They’re called spices - a lot of people use them.

My first boss at McGill was from Cambodia.  He was actually a survivor of “The Killing Fields” and after losing his entire family, began a new and successful life at McGill.  He usually brought his lunch to the office, and one day, a co-worker stormed around the area where he worked and complained that his food - a dish native to his culture -“smelled like garbage.”  To her credit, I called her out on it year’s later and she apologized, but the hurt was registered, as he would often tell co-workers, “Watch out, I’m eating garbage again.”  It played to a form of self-deprecation that always made me squirm, as I have been guilty of doing the same thing with comments about my own ethnicity.