What's the strangest thing you've seen in someone's house that they thought was 'normal'?

[00100001]

I'll go first.

When I was 7, I went to a friend's house, and had bright red mashed potatoes for dinner.her dad always put food colouring in food. She thought this was normal, a d everyone had coloured mash.

@Nokyo

Oh it’s a rice pudding slow cooker kind of day - thanks for the idea

Oooh! Inspired.

[googles for technique]

@00100001

I'll go first.

When I was 7, I went to a friend's house, and had bright red mashed potatoes for dinner.her dad always put food colouring in food. She thought this was normal, a d everyone had coloured mash.

This really has got to be the weirdest thing ever. Does it not stain their teeth? Poo?????

@MyMummyHasGotABigBottom thanks so much for the BBC Good food cucumber hint!

@pheonixrebirth

Going for Sunday dinner at my friends house and her mum put a plate of sliced cucumbers in vinegar on the table along with the gravy boat. I've never seen or heard about cucumbers in vinegar before or since. Just weird???

Cucumber in vinegar is lush. We used to have it as kids and I still love it

All this talk of cucumber in vinegar and other local dishes has reminded me of my own. I’m from Yorkshire born and bred. DH and his family are from Kent. We’ve been together 20 years, living in Yorkshire. It was only last year that I found out from MIL that she only ever made Yorkshire puddings with roast beef. I was astonished. I told her, in Yorkshire at least, we have Yorkshire puddings with any type of roast, not just beef. Every Sunday dinner (and any other roast dinner for that matter) always has Yorkshires whether it be beef, pork chicken or whatever. She didn’t believe me!

@DrFoxtrot

Rice pudding with jam (or sultanas) is a totally normal pudding

Quite true, in our house it was routine, but the poster suggested that the family viewed it as a very special and infrequent occasion.

boyfriend took me to a family do at his cousins. There were photo portraits of his sister all over everywhere, all in her ballet/dance tights/leotard.

Worst of all though, his dad was a scupture/carver and there were carved wooden statues of his daughter dancing.. usually naked >.

@WheresTheLambSauce

No hand soap. Anywhere. They used shower gel to wash their hands

Are you sure that it wasn’t liquid hand wash?

The cucumber onion vinegar was a staple in my childhood.

In a stoneware jar on the side. We had it on cheese on toast 🥰

@Ajl46 nope clear out the crumbs before I put it away. Honestly it’s the way forward. I don’t do the kettle like my dad but I hate seeing the toaster out. You wouldn’t keep your toastie maker out for all to see why a toaster?

My husband eats chicken wings with a knife and fork. Oddest bloody thing I’ve ever seen. 😂

My Nan used to do the cucumber in vinegar too - she had a special dish for it. Served with red tinned salmon sandwiches - it was her ideal Sunday night tea

@notangelinajolie

At a friends house when I was about 8. Me and some friends went upstairs to play in her room and the door of her parents bedroom was wide open. Walking past the door we could see centre stage, over the bed - a huge photo canvas of a naked woman.

My friend, quite matter of factly said, "oh that's mum".

There were several other similar photos on the wall which were not quite so big so fortunately we were spared the detail of those.
I don't think I've ever really quite got over the shock of seeing my friends mum full frontal

Oh God, I wonder if that was my parents' house! My Dad painted a nude of my Mum and hung it in their bedroom. She absolutely hated it and binned it the day after he passed away.

@youvemademyshitlist

My friends parents had nothing out on the worktops in the kitchen. If you wanted tea, they got the kettle out of a cupboard and plugged in, toast? The toaster came out of another cupboard. They were always put away afterwards.

We do this as our kitchen is tiny and we just don't have the space to have all the appliances out at once.

The toaster lives in a cupboard. We do leave the microwave and kettle out but there's barely any workspace lol.

@grey12

At a friend's house (back when I was young) they ate crisps with knife and fork.

My grandmother was kind of posh but even her would have eaten them by hand! She used to say that it was good manners to gently pick up the chicken drumstick by hand I used to find that funny, since I did eat the drumstick with knife and fork

Apparently picking up chicken became OK after Princess Margaret did it.

Rice pudding and jam 😋👍🏻

My sister has kept cockatoos for decades and each time one dies she puts it in her sandwich bag and in her freezer. She has loads in there now, and her and the kids will root through bags of dead birds to find their meals to cook.

I asked her once why she didnt just bury them, she said she hadnt gotten round to it yet

"My parents used to serve us sweet corn as pudding after Sunday dinner as a treat. In a bowl."

But why? That's really bizarre! Since when is sweet corn a dessert? Was it on the cob/tinned/frozen?

@Cocolapew

Not me but DH. When he was younger he went home with a women who was a barmaid in his local. He asked to use the loo and she asked him if it was a "wee or a poo?". He was a bit but said a wee. She answered that's ok its just the toilet won't flush poo away. He did wonder what she did when she had to have a crap and found out the answer when he walked into the bathroom and was faced with the bath full to the brim of carrier bags with shit in them.

Good grief! How disgusting!

Went back to a friend’s house in my teens and noticed a large, framed picture of Margaret Thatcher (mid-speech) on top of the TV. Apparently his Dad was a big fan. Friend was a Billy Bragg-loving crusty so I imagine there was a lot of tension in the house 😂

@youshallnotpass9

Giraffe 2 of them (life size statues) in a garden in Surrey

This doesn't happen to be in Guildford does it?

@Disfordarkchocolate

A pan of sheep's eyes being boiled.

But why?

1970's went a posh friend's house for tea in the "naice" area, normal 1930's semi, her dad was an insurance exexutive. I thought it's be "vairy" tasteful but their "family" room (the room behind the parlour leading to the kitchen) was crammed with guns,swords and knives all over the walls and animal heads. They had two freestanding ashtrays made of upturned houses legs with the horse shoe bit as the ashtrays and a coffee table wth elphants feet for the legs. Her father wasn't a game hunter, he'd never even been abroad. The place was also decorated in 70's psychedelic swirly brown/orange/mustard paper and a huge curved sofa that was also all swirly velveteen.

Totally disconcerting, really gross and oppressive.

Years ago my grandfather kept a heron in the library.

Ex's house had no bathroom (1990's) and an outdoor loo(it was a flushing loo)
They used a basin in their bedroom to wash!

Friends of a friend's house had a tropical bathroom complete with plants and live frogs.