It's a sensitive situation. Clearly the person with the food doesn't think it stinks so badly. Much of the aversion may be due to cultural differences, and it can be difficult to handle such a situation without causing the other person to feel shame at (indirectly) being the subject of his colleagues' disgust. For some people, their food is a symbol of their culture and their background. I dunno, may be difficult to grasp for those white westerners who lack a proper food-culture, or those who have been cultured to value bland tastes and an absence of smell/scent. For many of my Bengal acquaintances, Bengal food means a great deal, and when people talk shit about it it's like having someone talk shit about your culture. It's kinda like going on about how the bullied kid in your class smells bad. It may be true, but you can be damned sure there's more to it besides an objective assessment of smell and a constructive desire to help, and you can often count on someone getting hurt.

The above may have little to do with your example, but my experience has been that the people who complain the most about the stink of other people's cooking have been the most racist in general. Anecdotal, I know, but it makes me wary whenever someone complains to me about some foreigner cooking in his corridor