Is your family is snobby when it comes to homemade dishes

I think (almost) everyone who generally cooks from scratch has some things they buy either because they’re difficult or because, well, life’s too short. For me it’s puff pastry, bread (from local baker), croissants, hummus, pasta and probably a few other similar things.

Well, food manufacturers have clearly done a good job if we’re living in a world where it’s to be remarked upon that people prefer to eat healthier, safer, tastier, cheaper food that’s entirely to their taste and that they’ve cooked themselves

Nah, I live off junk and find cooking chat very boring but you’re being weird here, it’s a completely normal thing to enjoy and prioritise.

Well, this sounds like a family who love food, understand how food is produced - commercially and from scratch - and have the energy and resources to make tasty, healthy stuff every day.

I wish I could. I can and do make things from scratch, but don’t always have the energy to do that every day. So, it’s nice to have both options. But homemade really does taste better.

Look at photos from previous decades and see how slim and healthy people looked compared with today. Very few people were overweight in the 1970’s and 1980’s, but as a nation we’ve been growing steadily bigger since then (I am quite overweight myself, so this isn’t a dig at larger people).

Part of this must be due to processed food, so good on your MIL and her family for cooking proper food without additives. As previous posters have said, it’s much better for you, tastier, cheaper and can also be an enjoyable process that brings people together. Much of what people buy in the supermarket these days is just ‘stuff’ to fill your stomach, and has little to no nutritional value at all.

Not snobby at all.
I prefer homemade to shop bought.
Packet bread sauce - yuk. Homemade is so much more flavourful and no horrible processed chemicals added.
I can guarantee what goes into my food when it’s homemade

No way is it snobby!

Homemade is always better!

I can’t cook and am time and money poor but if I could do everything homemade then I would.

I also get excited when someone brings me something homemade as I know they’ve put time and effort into it.

Every year I will make my DC a birthday cake. I will also buy a cheap one too.
Mine looks like crap but for me it’s an expression of love.

You’re definitely in the minority here OP.
Perhaps you’re just feel a bit inadequate which I understand but that doesn’t mean you should look down your nose at your in-laws.

"Compulsive desire for homemade food" ?! Honestly, listen to yourself. You've been completely captured by big corporations marketing their highly processed slop and making it seem in some way strange or over the top to cook from scratch.

100 years ago, would it have been considered 'snobby' to cook your own food at home? So why on earth is it now?

I don't think this is snobby either. If you like cooking and food and have time, homemade is far nicer. Birthday cakes are easy to make, brown bread is easy. Do they make their own pastry for croissants?

My DC (11 & 7) won't eat anything re-heated. Is this snobby according to you?

Haha our family is exactly like this but I I don’t think it’s snobby!
We just like good food, well made and prefer it over mass produced anything full of additives and preservatives and not real food.
We don’t eat ready meals, jarred sauces, packet mixes, frozen dinners etc, as much as possible for us is freshly preferred at home.
I don’t care how anyone else chooses to eat, I just care about putting decent nutrition into my kids and ourselves.

I think people value different things. Often, shop bought means additives which aren't very good for you. I can also understand the aversion to shop bought food purely because as a society I don't think we actually make enough home made and it's bad for your health to eat too much processed food so rejecting processed food can be an expression of a wider dissatisfaction with the UK culture around food.

Some people find more enjoyment in homemade food because it's an expression of themselves and they have worked hard for the result which is rewarding.

I prefer homemade for the above reasons but wouldn't reject other stuff if that's what was going and often I don't have time for homemade.

Im very like that but I was reared with great food, am a great cook, as are all my friends.
I'm constantly being gifted jams, pickles, marmalade, salted herbs, flavoured gin, you name it.

I gift friends tubs of my roasted veg, incredible curries.
We all love it, because we love great food and value it.

What will we be called "snobby" for on MN next, I wonder? Eating from a plate? Wearing clothes?

The British sneer-a-thon, which seems to take aim at anything remotely nice, is getting out of control.

I generally bake and cook from scratch. As others have said, it is nicer and healthier. My 3 dc are older now but I still did the same when they were young and I was (and still am) working full-time. I don't judge anyone who chooses to do it differently.

The only snobbery and insecurity I see on this thread is coming from the op and her sil.

Ah, now you've got me googling recipes for spinach and artichoke dip. Sounds great! (If you can buy in supermarket, please tell me where!)

Home made food ‘can’ be much nicer and have less crap in it but it very much depends on who is cooking and what’s being made - my gran used to cook a lot from scratch but to be honest I’ve had ready meals and baked goods that were much nicer, because she didn’t go a bundle on herbs or seasoning and used cheap ingredients

@Calgator
The thing is that once you cook almost everything from scratch from fresh ingredients, then food that has been mass produced, and has some sort of preservative which makes it last longer than it would do normally, just tastes bad.

It doesn’t just taste plain or bland, it really is often unpleasant to eat.
I wouldn’t refuse or anything, and if someone brought something I wouldn’t want to make them feel uncomfortable, but I’d only have a tiny portion.

It’s a bit like being very slightly short- sighted. You get by just fine without glasses, but one day you put glasses on and start wearing them. If you wear them for a couple of weeks and then take them off, then it’s like you are blind, and struggle to do without.

I’m like that. Definitely not snobby or insecure, just a strong preference for homemade. I try to avoid UPFs generally and don’t like very much pre-made food. Those selection pack things always look nice but taste like disappointment. A shop bought cake would go off in my house. Don’t care a jot what other people do or serve though

Homemade is invariably nicer and healthier than shop bought. Cooking can be a lovely, creative thing to do. Sharing food you have prepared yourself with your loved ones can be a gift and an act of love.

They don’t sound snobby for not being interested in a cake from Tescos.

Not snobby but growing up our food was always home made, because my mum has coeliac disease and there just wasn't really much ready made gluten free stuff in the 80s and 90s. Nowadays they can buy more ready made stuff but I'm sure they still prefer home made.

It's sad that you think a family who all enjoy cooking and appreciate food cooked from scratch is a sign of snobbishness.

Bit of a strange take, OP. Homemade food is generally better and (depending on dish) healthier than pre-packaged dips and foods full of preservatives and seed oils. I'd take a home made cake over shop bought any day! Plus - unless you're a truly dreadful cook - it shows a bit more thought and effort. I'm team homemade!

My parents were like this. I remember it seemed like the weirdest thing when I met my now husband and he would get an M&S ready meal after work. I would always make something even if it was just a sandwich or quick stir fry. Now I'm also time poor myself I sometimes do the same.

I always check ingredients and if it's equivalent to what I would make (eg sauce made of just veggies and olive oil) I often buy pre-made because it's cheaper for them to produce it due to economies of scale.

I wouldn't say snobby. Homemade food is just tastier, and it's always interesting to have a go at making things. She says, meaning it's always interesting when DP has a go at making things - he makes his own bread, own pasta, own granola, own chutney, almost all actual meals. There's not much out there that he hasn't made from scratch. He has actually made a veg wellington for veg friends coming for dinner before!

Neither of us is against the occasional bit of shop-bought junk food (especially when hungover) or using dried pasta for quick weeknight meals at all - it's just that when you're really into food, homemade is just better. And while DP has done homemade scotch eggs and homemader croissants, those are obviously not everyday activities.

Absolutely no to supermarket cakes though. Just so sickly and weird-tasting compared to homemade. I wouldn't even eat a free slice of them.