Is my Christmas dinner unreasonable?

[shivermytimbers]

I have just done a big chunk of the Xmas food shop today. I'll be cooking for 10 including PILs who haven't had Xmas lunch with us before. I luuurve Christmas dinner and all the leftovers so tend to make a bit of a feast. DH has happily tucked into said feast for many years. I'm doing...
Smoked salmon starter
Turkey
Pigs in blankets
Stuffing
Roasties
Parsnips
Sprouts with bacon
Red cabbage
Gravy
Christmas pudding with brandy butter and cream

Apparently, according to DH, PILs will not be happy because 1) pigs in blankets are a bit common 2) sprouts shouldn't have bacon anywhere near them 3) starters are unnecessary 4) it really is too much food to be able to enjoy it.

My response was that I've bought the food, I will cook the food and if they don't eat it I will happily consume the leftovers. Therefore - tough bloody luck if they don't like it!!!

I know I'm right... aren't I???

Have RTFT (just to p4)
OP as yet is it just DH saying these things, do you know if he has talked to Pil?

As long as everyone can help themselves I think the menu is fine. I do really mean help themselves though - I don't have a large appetite so often just have a main without a starter. If I felt I had to eat a starter or a lot of starter out of politeness I'd feel very awkward as I wouldn't be able to eat much, if any main. Not saying this is the case with Pil, just please be gentle if they don't eat a great deal. I've been thoroughly embarrassed in the past by taking a small portion and a kindly relative pointing it out to the table, asking if I don't like it or worse still adding another couple of spoonfuls of food on my plate.

Eat by 1pm, boil your sprouts and NEVER serve a starter: Etiquette expert William Hanson reveals the Christmas dinner traditions that are making you look common

By William Hanson for MailOnline
08:36, 21 Dec 2016, updated 08:40, 21 Dec 2016

Check this, guys! It may be of interest...or not.

I read that and well... I'd rather look common! I'm rather glad I AM common.

I have a few proper upper class friends and every time I have eaten at their homes the food has been woeful. I'm common as muck but you'll eat well at mine. Please someone upper class come and tell me my friends are just bad cooks... they are the first generation to not have enough money for staff so perhaps that's it.

Upper and upper middle class people like to eat bland, unfussy nursery food that's very very English. They see it as some sort of virtue of being upper class, which I never understand and it makes me quite relieved to have been born into the lower middles.

Those sorts of rules about calling dinner supper etc and sneering at people who get it wrong always seem so unpleasant and try hard.

I'm 'proper' upper class, of course I can cook. You must surely be aware that making generalisations about a whole class is absurd.

MagicChicken, that's a bit 1910 and silly.

If I had to put myself in a social class (which I don't like to do as it's the root of all evil thanks for gross generalisations) 't would probably be upper middle as well. I can also cook, having learned it at boarding school and also having spent time in France. A lot of people in my circle have done cookery courses so they can do a ski season as a chalet host, cook for dinner parties, or whatever. Obviously people travel a lot (my parents have a holiday every month) and like having special meals at fantastic restaurants and really know what they are eating (although I would say they don't obsess about it). So the idea they prefer tasteless nursery food is just ridiculous.

William Hanson - what a horrible, joyless creature! I just read his piece and I'm doing everything wrong

PS These days nursery food is the stiff in the Norland cookbook

stuff

My aunt said Hanson had the manners of an 'officious butler' so I'd ignore him.

so apparently those who eat Christmas lunch at 4pm may "have their family routes in domestic service".

clearly it's not good etiquette to be able to spell properly then...!

OP, your dinner sounds a lot like the one my DM used to make (apart from a nut roast or similar for the awkward veggie, me) and everyone loved it. plus there was a proper high tea later on, with roast ham, salmon etc. And we had table presents (something small) and pudding presents (something nice).

Fuck, I wish I was a kid again!!

That Hanson fellow sounds like a humourless person trying to be funny, which is very common. The Daily Mail used to get Nicky Haslam, outrageous Old Etonian wastrel, to give etiquette tips. He was much more amusing.

Reading that Hanson piece I get the feeling that true upper class types couldn't care less about the number of vegetables on the plate. It is designed to make the daily mail readership have a frisson of self hate *and a bit of better -than -though -ness as they think well at least I don't pour my gravy!)

I like eating mid afternoon - gives time for church and socialising with canapés and fizzy stuff for adults and presents for children. Evening is no good for children. Lunch time means veggies are put on before church and boiled to mush. Or are rushed after church and that's no fun for anyone. But if you don't have church to go to eat earlier. If you don't have kids with a7pm bed time eat later. And have your gravy as thick as you bloody well want. I can't imagine peers have ever used the phrase 'too thick too council' in their lives

The meal is served promptly at one o'clock
FAIL - I will be dishing up at 3ish depending when the spuds are done.

Having a starter with your festive meal is 'pretentious and gluttonous' -
FAIL - I am making pate and toasts and you better like it!

It's called ‘Christmas lunch’ (or ‘luncheon’ if we’re being old-fashioned) if served before 7pm, Christmas dinner if served after. -
FAIL - its called dinner whatever time I manage to wrangle it onto the table. My condolences if this causes bewilderment to the educated. 😀

"The items on your plate should be called by their proper name. Vegetables, potatoes and chipolatas should be monikered individually. They are never to be referred to as 'trimmings'. You are not a carvery." OK, this I can live with.

"Gravy is always ladled and NEVER poured. Gravy boats are fine but must come with a silver ladle. A word now on viscosity. It should not be too thick. In fact, there is a saying amongst the haute cuisine haute monde: ‘Too thick – too council’." -
FAIL - if it's not gloomy it's not gravy.

"Gravy must be ladled on the meat but nowhere else. Pour it all over the vegetables and you’ll be socially relegated quicker than you can say mayonnaise."
FAIL - There will be no authoritarian gravy demarcation at my table. Slap it on all over!

"Roast are apparently the 'only type' of potato that should be served alongside your turkey on Christmas Day"
FAIL - i've served mash and I'll do it again, by jingo!

Number of vegetables

"there should never be more than two kinds of vegetables (excluding potatoes). But for special occasions like Christmas and Easter then three types are permitted.
FAIL - carrot and turnip, sprouts, roast carrots and parsnips are the bare minimum and a fryup of leftovers is always better for more veg.

There is a clear protocol when it comes to where your sauces and gravy are placed.

"When applying the sauces to your plate they are placed in a space near the meat but never across it."
OK, I'll decant the sauces but I will not be giving out Paddington stares to those who place their dollops incorrectly.

'Spouts must be boiled or roasted. Pan frying them is a middle-class fad'
FAIL - They taste pretty good lightly boiled then pan fried, don't knock it till you've tried it.

"Yes, they – sometimes – make a person produce a bit of flatulence but the expulsion of flatus is never to be laughed at or have attention drawn to it."
FAIL - I reserve the right to laugh or run for the matches if someone drops a rasper.

"Smart people do not microwave puddings… perish the thought."
FAIL - Ping!

Oh Mavis. Are you sure you don't want to steam your pudding for three hours to "revive" it? Instead of popping it in the microwave? You don't want to be left with time to have fun instead of slaving over the stove all day do you?

How humid does the kitchen get steaming a pudding for 3 hours?

OpalTree, well it would give me a reason to hide in the kitchen, perhaps there's something to be said for steaming after all!

The word 'meal' is considered rather vulgar in itself, is it not?
FAIL for Hanson.

Magic that explains a lot. I've always wondered why DD likes bland food and went entertain anything we eat. The poor darling was born to papers and should have been upper class!

Same is mine so no YANBU. I ask what everybody wants and this is exactly what the family ordered. We have our christmas pud with brandy cream instead. We're obviously also a bit common because pigs in blankets were the first think my kids ordered

We eat around 4pm, and frankly my forebears were so rougharsed that I'm not sure they'd even have been allowed into service. They'd probably have been employed as the table.

Sounds lovely! Ours is similar 😀

Seriously anyone is meant to be ashamed of having 'forebears in service'? No wonder we're screwed as a nation.

Christmas Day should be fun and relaxed, and everyone should eat what they want. If the in-laws truly do care about the list of nonsense, then at least it's all solved by just not eating things rather than wanting any alternatives (bar the sprouts, but I struggle very hard to imagine them being the apex of anyone's dinner).

I was taught that good manners were about making other people at ease. So if they are that posh you'd hope their manners are amazing, that they thank you genuinely for cooking a lovely lunch for them, and eat whatever they want to from what's on offer.

I'm the cook in our house. I do more or less the same bill of fare. Anyone who wants to join me is very welcome but I'm not changing it for anyone. If you don't like it you don't have to come. OP, invite me and I'll gratefully turn up, eat up and say thank you.