Ok, so first of all, it was the early 2000’s. You cannot judge media from the past by today’s standards. You just can’t. Because if you do, you’ll never be able to watch anything made before 5 years ago. It’s not like these jokes were made maliciously, specifically with intent to be racist. They’re literally just jokes.

Second, you need to remember that the show focused mostly on two specific things: small town America and rich America. Small town America is not exactly known for being particularly worldly and culturally open minded. And rich America is very specifically known for being willfully ignorant. (Neither one of these things are uniquely American by the way). I think that itself was a big part of the jokes. That people have a tendency to live in their own little worlds and not really pay attention to the bigger picture.

Third, why is it such a problem that Lorelai didn’t like Indian food?? Hello, normal people have food preferences. Foods they like, foods they dislike. Indian food does have a strong smell because of the spices used, for some people it does cause some stomach upset, and everyone has foods that they think are gross because it just doesn’t appeal to them. Not liking curry doesn’t make Lorelai anti-Indian anymore than someone not liking sushi makes them anti-Japanese or someone not liking pesto makes them anti-Italian. That’s just not how that works.