Ever been to an under catered party?

[Crunchymum]

Just back home from a party with a generous doggy bag and I remarked how I'd never been to an under catered party as the host was divvying up the leftovers. Cue lots of stories of horrifically under catered parties and weddings?

Other than a few occasions where I've known there won't be food, I've never experienced it? I've never had to share a burger at a BBQ or nip out for a super market sandwich at a wedding.

Is it really that common? What's the worst under catered event you've been to?

abacucat

Ok, I'll be clearer. If I go to a buffet lunch during a train course and I've had breakfast I'll have something like 4 sandwich quarters and a handful of crisps then go back later for fruit. If I am really hungry, I might grab one or two more sandwich quarters but only when everyone has had a turn at the buffet and there is a decent amount left.

What I don’t do is get a standard size dinner plate and pile it high with food regardless of anyone else waiting and not giving a thought as to whether there is enough to go round.

Buffet lunch I would happily have 4 sandwich quarters. That is reasonable. Buffet for a main meal, I would have more. And I do expect to be full, rather than not uncomfortable hungry.

Invited to a bbq which said it was from 5pm but food wasn't going to be happening before 7.30. Very much a drop in when you can make it type of do. I let the hosts know that I was committed to another event earlier in the day but would be there by 7pm. That's fine, we're just doing nibbles for the early arrivals, won't get going before 8pm said the host.

I arrived at 7pm to find that the bbq was finished and they were on puddings. I managed to get the last scrapings of one of them. The people who arrived after me had to go without completely.

At my wedding the lovely caterer recommended serving the evening buffet to the top table first, then the vegetarians and then everyone else. I'm so glad we took their advice as it made sure that the veggies (about 5% of the guests) got properly fed. We still had some food left at the end although I didn't get anywhere near the chocolate fountain because I was going round all the tables chatting to everyone.

Yep, our wedding! Caterers assured us that if we had 90 guests, we would only need to cater for 80. Of course we ran out (buffet). Combination of some greedy guests and not enough food to blame. Most people didn't realise but a handful did (including us, we didn't eat!). It did mean everyone was spectacularly drunk though as the free wine was definitely not under-catered!

@RumerGodden there was a tv programme following weddings from around the world. The brides had to attend and score each other's weddings. I'm sure there was a New Jersey one and that sounds exactly like it!

As a rule of thumb, If there is space between the food on your plate that’s acceptable. If it’s piled in a heap, that’s greedy

I like that; in fact I've rarely seen it better put

Friend's 50th. Lovely venue, but miles from anywhere else that might serve food, plus we were staying over. Everyone stood around in the bar for three hours where there were not enough chairs, drinking until the buffet was brought out at 9pm.

Called up table by table. Half a dozen vegetarians including me and DH. Buffet was hot trays (like school dinner) of shepherds pie or chicken legs, with a choice of carrots and/or cabbage. That was it. I asked for the veggie option to be told they could scrape some mash off the top of the shepherd's pie for me. I ate half a dozen boiled carrots and a dollop of over cooked cabbage.

I should have learned my lesson when she had a 51st party at her own home the following year. Beef chilli with baked tatties and garlic bread. I got a baked tattie (no butter available) put it down on the table while I went to get a drink. Came back to find the bloke sitting next to me had eaten it and there were no more.

I got a baked tattie (no butter available) put it down on the table while I went to get a drink. Came back to find the bloke sitting next to me had eaten it and there were no more.

Buffet lunch I would happily have 4 sandwich quarters. That is reasonable. Buffet for a main meal, I would have more. And I do expect to be full, rather than not uncomfortable hungry.

Of course as a main meal you would want some more that what I said but would you honestly pile a plate high with no thought for anyone else? Would you really not give a crap that others might go hungry because you wanted to 'try a bit of everything'?

. “Came back to find the bloke sitting next to me had eaten it and there were no more.”

What did you SAY?! Or did you just silently fume?

Curley I just said 'where's my dinner gone?' I then spotted the empty tattie skin in the bowl and said... 'was that mine?' He said... 'oh sorry, I thought my wife had put it there for me'. I went to the kitchen to get another, to be told there were none left.

I have. I went to a wedding which was before lunch but there was no food until late afternoon and then not nearly enough (and I have an irritatingly polite DH who always says "let the queue die down first...) so I had a few crisps and a couple of cherry tomatoes. In the evening, there weren't as many people as expected but there was like double the food. Trouble is, the hunger had passed by then so loads went to waste.

I went to someone's 50th in a big hotel and the function room was so dark I didn't even realise there was food until they started bringing it all out of the room after its two hours' permitted time on display (or however long it is). Suffice to say I practically ambushed the catering staff!

Nightsky: the fact that he left the skin would only have wound me up more, as I would have eaten that!

I under catered Sunday dinner once, not intentionaly I just didn’t realise how much 2 teen boys could put away. DN’s.

A decent sized ham that needed cooking, and as one of them didn’t like ham a Large roast Chicken, stuffing, 2 large yorhshires each with spares, huge bowl of roast potatoes, roast carrots, roast parsnips (again with spare to use for soup) sweet corn & peas.

They arrived bit early so I put out a bowl of nachos and dip not a crumb left, give them their due they did come into The Kitchin when the bag was half empty and check if I wanted any.

As I’m cooking I’m thinking ‘oh, we have some nice brown bread, sandwich’s tonight, lovely leftovers dinner tomorrow.’

Turns out DN 1 likes the way I cook ham!

The table was heaving with food and we told them to tuck in, by the end of the meal it looked like a swarm of locusts had been there.
Then chocolate cake & ice cream

We ended up getting takeaway for supper!

The 2 of them haven’t a pick on them!!!
(They do both run and go to the gym regularly)

CurlyhairedAssassin We live in rural Lincolnshire where the tatties grow. Nobody eats the skins. We know what is sprayed on them

🤢

I under catered Sunday dinner once, not intentionaly I just didn’t realise how much 2 teen boys could put away. DN’s.

Welcome to my world. I have an 18 year old DS who rows crew. He would happily eat two full dinners if offered. His 16 year old sister, who also rows crew, is no slouch in the eating department either.

Now that he's gone off to uni it's a real effort to cook the correct amounts without him here.

Undercatered wedding. They'd done it themselves in a church hall, which was really lovely, but they'd drastically underestimated how much food they needed - and they were doing an afternoon tea to keep costs down. So we had one scone each and a slice of wedding cake. No sandwiches, no small cakes, nothing savoury. By the end of the 'meal' I was starving and had a raging sugar headache from the cakes and the Pimms they were serving. I cried off early and had a Nando's on the train home 😁

My MiL sometimes caters for her church functions and usually has a limited budget. Her top tip is to have a veggie soup and bread available from the beginning. It takes the edge off the hungry and greedy so that the more expensive buffet items go further when they come out.

@MissConductUS, how do you afford it!!!!

I've not been to an under catered party but once went to a Xmas work do at a carvery restaurant and they had run out of meat
We had been seated for quite a while and had a drink or 2 each when the waitress came and informed us they had run out of meat but we could have fish pie!!
We walked out, they let us have the drinks for free and we got a Chinese on way home.

I don’t think some families DO afford to satisfy the appetites of teenaged boys, HobNob. DH was really skinny when I met him in his early 20s. In all his family photos he and his brothers were skinny in every pre-teen/teen one.

Having seen the moderate portions she puts out for non-growing adults i know now that that, plus the small food budget they had to feed 4 adults and 4 teenaged boys they proabmh didn’t get quite enough calories.

I have photos of myself as a teen looking tall and lanky with no curves whatsoever. At the same time I was eating for England. Breakfast. Then I would come home from school for lunch. Mum was at home mostly at that time and cooked full casseroles plus baked potatoes with butter etc. I woukd wolf it down then back to school for the afternoon then back home for an after school snack, another proper dinner and then supper of cereal or toast near bedtime:

I remember nearly crying at my auntie’s house when I was about 12. She served me 2 very thin sausages with only a small amount of chips for an evening meal. I woukd have eaten double the amount at home. She didn’t have children and didn’t realise the appetite of a child going through puberty!

am waiting to see if dS2 will eat as much as DS1 did from the middle of yr 8. Got a few months to go yet but it seems like DS2 is indeed laying down a very slight amount of puppy fat in readiness for his growth spurt when he will lose it all in growing and eat the equivalent of 2 dinners a night!

@HobNobcentral My impression from discussions here on MN is that food is substantially less expensive in the US than it is in the UK. DH does most of the grocery shopping at BJ's, a warehouse club like Costco. Just as points of comparison, I recently paid $2.89 (2.21 GBP) per pound for fresh boneless chicken breasts, $7.99 (6.21 GBP) for a six pound bag of frozen oven chips and $5 (3.82 GBP) for a really good large frozen pizza with veg and sausage toppings.

And the cost of feeding him is a rounding error when compared to the cost of sending him to university here. So we save a little in some areas then spend more in others.

A hobnob is a cookie, correct?

No, a hobnob is a biscuit :o

Looking at your prices, it seems fairly similar to the UK. It certainly doesnt seem to be as cheap as I have had the impression it is from MN.

Fresh boneless chicken breasts here work out at £2.65 ish per pound

www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/294007923?sc_cmp=ppcGHS+-+Grocery+-+NewPX+%7C+Shopping+GSC+%7C+Top+Offers+%2B+Tesco+BrandFresh+Food+-+Top+OffersPRODUCT+GROUP294007923*&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_Oz6mrWW3gIVDLTtCh1unA3AEAQYASABEgLM5PD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds And I play less than that at Aldi.