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TIFU by showing my boyfriend authentic Egyptian food who asked why my food doesn't taste the same

For context I'm half Egyptian, half American. I had to reconnect with my Egyptian culture when I got older and rebuild the relationship with my mama which helped deepen my love for my culture. I will definitely own up to having identity issues so to combat this I've learned my mother's country dishes and I'm currently learning to speak Arabic. I'm not fluent but I can definitely get by.

Me and my boyfriend have been together for almost a year now and I didn't really speak too much about my culture identity issues, but I have joked that I am literally whitewashed being half white. I have been cooking Egyptian dishes for him the way I learned from my mama and some from the Internet. I've made him ful, molokhia, koshari, baba ganoush and hawawshi.

Today he showed me a video on tiktok of an Egyptian restaurant that was only two hours from us and asked if I'd like to go. I didn't think of the repercussions and was just excited to eat some Egyptian food so we went. It was soooo amazing! My boyfriend raved on and on about how good it was while we were eating and I was definitely feeling really proud. Then as we were driving back home he asked me why my ful and their ful taste different, but it didn't stop at ful. He actually said that my food tasted vastly different from their food. It actually hurt my heart some and I felt disconnected from my culture hearing that. I gave the excuse that they probably have access to better ingredients than I do which is why theirs is good. Then he asked if it was authentic and I said yes their food was very authentic. I'm lucky though because at this point he caught on that I was feeling down because he quickly said," I think your food tasted different from theirs because it was made from love."

Yes habibi, that's definitely it. Not because I am whitewashed or anything 🤡🔫

Tl;Dr: I've been cooking my boyfriend Egyptian dishes for awhile, and he got to have some at an authentic restaurant and then asked why they taste different.

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