A famous American content creator Kristen Fischer, who has been living in New Delhi, has struck an interesting conversation about the very different food worlds she experiences between India and the U.S. She shared a post on her Instagram profile, comparing the two very different food cultures side by side. In her post, she writes that moving to India has not erased her love for American favourites. But the best part of her food comparison is that it’s uncomplicated: there are foods she misses from America, but there are also Indian staples she says she can’t live without.She writes:“I can’t live without my Indian food”, while admitting that she still enjoys a good bagel or salsa from America for a change.That may be the most interesting part of her food story. It is not really about deciding whether American or Indian food is “better”. Instead, it shows how living in another country can gradually change what feels like comfort food.From American favourites to Indian staplesFischer lives in New Delhi with her family and over the years, her food habit has changed completely. There are videos on her profile showing her kids enjoying Indian meals ranging from everyone’s fav aloo paratha and poha to dal chawal. One of her food videos went viral after she revealed that her children, who initially did not eat Indian food, now love it.In this post, she showed an entire day of meals and compared them with the U.S:
- Breakfast: America: Avocado Bagel/India: Paratha with cheese
- Morning: America: Coffee/India: Chai
- Drink: America: Flavoured seltzer/India: Fresh coconut water
- Lunch: America: Veggie wrap with cheese/India: Mix veg, dal, and roti
- Snack: America: Chips and homemade salsa/India: Roasted makhana
- Dinner: America: Taco soup/India: Aloo sabzi, yellow rice, and raita
She described the variety, flavours and vegetarian choices as among the things she loved about Indian food. That makes her latest America-versus-India comparison feel less like a novelty and more like the next chapter of the same food journey.What makes Indian food so difficult to give up?For someone accustomed to American food, one of the biggest adjustments can be the sheer range of flavours on an Indian plate.
Fisher (Instagram)
Fischer has previously highlighted the contrast herself. In the US, she noted, basic seasoning such as salt and pepper can be enough for many everyday dishes. Indian cooking, by comparison, can involve a much larger spice vocabulary — from turmeric, cumin and coriander to chilli, garam masala and amchur.And it is not simply about heatIndian food offers an enormous spectrum of textures and flavours within vegetarian cooking alone: creamy dal, smoky baingan bharta, crisp dosas, soft idlis, tangy chaat, stuffed parathas, fragrant pulao and rich paneer dishes. Regional cuisines multiply that variety further, with dramatically different ingredients and cooking traditions across the country.But at the end, she said that she still missed the bagelYet her post does something important: it does not romanticise cultural adaptation. A bagel, for example, is not just bread. For someone raised around American food culture, it can carry the familiarity of home. The same goes for salsa and other foods that may be harder to replicate exactly when living thousands of kilometres away.
Bagel (Instagram)
They reveal how food travels with people, but also how people change through food. And perhaps that is the real winner in her comparison: not America or India, but having the best of both food worlds.
