....or was this an unusually frugal picnic?

[GeraldineAubergine]

last week my dp invited his friend over with his new girlfriend (she's 20 he's 49,unnecessary but I felt I had to add it) and his daughter who was visiting for a week. I bought beer, coke, snacks and we ordered takeaway pizzas as it was a treat for his dd's holiday. All was lovely. Anyhow to say thanks he invited us (dp, ds and myself for a picnic yesterday. I didn't eat thinking il fill up on delicious picnic food.
The picnic consisted of ( for 4 adults and 2 kids): 2 cheese sandwiches cut into 4, 1 small prepack salad, a pear and an apple plus 3 low fat yoghurts. There was a carton of oj too. And six packets of hula hoops which I'm glad I brought :). It was a bit awkward. Am I being unrealistic was this a reasonable picnic? Or do I have greedy tendencies?

They could have gone home thinking "I can't believe Geraldine only brought hula hoops for her family then expected to share ours" :o Did they have a packet of hula hoops?

If it's your turn next time, do the full Jane Austen bit: Staff in frogged velvet coats, white gloves and powdered wigs lugging Louis Quinze furniture up the hill; whole roast boar, goose, turkey and peacock; vast towering desserts and displays of exotic fruits; all your best Limoges porcelain, fine crystal and silver; ornamental gazebo at the picnic site with cases of vintage shampoo chilling in Regency silver chillers...

They ate all the bloody hoola hoops and I dropped the few I'd stolen from dp when a wasp startled me. Curses!

Talc I did have visions of this anyway, dp's friend does tend towards the foppish so my heart did sink when I saw him with two carrier bags (black ones) and a packet of napkins.

Geraldine Why did he bother bringing napkins? There wasn't enough food to even get your fingers grubby. I would probably have eaten those too, out of desperation.

Can you get regency-style Hula-Hoops? Brace of Pheasant flavour perhaps?

IME there are 2 types of picnic.

1. The kind of impromptu one you have with your close family (as in 'perhaps we'll pack a picnic to eat en route to holiday') which may well be whatever's left in the fridge plus a few sarnies.

1. The kind you invite people to - which involves a large selection of sandwiches, sausage rolls, crisps, breadsticks, dips, fruit, salad, soft drinks, and maybe even a cheese selection, cakes, beer, wine etc.

It strikes me that (possibly out of inexperience) they opted for type 1, when type 2 was expected.

Maybe they saw your MN thread about the £3000 saucepans and thought you had purchased them, and knew nothing they brought would be anywhere near the same standard as your culinary delights!

YANBU very stingy, how the hell can you share 2 cheese sandwiches between 4 adults and two kids , the mentality of some.

Geraldine, you and yours seem to have dropped or gobbed on more food than you ate. Still, as long as everyone kept up their stiff upper lips, all was fine in England.

Not much food to feed you all I remember after DS was born arranging to meet up with my parents and other family members for a day out and being told not to worry about lunch because they'd bring a picnic. Lunch consisted of a small roll each they got quite annoyed when I went bought other food for myself and DD1 who was 3 at the time and the rest of the family doing the same, as they had provided lunch.

I have painted my family as a somewhat loutish lot, but in reality it's just ds, I think he was trying to lighten the mood. If I had the 3k pans I'd have whipped up a picnic of epic proportions but sadly I don't so it was moist cheese and regurgitated benecol all round.

When I say all round I mean partially round.

borderslass, Ah, sounds similar to my father, who will spend all morning making four small crab baps for the family picnic and woe betide anyone who demands further sustenance.

I suspect he eats a small partridge on a nest of stilton before he sets out.

Partridge on a nest of Stilton! That's sound nicer than a crabby bap. I might crab sandwiches served on milk roll cut into irregular thirds next week. And a tin of birds custard. With two spoons. And a fork.

Lol, hilarious picnic!

I agree that the man asked the girlfriend to do the picnic and she thought just for them.

Reminds me of my lovely mother in law who, unfortunately, prepares mens portions and ladies portions. First time we visited we stayed over night and prepared a full english. Lovely, and not complaining, but out came the plates, 2 sausages for the men, one each for the ladies, 2 eggs each for the men, 1 each for the ladies etc. My husband saw me glancing jealously towards his plate and spent the breakfast surreptitiously passing me pickings form his plate under the table.

My (ex)MiL does ladies' portions, too. Quite sweet, really. There are usually seconds, but only for good girls.

Ah, the sexual politics of food.

My DD and I still have an in-joke, "And I ate it all up like a good girl!"

Do you think they have (he has) food issues? I know a bloke who won't eat in front of anyone else, difficult when it comes to trying to invite the couple round to eat. He eats beforehand and then pretends not to be hungry.

Did you say you are seeing then again next week for another eating experience? I'll be interested to hear how that goes!

Aargh, didn't realise you are the saucepan lady. You have interesting friends.

When catering I tend to think of what I eat and multiply that by 1.5. Multiply that by number attending (incl babies and pets). Add two extra portions. Add treats. Think we may see someone we know and not have enough so add at least a third on top.

This attitude led me to cook 5 kilos of spuds plus a turkey which needed it's legs removed to get in the oven, a ham the size of a small child plus all the trimmings for 6 people the first time I did Christmas dinner.

No-one leaves hungry or without a food parcel.

Some people do have ishoos around what constitutes a reasonable portion.
I have a very good friend who has troubles with this. Years ago, someone gave her a fish they had caught and she phoned me in a bit of a panic, saying she had this enormous fresh salmon that needed eating up, what was she going to do? So I suggested she have a few people around, normal sized fresh salmon would probably feed around 6 people easily with possibly some left over. I said I'd go and help her cook it - got over there (by which time she had invited the other 4 people for dinner as well) and discovered a trout that was possibly 10" long. . We each had a 1" slice of fish - not exactly a feast!

At the risk of being offensive to men this is completely something DH would do. He has no idea of proper portions for entertaining etc. and if I sent him to the store for provisions to entertain friends/family, I just know he would bring back woefully inadequate quantities.

Or could it possibly just be that OP's friend it just a tightarse?

Right - all this talk of partridge on nests of stilton and crabby patties has set the turnip brain into overdrive. I want to devise a really obscure picnic - the sort that would have an MNer posting on here, saying "omg AIBU I went on this picnic with this loon and all there was to eat was..."

So, to start, we'll have some of this

Ooh this looks appetising!

Yummy! Protein!

This looks colourful, if a trifle aggressive

Fancy man cake

And to finish - wonderful for cleansing the palate

What the fuck is that in the herring? Teeth? Claws?