to not pander to my mum's food 'allergies'?

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Before I get flamed about the seriousness of food allergies, I know they are serious and under normal circumstances I would be very careful. The issue here is that mum's only genuine allergy is to reality. She's 'allergic' to any food she is suspicious of, ie anything new or foreign. How the hell am I going to survive 2 weeks of a woman who won't eat rice because she's 'allergic' but will eat rice pudding because 'that's different'?

by purchasing a shed load of booze and some ear plugs

mum's only genuine allergy is to reality

Eat as many odd things as possible, watching her wince.

Haha at allergy to reality. But surely this can be solved by only serving her things she likes? I have older family members who have extremely narrow and boring tastes and refuse to try anything new. Yes it's annoying, but you're not going to change her mind!

Oh you so have to serve her nothing but cereal for two weeks .

sorry mum but rice is indian, pasta is Italian, pizza is American, my veg is imported from south korea. I'd let you have some wine but it's french.

The milks from the farm.down the road though even if it is a jersey cow

If my DM carried on like this, I'd pander to it by serving up a very unusual menu that caters to her 'allergy' list. My diet is far more varied than my DM's though so I could do this and me and DD would be happy but DM would definitely not be (having a similar aversion to foreign foods as yours does). To the rice pudding being different from rice thing...I'd simply reply 'no, it really isn't'.

She won't have cereal because she's 'allergic' to milk, although the rice pudding exemption applies here too.

She will eat pizza though, but only ham and pineapple. I've got space for 14 in the freezer.

YANBU! Give it to her straight, OP

Some people will say they are allergic because they get sick of having to explain or justify to everyone why they don't want to try certain foods, either because they don't like them, or suspect they won't like them, or are just avoiding them for weight loss/health reasons.

Perhaps just ignore her and don't bother trying to persuade her to eat stuff you know she won't try and then the subject needn't even come up. If she's your mother you must have a pretty good idea of what she will and will not eat. Just roll your eyes and mutter under your breath and leave her to it. If youa re cooking for her and find it really limiting (I know what that is like because my SIL is the same) then don't even bother trying to find interesting stuff that she might like, you just eat as you normally do, and provide her with a boring, basic, no hassle alternative, like a baked potato or a bowl of tinned soup and bread. If she complains just say 'Well you are welcome to have what the rest of us are having…..'

My dm always stated her aversion to anything with garlic in. Funnily enough she always praised my garlic laden meals when I swore blind there was none within 10 miles. Well, there's going to be what is cooked or bread and jam. (And a bottle of gin for you)

Well, it'll make your menu planning dead easy, won't it? Ham and pineapple pizza followed by rice pudding for Mum for lunch and supper every day.

or just the box

I'm 'allergic' to ham and pineapple pizza. Every time I hear about it I think, "millions of Italian voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced."

Yabu if she is an old lady though

My dad (80) needs potatoes with every meal, and meat, and I bear this in mind whdn cooking for him.

Your mum sounds like she has eaten traditional food all her life.

Don't see it as a challenge to bring her down to heel, just humour her a bit. No need to bend over backwards, but a little give and take

YWBVU to give a guest food they don't like.

You sound like an awful host.

She's 60 going on 90. My dad is 75 and will be made up to get food that doesn't need half a ton of salt to taste nice and vegetables that require chewing rather than a straw.

I'd be very tempted to batch cook something very bland and boring in advance and separate into single portions, then serve that to DM and the rest of you eat what you would normally.

My granddad got to the stage where he would only eat something if it was ham, cheddar, chicken, vanilla or something else similarly plain. Thus we only ever fed him things that were ham, cheddar etc. At least that's what we told him. We never gave him garlic bread and lied about what it was

To be fair there is a huge difference between milk and milk rice pudding. Many people who can't digest milk can digest it happily after it has been heated, as the heat breaks down some of the difficult molecules.

My granny is like this, she doesn't like pizza or Chinese or Indian or anything with any flavour spice. She eats chicken, potatoes and veg and is perfectly happy.

I do tell people I'm allergic to onion but only because I really, really hate it - I can always find it in a dish, no matter how finely it has been chopped! - and if I say that I just don't like it, it still appears in my food and I have to fanny around picking it all out.

My mum says she is allergic to milk and spends hours checking food labels. However, she'll happily eat cheese, pancakes, Yorkshire puddings and any number of other recipes that contain milk because "that's different" luckily it's only milk (and bacon) that it applies to its easier to just nod and agree than argue. I figure it's her problem not mine.

The underlying question here is why are you having her to stay for 2 weeks if she annoys you so much?

I think you both have to be adult about it - you serve meals that contain at least some things she can eat, she eats what she feels able to and leaves the rest without a drama. Maybe you could take it in turn to prepare meals?

I think older people do develop intolerances to some foods and while they're not always easy to explain they are real. My mum can no longer eat cream - I remember her when she was younger pouring double cream over desserts so it's not fussiness or diet related - it just doesn't agree with her any more. I can sympathise as I'm only 50 but there are already foods that I find less digestible than I used to!

Well no ynbu. There's nothing to pander of not pander to. If her allergies are in her head. With much respect perhaps she needs to see a Doctor

Aw, I am practically your Mum, lots of food terrifies me, but I do have GAD and used to have HA, which somehow converted itself to food

Mine is to the extent that I won't eat anything that anyone else has prepared though, so I am a while load of fun as a guest (not).

Jeez, my mother is in her eighties and tucks into Chinese/Thai, Indian, Italian food...
Please don't think all older folk are 'the meat and two veg no foreign' muck here crew'. People can be set in their ways at 29 not just 89!