Is your family is snobby when it comes to homemade dishes

Say what you want about Waitrose, it keeps the riff-raff out of Fortnum & Mason.

(Just kidding!)

If it's not the salt, it's often the tahini. Adding extra oil usually doesn't help, but sometimes a bit of the cooking water from the chickpeas does. (In Palestine and Israel apparently they serve it much thinner- and warm!)

Tinned chick peas from the supermarket are too hard and will leave gritty bits- from ethnic supermarkets they're often softer. Or boil your own.

When I DO make houmous I blend it extra smooth, Turkish style. But it's so much easier to buy an inexpensive tub from Lidl.

Edited to add: what is this too much tahini of which you speak?!

Snobbiness is only in the eye of the beholder, OP. Judge, and ye shall be judged...

It's not snobby to prefer home made food. Home made cake, for instance, is infinitely better than any shop bought cake. Maybe your in-laws just have more discerning palates than you?

I like mine quite lemony so I prefer to make it, but I agree with more salt than you think, a dash of cayenne, and also a key tip is not to commit yourself by putting in all the chickpeas at once as then there's no going back if you've added too much of something else.

IMO Home made is definitely better - if you don’t notice the difference, then I can see why you wouldn’t understand

Yes! Either too bland, or too garlicky, or too lemony.

I will try more salt.

Edited to add - or too much bloody tahini bleurgh

I find it's very difficult to get the balance of the ingredients right. I've had too much bland home made houmous in communal meals in my time!

the answer is way more salt than you'd imagine

I am one of these people (as are the majority of posters, clearly ;-)

There are many good reasons to be like this - taste of course, but also the now irrefutable evidence that industrialized food conglomerates are absolutely wrecking our health, and that the NHS (ie us) is picking up the bill - in other words, we're all subsidising their profits. In other words, Capitalism is fucking us all again.

HOWEVER! I absolutely do agree that some people/families fetishize food in ways that are about class coding and snobbery. 'Connoisseurship' in any form is about asserting one's superiority and creating an In group. That absolutely goes for food too.

HOWEVER AGAIN! It doesn't sound to me that that's what your ILs are doing really. it sounds like there's a bit of a value judgement going on, but a reasonable one - and also that one of the ways that they demonstrate their love and care for one another is by giving thought to what everyone likes and taking time over its preparation.

As an aside - the people who fetishize (not simply shop at, but regard as a personality trait) Waitrose are the worst; raging snobs, but too intellectually incurious to notice they are consuming the same mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, thickeners, gums and all that UPF shit that the poors are killing themselves with.

Yes 2 different sets of friends - who are very averse to anything ready made or out of a tin. They'd never buy a ready meal ever. Both sets are very good cooks and also, crucially I think, retired with lots of time on their hands.

Luckily my in laws are deliriously happy if someone else has cooked for them and are very happy with a M&S pie and a bought pudding if they know we've been busy but still want to see them and spend some time with them.

You mean apart from the fact that homemade food tastes better, is made from better ingredients, has fewer additives & chemicals, saves the world from plastic waste, and takes considerably more time / effort / love / money from the person who made it?

Hummus takes about 2 minutes to make if you use a decent can of chickpeas. Much nicer with ones you cook yourself but yeah, while not difficult, the soaking and boiling is a bit of a faff.

Homemade food does taste better. I get that ready made stuff is more convenient and I am a hopeless baker so there are times I buy shop bought cakes and I buy bread from the supermarket. But my DD bakes and the difference between her home baking and shop bought is night and day. I love to cook and I love curry, I wouldn't touch a ready made curry from the supermarket with a barge pole, they taste nowhere near as nice and there are plenty of quick curry recipes out there. Having said all that, I wouldn't sneer at anyone buying ready made and when I go to people's houses I eat what is put in front of me and I appreciate their hospitality. But it doesn't sound like your ILs are doing that, so I don't think they are the ones being snobby.

Who in their right mind would choose edible food-like substances designed to be highly addictive over proper food?

I still don't think it's snobby (probably because I am pretty much like the in-laws) but I actually do sort of see why OP thinks it is. I reckon it's because all the examples are about hosting or being a guest, and I do actually feel (when I am the host) that it's good manners to make a special effort for my guests and cook from scratch. I also obviously think it's good manners to be polite about whatever you're offered and say nice things about it, and perhaps OP's in-laws do as well. But now she's a member of their family they're not doing their social manners all the time so she knows what they think you ought to do for your guests as she's part of those conversations (e.g. cook the separate veggie meal from scratch). And any mismatch in attitudes to what count as good manners can feel potentially judgmental, or like you don't belong to the group. A bit like the way people get offended by others' different approaches to parenting because it implies they are doing it 'wrong'.

I don’t think it’s snobby - shop bought cakes don’t taste very nice to me and it’s fun to make them - the kids help so it’s definitely going to be a bit lopsided/iced a bit oddly so it’s not about perfection. Just about choices - I probably wouldn’t eat a shop bought cake because I’d try save my treats for something I know I’ll love!
Same as buying ready made appetisers, it just never tastes good - my kids point blank refuse bought bread which is really annoying as that takes time to make although they’ll devour frozen chicken nuggets (I’m not a single mom so I hope it’s okay to use them every now and then!) .I think you’re the one with who is being unkind - a single mom relying on UP frozen food is a bit of a stereotype?!

I would rather not eat cake than eat a bought cake (m&s 'roll' cakes are the exception) because I just find them really sad and disappointing.

Only thing worse than disappointing cake that you have paid for is disappointing cocktails!

My cakes often aren't presented the best, but always taste great. Would much rather spend half an hour of an evening making a cake or brownies that's delicious and everyone wants to eat...and contains actual decent ingredients rather than food like materials!

Well yes, up to a certain point. There are reasons why some people would not be able to cook homemade food, such as disability, being infirm etc. Some people would rather do other things, than take to the kitchen, and cook, as they see it as a chore. The range of food available now, is astronomical, and readily available. For myself, I prioritise good quality ingredients, that I use to cook for my meals. We can generally see the outcome from poor diets, being reflected in Society. People make choices, from the viable choices available to them.

Cooking from scratch is not snobby

We’re plumbing the depths of humanity if cooking from scratch is now snobby, fuck me. I cook everything from scratch as much as possible because I don’t want to sleep walk into diabetes/heart disease/any other illness I could avoid.

I was vegetarian for a long time and I would have wept with joy if someone had made me a wellington for Christmas dinner. You and your SIL sound like you’ve got massive ungrateful chips on your shoulder.

It’s generally a matter of time and inclination isn’t it? And to some extent money.

It's also quite scary that we are now at a point in society that we are laughing at people liking homemade food and being interested in cooking. That that attitude is seen as fascinating to some?

Laughing at someone who wouldn't eat a calorie ridden, preservative filled bought cake.

Food should be homemade, we should know the source of our ingredients. It wasn't that many years ago that the majority of food we ate was homemade. Yes modern life gets in the way, and most people don't have time, but we all know that environmentally and health wise that's the gold standard

I couldn't care about my car, but I am very fussy about my food.
I too wouldn't call it snobby, just particular about what we eat.

They bother because they’re interested in food and love cooking. It’s not ‘snobby’; it’s just what they’re interested in.

For example, I make my own granola. Is it noticeably any better than a posh supermarket one? Probably not. But I really like making it and experimenting with adding different things etc.

I certainly don’t make everything from scratch. I eat plenty of ready-made stuff. But I wouldn’t ever buy, eg, a cake or mince pies from the supermarket because I like making my own and I think they’re nicer.

It's not snobbery. They have discerning taste buds, is all.
In fact, I think most people would develop a taste for good quality homemade food if they reduced their salt and sugar intake and cut out HPFs.