to think that being a fussy eater in someone else's home is actually quite rude?

[wrathomum]

And never even to TRY new things? Or appreciate the efforts of the host (who has multiple food sensitivites) to cater for everyone and try to provide healthy fare? And to not even feel a little bit bad about being fussy?

There are more foods that I don't eat than eat. It means I rarely accept dinner invitations and if I do and there's something I don't eat, I simply leave it on my plate, no moaning or making faces which is rude. I'm too old to change now.

I think I inherited this from my Dad - when he and Mum went to France for a weekend he took cream crackers and cheddar cheese for emergency rations lol.

Cor, I never realised how many adults didn't like so many things

I ask 'is there anything you don't eat' when inviting people to eat - mostly in case they're veggie/vegan but also in case there's something they violently dislike, like Edam and the Mushrooms (makes me think of Josie and the Pussycats). If there is a loooong list I get very a bit annoyed, tbh.

What makes me quite incandescent is children who are rude about my food. Ones who say 'I don't like this'. After the age of five, you can learn some manners. Not least because the kids who are polite get an option of not eating it (I am not a total sadist) and possibly even an alternative whereas the ones who are rude get a bright passive-aggressive 'well, that's your tea, darling' ie eat it or shut up and starve, this is not my problem.

I'm so pleased most of my friends are not like some of you. That they accept me as I am and invite me over for my company, not so that I can make them feel good about themselves and their cooking

"We don't have a food shortage in the UK, no one has to eat something that they don't like to stay healthy.

There will be a food that has the same nutritional value that they will like."

Ha! My husband eats meat, potatoes, cheese, eggs, chocolate & other junky snacks and white bread (unless you puree veg like baby food and add it to meat/potatoes secretly).

Try finding healthy alternatives to that.

He has really bad indigestion problems caused mostly by bread/meat/potatoes. He still makes no effort to improve the range of things he eats.

He's ridiculous (he ate completely normally as a child according to his mother), and he does refuse food type invites, which generally means DD and I - who love most foods - can't go either. He will not eat at 98% of restaurants, and often gets pissed off when our parents (the only places he will accept food invites to) don't cater for his fussiness, because the 6-10 other people there want to eat healthily.

It used to drive me up the wall, and even our 4 year old has started commenting on the lack of fruit/veg he eats. More often than not, she and I sit down and eat a meal together alone and he sits in the living room and eats a KFC.

It's going to make him really ill eventually - and we'll have to pick up the pieces when it does. He doesn't care, and after 15 years I have given up trying to reason with him.

That would frustrate me so much Tallalime.

I don't invite other people to make me feel good about my cooking - I'm an excellent cook, dammit, and I know it.

However, if someone just doesn't like what I've produced, I'm not going to 'rustle up' an alternative. Once people have arrived to eat, I'm going to enjoy myself anddrink not faff around pandering to them.

motherinferior, that's exactly the problem. You make something, a nose is turned up, the person then sits there not eating anything. What are you supposed to do? If I'm cooking, I've normally spent most of the afternoon shopping, tidying, cooking...I'm not going to make something else. So then everyone feels a bit bad for the person sitting not eating. Sort of awful.

I think some people just don't know how to deal with the slightest discomfort. If you have genuine allergies or whatever, that's really not a problem. But if it's just that you don't like mushrooms so refuse to eat something with them in...I don't know. I wish people would just get over themselves. There's plenty of things I don't like doing in life and really I just get on with it and try not to put others out too much.

This is one of those threads where I realise that despite about nine years on MN perhaps I really am not a Proper Mumsnetter . It's like those threads about the Awful School Gate, or about how Everyone Else In The World Is Horrible. When I ask people round, the list of 'things I don't eat' usually covers one or two things at the most (I'm not counting vegetarianism or veganism, which are IMO valid ethical choices in any case). I've never had anyone sit there eschewing my lovely food. Oh no, there was a friend's ex, about 25 years ago, who I still remember with acute dislike. (I'd gone to great lengths to pander, deliciously, to her every whim and she still pushed the food around snootily.)

I am by no means a fussy eater but I cannot eat coconut - a tiny bit of dessicated coconut in a biscuit makes me nauseous, coconut milk makes me vomit and coconut oil brings me out in hives and affects my breathing. So if someone cooked something with coconut in it I would politely decline. If it was just something I didn't much like though (really not fond of offal, or walnuts) I would think it very rude not to eat it if someone else cooked it for me.
I used to have a friend who was a vegetarian but didn't like most vegetables. That struck me as slightly bonkers.

YABU if you serve something you know they don't like repeatedly.

MIL keeps serving fish to me which I cannot stand in the hope I will like it. Even brought back a holiday gift of smoked kippers

The problem is that cooking meals means some degree of effort on the part of the cook and surely you have to be Mother Theresa not to feel slightly when someone actively rejects something you have spent time making.

If you are fussy you need superlative social skills to gracefully refuse food, bring your own etc. I have hosted lots of foreign students as I said upthread. I have one staying with me atm who is the fussiest I have ever come across. But she is so charming about it - said upfront she was really fussy and I wasn't to make any special effort. I just put food on the table, she takes what she wants and then goes to McDonalds . Thats fine. Whats not fine is one of the other students (age 16) pulling a sneery face and saying "I don't like that" when food put on the table (chicken kiev new potatoes and green salad not lentils and liver). She ate it all though. Thats rude.

But the person who doesn't eat mushrooms, are they :

-refusing to eat the whole meal ie a stroganoff or pie, (rude if it's just a dislike rather than an allergy)

• saying out loud, comments along the lines of eurghhh disgusting (again rude)
• putting the mushrooms to one side, not eating them but eating the rest of the meal (not rude in my opinion, still enjoying the evening sharing a meal with friends, just opting to not eat lrt of the meal they don't like without making a fuss)

Its not a case of getting over yourself and with comments like this you make the person who has food dislikes even more uncomfortable and anxious about accepting an invite out if you are going to continuously harp on about their eating habits.

For whatever reason I don't particularly like egg whites on a fried egg so choose not to eat it. Tired of my dad going on for years about it not being worth feeding me, I finally blew up at him and said I've never eaten egg whites and after 40 years I'm not going to start eating them now, get over it and stop making a bloody fuss. It worked he has stopped commenting on my food and I'm a lot more relaxed and less anxious and meal times with him are more enjoyable.

Yes there are people out there who are rude, but generally they are rude in all areas not just their eating habits.

Those of you who have a problem, you have a choice - stop cooking for people who are rude.

I have also cooked for people what I thought to be a lovely pud but I realise it's not everyone cup of tea and wasn't offended when someone wasn't that keen, however I was offended when he went on and on about how ill itmade him feel (cos he'd taken a huge portion and ate too much!). He still goes on about it years later. That is rude, if he'd have just said its not really for me, that would have been fine.

Of course I don't care if they just pick the mushrooms out. It's when they actually go "I hate mushrooms, so I'm not eating that". I find it precious and ridiculous. If they tell me before that they hate mushrooms, obviously I wouldn't put any in.

There are various foods I'm not keen on, but I'm just not that fussy, I will happily stick stuff in my gob and it really won't bother me. I'm not forcing it down (bar prawns, I really really hate them), I'm just not that fussed about it.

One of DHs friends wives is super fussy but she is so charming and low key about it I never really notice that she never eats anything I cook (am a good cook!). She freely admits she lives on junk food. For me its not the fussy eating its how they are about handle it.

I have found that the fussy eaters I know all hoover up junk food - which I don't usually serve to adults in the evening.

So it's not all fussy eaters that are rude then, just the rude ones! Glad that sorted out!

What people need to remember is that some people love to eat, others eat to live.

If you eat to live, then maybe you shouldn't accept dinner party invitations and then expect people to cater to your every whim.

Where have I said I expect people to cater to my whims? Typical of threads like this, You are putting words into my mouth.

I understand your frustration - when you've taken the time and trouble to cook something that fits in with the guests supposed dietary preferences and they still won't eat it, that sticks in my craw as well.

That's asssuming you have taken that time and trouble of course.

I also have a few food intolerances, they are a royal PITA for many of my friends - but because they are my friends they ask to be reminded of what these intolerances are before I go there to eat, and cook accordingly.

I wouldn't be able to eat a very hot curry/spicy meal - but I would just eat the rice and accompaniments and avoid the hot part, rather than make a fuss.

I would not, however, be able to stomach a fried egg, nor a raw oyster - but these, thankfully, don't make much of an appearance at most dinner parties - I would have to refuse these or run the risk of throwing them straight back up onto the plate (it's a textural thing).

This is another one of those arguments about whose responsibility it is to ensure an enjoyable outcome of an event though, isn't it - as a host, I would do my damnedest to make sure that my guests were accommodated in their preferences; but as a guest I would do my best to eat what they had offered without offending, but also without making myself ill.

If someone insisted I ate what they had cooked, as though I was a naughty child, then I wouldn't ever go back to that person's home again.

I meant "you" in a more general sense than you specifically.

Well you can understand why I thought your comment was directed at me specifically as you had used what I had said in the previous post. As I've said before, the dinner parties with friends is about the whole evening , not just the food.

And Surely the same applies to all of you who hate fussy eaters, don't invite them!

"So it's not all fussy eaters that are rude then, just the rude ones! Glad that sorted out!"

I would say that non-rude fussy eaters would go out of their way to be quiet about it and not draw attention to the fact, so people probably won't know that they are fussy. Therefore the ones you know to be fussy are the ones that make a show and dance about it, and are in the rude camp, generally.

purplefairies, I'm with you. Specifically, I think B-D are rude rude rude whereas A is childish. All of them would irritate me.

Yes you are. I dont eat any meat but i also dont like vegetables. Just because i dont like them dosnt mean am fussy. I am happy with plain pasta or beans on toast, anything simple really. So if your cooking for someone ask them if there fussy and if they say yes just ask if they like simple foods.

Bethemmarie, that is an appallingly unhealthy diet! Doesn't that bother you?