Aibu to find this utterly infuriating??

[goddessoftheharvest]

Guest at Sunday lunch today. Over the course of the meal

"Oh I couldn't eat all of that... Just a little bit for me thanks. Oh no, that's far too much. Just half of that. Half of that. I wouldn't eat all those potatoes. Could I have that little corner of the meat, that very well done part? That will do for me. Sorry, could i swap my meat for that bit? It looks a bit better done. No, I'll not have any of that, I couldn't manage it. I'll just try a bit off X's plate. Apple pie for afters? I couldn't, I really couldn't. I'll try a tiny bowl I suppose. Just a spoonful"

At this point I thought fuck it, and gave her an actual tablespoon sized portion. She then proceeded to eat it and half of DDs!

I love this relative dearly, but by God she has a weird attitude to food. She isn't fussy and has no allergies, but it's as if enjoying food for what it is is unladylike or something, hence the massive parade over portion sizes etc

Basically you end up spending ages making a nicely cooked and presented meal, only for most of it to be taken up with this warbling on!

Aibu to think this is rude and annoying?

My MIL is like this except that she doesn't take anything off anyone else' plates and she always moans that there are too many chips/potatoes/veg. Then she tries to offload the 'excess' onto other people. DH would complain that it was like eating two dinners.

When I last took her out the barman (or possibly the manager) tactfully suggested a children's portion for her (out of earshot) and that was perfect. She still left the skin on the fish though but almost ate it all.

I've found myself whining about how much food there is in restaurants and saying I couldn't possibly eat it all ( I can't - whenever my food arrives I just shift half the chips or potatoes to dh)

And I eat really heartily and am 4 stone overweight. I just think portions are enormous most of the time and I hate feeling uncomfortably full.

But why whine about it? Why shift your food onto someone else's plate? I went out for dinner on Saturday. There was too much food for me. I ate until I'd eaten enough and left the rest, no whinging, no trying to dump it on my friend's plate. Easy.

My MIL will prepare a dessert at the end of a meal. Plate it up for the men and then declare that 'we' (her and I) couldn't possibly need dessert as we're watching our weight. Every time I have to tell her I'm not and that I would in fact like dessert (I'm normally starving after my 'ladies' portion of lunch). I'm a size 8/10. I'm not watching my bloody weight!!

In reminded of MIL refusing to put more than a drop of cream on a very dry dessert once because we would all get fat.
And then getting annoyed we wouldn't have it in the after dinner coffee because it needed using up

I don't care how or what people eat. I just don't want to hear about it. Especially when I am eating. I always serve food so people can help themselves and I never urge them to take more or less or whatever.

As my mother got older she definitely couldn't handle as much food. She and her friends would go to a carvery for lunch every week (the manager called them The Golden Girls, which they loved) and they would have half-portions.

My MIL can be funny about me actually cooking. I am a good cook and enjoy it and can put together a fairly nice dinner with very little fuss. She is a good cook herself but makes a huge fuss about it. When she stays with me every day I produce a dinner for her and the rest of the family, she will say "oh canyou, why do you go to so much trouble? you really shouldn't take this trouble". on and on and on as if I was stuffing a swan with a duck for dinner instead of taking half an hour to produce a shepherds pie and a salad. I think she'd not be so bothered if the food was crap, bizarrely enough.

Garden - it's ok, dh is a runner so is happy with the extra calories

I only really whine a bit because the portions are so big now. I don't believe in waste either so will eat it all up (or dh will). We never throw food out at home either.

Ideally timed while I stay with Mil.
E.g. today.
Lunch - we had pasta and ragu that she made. Insisted our Ds (4) wouldn't eat it. He ate the whole plate. She made a big spectacle of bringing in a plate of absolutely plain pasta, ten mins after everyone else finished for herself. Then while we were eating the next course she quietly tucked into the same thing. She then goes through this big act layer of saying DS didn't eat enough until someone says 'he ate more than you'd and then she laughs coyly. So fucked up.
Dinner - (her own birthday dinner). Gives us all fritatta, she is dicking around in the kitchen while we eat again. We leave some for her. Then she comes in eating some plain broth. We then eat some of the broth but ours has added rice. Dh asks if anyone wants the fritatta. Just has he goes to get t she pipes up she just wants a tiny piece to taste. She made Ds fish fingers. Ds mentions there are no chios,, so she jumps up mid meal and makes him chips from scratch, leaving her cold broth. It was like an excuse to avoid food. She is very slim.
I could cope with her weird way she diets but is the horrible coy way she says I eat nothing and Ds eats nothing web we all know I eat about three times as much as her and Ds eats as much if not more than her. It is a really miserable performance that makes me feel shit. I'm. Size 14 so a bit overweight but also still in the early months if breastfeeding so hardly likely to feel body confident right now...

This thread reminded me of a meal several years ago.

My ex MIL kindly took myself and her dd out for afternoon tea at a famous London Hotel. It was a joint special birthday present, and MIL's neighbour came along too. I was really looking forward to it but also dreading it in equal measure.

My SIL has a seriously disordered relationship with food. Her family rarely acknowledges it, she's been severely underweight her whole adult life. She hardly eats bread and doesn't have a "sweet tooth". Why on earth her own mother thought she would like a cream tea is a mystery. She eyed the table like it was radio active, drank loads of tea, had a couple of sandwiches, a tiny cake and declared herself full.

The neighbour had just started the Paul McKenna hypno diet ! She declared herself stuffed after very little, but sat looking longingly at the food which she now felt physically unable to eat. She was a classic yo-yo dieter, always trying some new regime

As for my MIL, she was a fabulous cook but seemed to hate eating at other people's houses. Always a small portion, never finished that, everything declared as "lovely" but never wanted any more. She attacked her own food with a fork like it had offended her, and perched on the edge of her chair to run around being "mother" to everybody else.

Me ? My weight fluctuates a bit, nothing too severe either way, and I absolutely love food. Love the whole social side, all of it. I decided I wasn't going to spoil my treat so ate pretty much everything I wanted to. My MIL was constantly saying "Oh go on Dusters, have that as well" - so I did . I did however feel very self-conscious, and didn't eat as much as I normally would have. I treated a friend to tea at the same place a few years later - we practically rolled out the front door !!

My role within my in-laws surreal food universe became the one who was easy and would eat anything. I played up to it as it made my life easier, having seconds, trying new things, eating left-overs. It always made me cringe though, like I was the pantomime dinner guest. Their whole family was dysfunctional in many ways, and food/eating was just another messed up part of that. Sad really.

Honeylulu, the whole dessert being "sinful" really fucks me off too. It's often used in adverts about ice-cream and a certain chain, lets call them S&M.

A certain slimming club would call treats "sins", (you can have X amount of "sins" in a week, eg making one Malteser last the week exaggerating slightly ). Don't know if they do that anymore. Just yuk.

And I don't even have a sweet tooth! But if cheese and double cream are "sins", then I'd better pack my suitcase with stinky cheese in readiness for hell.

My MIL dies this. Drives me crazy. Makes out I'm eating loads because I'm having two slices of toast with beans.
She overlooks so much and is so obsessed with feeding everyone and making a big show about how little she eats and going on about what good eaters everyone else is I think she has serious food issues.

I do understand that this thread isn't about people with genuinely small appetites, but I was a bit about one poster complaining about someone wanting a small slice of cake - basically saying it was unreasonable to want her to cut them a small slice.

It isn't impossible to cut a small slice of cake - so why not be a good host and try to cut the right slice of cake for your guest?

Some people really are over faced by too much food, and would be very uncomfortable with being given a bigger slice than they could face.

Faux-fussiness is entirely different and very annoying.

If someone's been kind and good enough to cook it for me, I'll eat it - and as much of it as they're prepared to dish me up.

This would be me, as well.

Went to Nandos last night and was full halfway through the meal. I left what I didn't want to eat and that was that. Is it really that hard to do?!

It isn't impossible to cut a small slice of cake - so why not be a good host and try to cut the right slice of cake for your guest?

--

Smaller piece is fine, but you go to cut a small piece, are told no, smaller, smaller until they expect you to cut it like a piece of paper. From my experience anyway...

My sister does the cake thing, and then we caught her slying off to the kitchen to sneak more from the fridge! Nicer people would have pretended they didn't see...but no, we seem to be a cruel family and my father in particular delighted in pointing it out. She doesn't bother pretending anymore now. Never understood the need in the first place.

" I left what I didn't want to eat and that was that. Is it really that hard to do?!"

Yes, when you've been brought up to finish your plate and you're conscious of food waste it's very hard to leave food on your plate.

I adore food and eating out and trying new things. Am absolutely fine with people I've eaten with before/known for ages etc
But eating out with new people I'm very very likely to not have a starter and then have a salad or starter as a main
I don't like eating in front of people as I think they will judge what I'm eating and that I'm fat because I eat this or that etc etc
Not fussy though, will eat any cuisine/food!

Food is no less wasted when eaten by a person who doesn't want it or is too full than it is if it is put in the bin.

A standard Nandos thing like chicken thighs rice and corn is too much for me, but I would usually be full after half of it so I would take the rest home with me for later and I will eat it and enjoy it very much.

Lol at dusters being the pantomime dinner guest :o special skill...eating stuff!

My MIL dies this but to be fair to her she does actually eat like a sparrow all the time. She used to give me tiny portions too, I think because I was the only woman at dinner (DH has two brothers). I was so relieved when BiL invited now SiL to the first family meal and she had as healthy an appetite as me! MiL seemed to cop on at some point and we now get similar portions to the blokes

My MIL eats very small portions while insisting everyone else's plates are heaped full. That isn't an issue for me but I'm not sure what it was like for her daughters growing up as they all have serious issues regarding food. They regularly 'share' a small potato or bring the dinners home with them. I think it is a control thing. Collectively they weight about 12 stones.

I've been struggling to think of a way to word this and I'm still not sure I've got it right so bear with me.

Firstly, yes, making someone feel bad about what's on their plate by being all PA about not eating much and it somehow being virtuous is annoying and it's also not limited to women being dainty; by far the worst offender in my life in this regard is my elderly father, and he's always been like it so it isn't an age thing.

However - and I'm focusing specifically on overweight people who exhibit this behaviour - look at all the comments on this thread along the lines of "And the person who does this is the size of a house; they're not fooling anyone that they have a small appetite, haha!"

Is it any wonder that an overweight person would do the "just a small one for me" ritual to save face in front of people, when this is the prevailing attitude? When people are sniggering behind their backs about how much they must stash away in secret to be the size they are? There is nothing more mortifying as a fat person (apart from perhaps getting stuck in something), than having to eat a meal in front of someone else all the time knowing that people are thinking "Well, no wonder she's so fat if that's what she eats!" (and they are; just look at this thread for evidence!) Refusing to order a pudding, even though you really want one, because you know people will think "no wonder she's fat if she's eating that!". You can't win. You're vilified for eating it if you do, vilified as trying to be self-righteous if you don't.

The small portion thing is, generally, a desperate attempt to avoid this, and no wonder. Overweight people who go through this ritual at every meal aren't overweight because they do this; they do it because they're overweight and are trying to save face because of people's shitty attitudes to what they put in their mouth.

I think those of us who can genuinely regulate what they eat and are comfortable round food are fortunate.