's a special hobby we take seriously.
And like any other creative endeavor, some don't take kindly to alterations to their work.
An avid cook has caused major strife in his family for precisely this reason after requesting they not alter his traditional cooking.
Posting in the "r/AmITheA--hole" (AITA) subReddit, a forum where people try to figure out if they were in the wrong in a conflict, he detailed what went down.
He explained in his post that his family has Italian heritage, and he loves to host them and cook traditional Italian meals from scratch.
When his sister's boyfriend asked to put hot sauce on the traditional Italian family recipe he made, he refused.
The man writes that weekly Sunday dinners are a tradition in his Italian-Canadian family, with each family member rotating to take turns cooking something special.
The host writes, "I take my food very seriously, especially Italian food," but this particular Sunday was extra special "because my nonna is eating with us."
The meal—carbonara, bruschetta, and "a seafood platter in red sauce"—took him all day to cook, but in the end it wasn't up to his sister's boyfriend's tastes.
"When we sat down to eat," he writes, "my sister's boyfriend is humming and hawing saying my meal is missing something."
He then went to the refrigerator for hot sauce—which the man says he likes too, but "I don't dare mix cuisines like that."
And he feels strongly that the buffalo sauce and sriracha he had don't go with the traditional Italian food he cooked.
So the man told his sister's boyfriend, "I'd appreciate if he enjoyed my meal as it is."
When the boyfriend protested, the man offered Italian alternatives like dried chili flakes or Calabrian chili oil that would go better with the food he'd cooked.
The boyfriend insisted on putting sriracha on the homemade Italian food, and when told no, he stormed out.
The sister's boyfriend threatened to go to the store and buy his own bottle of sriracha if the man wouldn't let him put it on the food.
The avid cook called the boyfriend's bluff, and he left to go to the store. When the boyfriend returned, everyone was getting ready to leave, which only made him angrier.
The man's sister agrees with him that her boyfriend shouldn't have insisted on hot sauce.
But that has made the situation even more fraught, as the boyfriend feels she should be on his side.
Reddit commenters were divided, with many feeling both the boyfriend and the cook were way out of line.
One commenter felt both needed to calm down a bit about their food demands.
They wrote, "policing how someone likes their food is a bad look... you say [you don't mix cuisines] like you think you'll invite a demon into your home. Chill. It's hot sauce."
But, they added, "however, I feel like the boyfriend's comment 'something is missing' is pretty rude... Honestly, you both sound exhausting, and I feel bad for your sister."
Another person firmly agreed. "You're the a--hole for policing what he can and cannot put on his food..."
"He's the a--hole for saying 'Something is missing' & up & leaving to get his own hot sauce when you denied him yours."
Others found the host's fixation on 'mixing cuisines' a bit non-sensical, given the history of Italian food.
As one person put it, "Italian is a mix of old world, and new world foods. Tomatoes are not native to Italy. Neither is a lot of 'authentic Italian' food."
Another user added that he "is also mixing Roman cuisine (carbonara) with Calabrian (the proposed chili oil)."
But others were firmly on the host's side.
"I agree [he] might be overreacting," one person wrote, "but If I’m eating someone else’s food I wouldn’t dare...go anywhere beyond adding a pinch of salt to it, provided the salt is on the table of course."
And some said they would be offended too if they were in the host's shoes.
One person wrote, "You made the effort of creating a culturally significant dish, and inviting him to share the experience."
"Pouring hotsauce, ketchup or another generic sauce on something someone has put effort into creating is inconsiderate."
Another Redditor agreed. "I wouldn’t be happy either putting a lot of effort into dinner and then someone wanting hot sauce on it."
"I think he gave a great option with chili flakes or chili oil, what’s so wrong about just using that."
Who knew a simple bottle of hot sauce could stir up so much debate?
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics