What did your parents say when you asked what’s for dinner?

[SeraphinaRainbird]

Inspired by the thread about words used in different areas of the UK,
what was the stock answer to ‘What’s for dinner?’ in your house?
In our house it was “Ham, jam and baa lamb”. In my friend’s house it was “Shite with sugar on top”.

Never asked. I was told Dinner is at 6 (or whenever) and that was that. I told my DH if he ever asked me that, I would divorce him and he never has.

Sawdust and hay

Bread and grabbit - or a possum on a stick

Likewise. I don't get it. Why such unpleasant answers?

It's not necessarily unpleasant, it's a response to being asked multiple times a day by multiple children what's for dinner. It's a way of saying that you haven't decided yet, or whatever's in the fridge, or leftovers, and a way of cutting off the moaning that the child wants nuggets, or pasta, or doesn't like whatever you're proposing. A "wait and see".

The comments about "cows cocks" or "shit and sugar" are indeed unpleasant and not something I recognise at all from my childhood.

Was your mother’s native tongue Gujarati? As that’s something my mum would have said too (was from Mumbai)

Punjabi! "Tera serrh" 😂 Comforting to know you got it too! Definitely an Indian thing

I agree that some of them are definitely worse than others. The ones about faeces are absolutely vile and borderline abusive imo.

Some serious sense of humour failures on here. No one is really serving those items to DC or even considering it. It's a joke, I would have thought that was obvious.

It's not funny, though. Just disgusting (at least the 'shit with sugar' comments.) My parents would never have uttered the word 'shit' to me in any context. It's just so crass.

“You get what you’re given”

While some might be joking the parent who I heard say it wasn’t particularly jokey tbh. It’s not something I’d say to a 6 year old for fun.

Stewed bugs and onions

Bread and pull it.

Didn’t you have family jokes? Someone has already said the main reason, it was a response to what’s for dinner from multiple kids! And being kids, my brothers and I thought it was funny every time!

Shit with sugar on .
Wait and see.
A little bit of what you like and a lot of what you don’t !

None of my family jokes involved talking about eating faeces for dinner. I'm weird that way.

“Food”
”what I put on your plate”
”whatever I cook”

as in my teens years

“whatever you cook!”

I don't remember ever asking. I didn't particularly look forward to dinner, so I never gave it much thought.

This is what I was getting at. My mum never ever swears and definitely didn't in our hearing as children. When very frustrated she might exclaim "shine a light!" and that's as coarse as she gets.

a walk round the table and a kick at the cat ( please note we did not have a cat 😂)

Yes loads, we’d laugh as kids (and groan and eye roll as teenagers at my Dad dancing about singing sawdust and hay in a daft high voice.
My parents weren’t sweary at all though and hearing my friends Mum swear a us wasn’t funny to me, I thought we were in trouble. She didn’t say it in a particularly fun way, it was followed by “now bugger off outside”.

When I grew up in the 50s it was very common that meals were repeated on a weekly basis so Sunday was always a roast, Monday left over meat made into something, Tuesday stew etc so we could have worked it out if we’d thought about it.there just wasn’t the huge choice we have today,

Usually "braised steak" "casserole" or "mince" - all grey and tasting of dishwater, with lumpy mashed potato. No witty replies in our house.

Was pie...wait and see pie