To not want to eat food that my mother has cooked?

[Cheeseoncrumpets]

I probably am being a bit unreasonable a bit, but to put it bluntly she is shit at cooking. Everything is either frozen or out of a packet, either overcooked or undercooked, unseasoned and served on a freezing cold plate. Her roast dinners are the absolute worst though, unseasoned cremated meat, frozen Yorkshire puddings, burned roast potatoes and veg that's been stewed for about two hours smothered in thick gloopy bisto gravy. I feel sick just thinking about it.

So, she's currently in a huff with me because I don't want to go around there and eat one of her Sunday roasts. To put it into context, we usually all go out as a family together for Sunday dinner. But today she's decided she can't be bothered today's and so instead of asking us first has gone out this morning and bought a piece of beef, some veg and has announced she will be making us all lunch instead. My heart sunk as I was looking forward to a hearty Sunday meal, cooked properly in a nice pub. So I declined and said "no thanks, you know Im not a big lover of Sunday dinner" and then got in the ear because she's bought everything in for us, and she's also enquired as to why I will eat a roast in the pub but not one of hers...

So now I'm stuck. She's not good with crticism anyway so I can't really say "sorry mum but your a shit cook" without it provoking WW3.

I know it's trivial, but am I really unreasonable to not want to eat her slop cooking eveer again?

Tbh if it were my mum I'd say "hey Mum, you're grand at cooking pasta, shepards pie, whatever but gotta say your roasts don't do it for me" in a light hearted way. She'd say righto you'll get pasta or nothing then! I think you'll have to work out a way to tell her or you'll have this situation for years to come.

YANBU - I bet she won't allow you to help and then acts martyred about doing all the work?

Do you have your own partner and kids? Are you still always going there for every Sunday?

Any chance you can have to do things with his family instead, or with the kids to break the pattern a bit? Or conduct a slow campaign about your dislike of roast dinners? Become vegetarian - left it a bit late for Veganuary sadly

You cant win whatever you do. You dont sound unreasonable.

Any advice about to do things differently in order to make stuff taste nicer is shot down.

If that's your definition of offering to help, I'm not surprised she turns it down.

My mum can't cook. She once invited us to Sunday lunch and came in beaming that she made it extra special and it was a double cup o soup. Yes two packets in the one cup. We tease her a bit of course but I would never turn down an invitation. One day she won't be here anymore to invite us and it's too late then isn't it

Bloody hell!

Why doesn't anyone say anything to these people?

We regularly critique meals!

And if something wasn't cooked or still frozen I would expect to be told, not for people to force it down!

Yep, Wolpertiger. She's a martyr and really doesn't like cooking very much either, which is fair enough as I understand not everyone does. In fact the reason we started going out in the first place was because she hates cooking and couldn't be arsed making a Sunday dinner for my dad who hardly ate any of it (no prizes for guessing why).

YABU. You should go round, eat a bit, be polite and appreciate that your mum is making the effort.

It's called manners.

If it's really likely to be inedible offer to help. As it is you just come across as a whiny entitled teenager.

Break the routine

Go out for lunch yourselves

Can't your dad just make the Sunday lunch instead?

My MIL is pretty dreadful. Her roasts are like ones that pp have described, except that she has a habit of making leeks in a runny white sauce and dolloping it on top of everything. The white sauce and gravy sort of mix in a really unpleasant way :(

I force one down once in a blue moon to be polite. Really couldn't do it every week (or month)

diddl we woulndt dare critique her meals, because she doesn't handle criticism very well at all.

Her chicken is always like rubber, I once suggested trying to make it nicer by rubbing butter into the skin and using herbs to add seasoning. She ignored it. I told her, when she whinged that she coulndt make proper Yorkshire puddings without the collapsing that the fat she was using probably wasn't hot enough. She igored it and started buying in frozen ones instead.

Y are being a bit U but it's understandable. My DM cannot cook at all and never has been able to - she cannot taste or smell either. She has one of those 1970s hostess trollies so all food has been in that for hours before it's easten - very soggy and inedible. But it's one meal every so often, she is 86 and won't be here forever. I would go and take a delicious pudding with you to "save additional work for her" and, if she's already made one, to provide an alternative.

Reminds me of Butterflies.

Can you a) invite her to the pub with you, or b) offer to cook the meal yourself?

YABU. I've eaten fairly unpleasant food before out of politeness, it's what you do when someone cooks for you.
That said, I know I'd somehow feel far less tolerant if it were my mother! Pretty sure id still manage to be polite and eat it quietly, but it would actually occur to me to object/leave a lot of it, whereas with almost anyone else I wouldn't dream of it.

I know a bit how you feel, OP.
My mum, God rest her, didn't believe a meat joint was cooked until it was a third of its original size and the fibres were coming apart. We were big fans of gravy in our house as it was needed to rehydrate the meat!
She overcooked veg as if none of us had teeth - but her saving graces were her roast spuds, her yorkshires and her gravy, all of which were fantastic.

So we put up with the rest. She wouldn't ever come to a roast dinner at mine though because I didn't cook the meat "properly" and she was afraid of food poisoning (I've never had food poisoning from any home-cooked meal either I or DH have turned out).

I did get her to cut down on the veg cooking time a few times, and would always help out for Christmas dinner, feeding her a judicious glass of sherry at about 11am (helped with the stress) - but she wouldn't be budged on the meat!

Having offered sympathy, I do think you should go and just put up with it - it's only one meal, it would be bad to upset her over it - and if you genuinely can't stomach it, you can always get something nice for the evening meal.

Oh I totally hear you. Thank goodness my mum is an excellent cook but she lives in Australia.

My MIL however....ugh. She cremates beef, because she likes it well done. I realise this is down to personal preference but its not mine. Its like cardboard. And they all sit around saying "oooh well that was a lovely bit of beef" and I"m thinking, how the hell can you tell?

Her spuds are fine but the veg...she brings out leftover brussels sprouts from last week's Sunday dinner and reheats them. They are a khaki green/brown colour. And she'll get a packet of frozen "Mediterranean" veg and heat that up. With a roast?!

Her cauli cheese is good though. She doesn't scrimp on the cheese. Though she burns it every time, you can dig under for the nice stuff.

What really gets me is that she won't put stuffing in a chicken because she says its unsafe from a food safety point of view (its not if you cook it properly, and as she overcooks everything there is no chance of that not happening) yet she'll serve leftovers that are up to 10 days old and have been reheated and put back in the fridge several times.

I suppose I'll get flamed for dissing my mother in law and all the pearl clutchers with sons will say "how very sad" they feel but its nothing to do with her being my mother in law, and everything to do with her being a shit cook. I get that its not her fault. But its still shit!

Sounds EXACTLY like my Mums approach to cooking. My brother & I would always offer (insist) on us cooking if it's an 'occasion' but we do suffer her efforts once in a while so not to offend & hurt.
I remember the beef going in at about 9am & veg going on to boil at about 11am for lunch when I was a kid....

Well then the only thing to do is leave it all on the plate uneaten & go out!

Whe you say frozen Yorkshire puddings, do you mean that they are still frozen/cold, or they are cooked but you object to frozen ones being used?

Sounds just like my mums roasts that we endure occasionally, unfortunately for us that's how a lot of people cooked when they were younger.

For my mum meat has to be cremated to ensure it is thoroughly cooked through. Veg is put on about an 1 hour before the meat is ready to ensure its complete mush then left and cold by the time we eat it. Bisto gravy done with the meats juices in a pot and always has lumps of Bisto in it that didn't dissolve, but the gravy is good as it warms up the cold veg a bit.

We have to cut ds(11)'s meat up for him to make sure the bits are small enough he's not chewing it for a week (mum thinks he's just bad at cutting up).

We eat it (including tinned rice and tinned peaches for afters) and thank her.

If she comes to us she moans she cant eat it as I haven't cooked the meat properly as it has the tiniest bit of pink in the centre or the carrot/broccoli need to be on longer because they still have a little bit of firmness to them. I get no thanks, but advice on how to cook a roast properly!

You just gotta love them. Who's to say who is right we are! and who is wrong, just different styles of cooking.

Is your mum my mil? I eat the absolute minimum I can when we go round and she thinks I don't ever eat gravy.

She cooked beef and lamb a while ago and I honestly couldn't tell the difference because they were both so over cooked

Life's too short to eat crap food

YANBU at all. I wouldn't want to eat that & wouldn't be able to hide it. I'd either say I'm sorry I don't fancy a full roast & offer other options, such as a light tea or invite her to yours.

Yes, they are Aunt Besies Yorkshire puds. Disgusting and not a patch on an lovely crunchy big real one. I know she will have splashed out on a dear piece of beef and it will be like shammy leather by the time I get there.

My BIL and Sis's idea of dinner is a cold salad. My BIL is a cheapskate, my sister likes starving herself. They literally serve up a bowl of lettuce with a bit of red pepper and a few morsels of left over meat and that is your evening dinner. Not even anything in the salad to bulk it out such as croutons, onion, cucumbers, slices of egg, or any other thing you could put in there to bulk it up a bit. What they consider to be dinner is a side dish to a main meal. Not even any bread or bread rolls offered with it. Dessert is a mini magnum ice cream. Just one. Not even the full size.

The third time this happened I refused to eat it and said dont worry I will make myself something hot when I get home. I got some odd looks but I didnt care.

I am sick and I am tired of cooking them proper meals when they come to me or me ordering them a takeaway. I have made them cold lunches before. But my idea of a cold lunch is a big salad, along with a selection of cold meats, a selection of breads including slices of bread and baguettes etc, a selection of cheeses and then they are offered a dessert including fruit, home made trifle, etc.

I am just sick of them and wont eat there again. In terms of someone being a really shit cook....I can see why you wouldnt want to go as the plans had changed and I dont blame you.