To wonder if I am greedy or do some people serve really small portions?

[TheHouseOnTheLane]

I don't think I'm greedy....I'm a slim person...size 10-12 UK and 5 foot 6.

I don't binge or anything but when I eat a roast dinner, I do want more than 2 potatoes!

When MIL cooks anything she always seems to underestimate amounts....so there's for eg 2 potatoes per adult and one per kids...not a lot of meat and two other vegetables....curry...she'll do enough rice so people get two dessert spoonsfull.

That's not enough is it?

YYY re: BF, always made me ravenous. I remember being admitted to hospital when DC3 was 5 days old (she had severe jaundice and had to go under a UV lamp). It was an unexpected admission, just before dinner time, and by the time we were all sorted they'd run out of food and the only vending machine was too far away for me to consider leaving DC to find it. I was soooooooooo hungry and the thought of waiting more than 12 hours till breakfast (which would have been a slice of toast) made me burst into tears. It was particularly stupid since the reason DC was jaundiced was my low milk supply, so carbs to build up milk supply were pretty essential.

A lovely nurse brought me a meal, which with hindsight I think may have been her own dinner

I can understand why my mum used to say that I should always eat something at home before going for dinner when invited to someone's house. The post here explains it all. You should eat but not get full. When you get there all you do is top up.

My Jewish Mamen would be horrified if anyone walked away from her table hungry. I have inherited her feeder trait. I want people to hurt when they leave my table.

My dad massively overcaters, and then cooks the stuff to buggery.

OTOH, I can calculate plenty for seconds without going mad and having enough for 15ths

Mum struggles with stairs right now, so as I don't have a downstairs loo, I am cooking Christmas dinner at the parents' house this year. There'll be enough potatoes, but I also have to do a small amount of mashed as my mum gets upset if we don't have mashed. (I never do mashed with a roast at home, just the roast potatoes.)

The first time we went to my in laws for sunday lunch we called into a garage for snacks before the two hour drive home. We were starved.

At the PILs I get one Yorkshire pudding because I'm female. Fil and DH get two each.

And two roast potatoes (Ie half a potato) is a sad thing

I put no extra weight on in pregnancy (that metabolism again, not through any food restriction on my part), so don't have the fat reserves you're supposed to lay down & use for BFing. That extra 500 calories a day all has to come from extra food. I am ravenous.

I used to do a full-time job of heavy manual labour, and I wasn't even this hungry then!

I take zero stock of the obesity crisis when feeding guests in my house. Serving two roasted potatoes is miserly!

FFS! 'Let me feed you next to FA so you won't get fat,' as if you're doing someone a favour by inviting them to dinner and then being stingy.

I think some of this comes down to the fact that I (and others) never eat to get stuffed, so I would serve you a normal amount of food if I cooked you a roast. Not because I'm mean, because that's how I eat - I'd assume I was giving you one of your three meals a day. I would just not make enough for 9 roasties each.

I would only have 2 potatoes but I serve at least 3 to other people. Plus there is usually a bowl of spares on the table for those who want more.

However, I do have masses of vegetables - half my plate would be veg. I am always a bit when my dm and dmil serve tiny portions of veg.

Well sufficient.

My mother will give two scoops of spuds, two roast spuds, meat piled to top of plate, gravy, veg taking over half the plate. And you are expected to fi ish it all.

Then she routinely serves more onto the plates when there is space. ..
Then you are told that there is more of everything

I don't think many hosts consciously starve guests though. It's more a fact that for them two potatoes seems like a generous amount for one person to eat, so why would they cook more.

I've tried to tell my DM that we eat more than they do and it's just getting worse as DS gets older and does more exercise and naturally has a big appetite.

Last time we were there she was cooking pasta to act as an accompaniment to our main meal and then the rest for DS as the main was something he didn't like. He took a look at the dessert bowlful that was meant to do the table ( he didn't realise that it was meant for us as well) and tipped all of it onto his plate and to be fair to him it wasn't a huge portion.

We also get allocated one small broccoli stalk each - DS more happy about this than DH and I who enjoy our veg.

I think it's a cunning plan to knock us all out with food

Op. You need to come over to Irelandand find an Iirish mammy.

Leave it all to when the Christmas pudding and angel delight comes out.......

To me, two roast potatoes is enough to start with, I also make sweet potato mash as well so plenty of potato on offer if they want that.

I have 3 older ds's, none of them eat more than three roast potatoes each, ever.

I do make plenty of other vegetables to fill up the plate.

I think two roast is rather different if there is mash too. That's basically the 4 -5 other people were talking about.

Libraries agree, I've cooked a roast without mash and got the sad 'where's the mash?' face from all of them.

I think it is an irish thing to try to knock you out with food.

'You won't starve on my watch!'
My ex Italian boyfriend felt like he wasn't a man because hr couldn't finish the plate.
My family are farmers.
You are talking at least eight hours of physical labour.
My ex worked at a desk.
He would not require the same amount of food.

I could live without mash, particularly if there are roasties. I hate anything but butter in or on anything, and there's too much potential for mash to have nasty margarine in it, bleugh.

But I guess if it was that or starving I'd eat it.

I over cater for just us at home, never mind if anyone is coming over.
I hate stinginess anywhere, and would never even think to control other people's food portions, I'd probably do five roasties each, even though two or three would be plenty for me.

It must be an Irish thing SoDiana. On one memorable trip back to the native land we deliberately timed our visit to my Uncle and Grandad to be in the afternoon, only to be served big steaming bowls of Irish stew ( which I hate) for afternoon tea!

I think some of this comes down to the fact that I (and others) never eat to get stuffed, so I would serve you a normal amount of food if I cooked you a roast. Not because I'm mean, because that's how I eat - I'd assume I was giving you one of your three meals a day. I would just not make enough for 9 roasties each.

Same here (1 of 3 meals per day assumed), so I serve about 4 roasties and lots of trimmings.

There's no need for more, especially if we're having dessert.