To think this is ignorant?

[Monicavinader]

Asked MIL if she could give me the recipe for a dish she cooks well (I share my recipes with her), she agreed and gave it to me - but with key ingredients missing so it wouldn't taste nice. Deliberately - she has past form for doing this. (When she did it before it was years ago and I'd forgotten about it until it happened again. )Don't you think that's really mean? By all means refuse or make an excuse, but to let me waste my time making something that's not going to work..? We've got small kids and work long hours so I particularly begrudge her wasting my time in this way. AIBU to be really irritated. She was due to be coming round for dinner this week and I honestly don't think I can bear to make her a nice meal and be civil to her!

Make it and put what you think in to make it taste good. Tell MIL that you couldn't get her recipe to work -maybe she didn't write it down properly so you just did your own thing. Then get dh to make a big fuss about how it is the best he's ever tasted. If she asks what you put in it give her back the exact recipe she gave you.
You're welcome.

beyondthepage you do sound a bit precious. So MIL makes some cakes loosely based on your recipe. I am not getting the arrrgh.

my MIL does this so iv stopped asking and when she asks for mine I conveniently forget an ingredient or two too. Petty, I know, but i can't help myself.

beyondthepage you do sound a bit precious. So MIL makes some cakes loosely based on your recipe. I am not getting the arrrgh

my 15 year old loves to bake - she bakes for when her gran comes - lovely moist, tasty cakes - she is proud of them and wants to share them with her.

Her gran will bring with her some cakes - supposedly - to the same recipe DD uses - except they will have slightly different stuff in and will be dry because she made them 5 days ago and put them in the freezer.

DD feels deflated because her gran brought cakes with her - why - she knows DD likes to bake.

We either end up with a miffed DD, save her cakes for when gran has gone - or a miffed MIL "why aren't we eating the cakes I made especially". I serve both up and they compare them - which, to be fair is unkind to MIL because we know which way it will be most favourable - I can't win either way. Hence the arghhhhhhhhh.

What was the missing ingredient? Could you ring her and ask-didn't the recipe have garlic in-I could have sworn it did when you last made it?

It's not ignorant, though. Rather unkind, yes.

I onced asked mt BiL how he made a particular chutney. He refused to tell me! Why?

Pollymycroft, I wouldn't mind so much if she'd been upfront about it like that. Well, I'd be a bit irked by it, but at least he was being honest!

I think you and your husband should sit down with her and have a very serious heartfelt discussion about the prospect of memory problems, and offer to support her in getting checked out.. then sit back and watch the squirming

It's not ignorant it's deliberate! Very mean and unkind

Are you Scottish, OP? I am (haven't lived there for many years) and when I was young people used "ignorant" to mean unpleasant, rude or a bit nasty, so I knew what you meant!

What she did was selfish and nasty. She wants to be the best at that dish, so you cooking it may have stolen her thunder if you'd done it well. Silly and petty of her.

What was the recipe??

A cake for example needs very specific ratios of ingredients so you would either follow a recipe every time or have made it so many times it’s committed to memory

A savoury dish however (for me) normally requires just chucking stuff in and each time I make it it’s different as I put in different amounts of stuff or substitute stuff all the time.

I'd make something she doesn't like, next time she is round for dinner

I doubt very much it is ignorance. After all she knows the recipe.

It's either mistake in transcribing it (especially if she cooks flexibly rather than by following a printed one) or it is very deliberate.

E

Bloody phone!
I was trying to say that in much of the north of England ignorant means rude, insensitive, ill mannered or lacking in social skills. Think of it as ignorant of how people ought to behave. So no need to correct op's choice of words.

We have a similar situation only it's FIL who withheld the complete recipe. I just made it repeatedly with my own adjustments and now DH says my version is way better than his dad's! Took years to get to this point. Be patient and keep trying with your own adjustments.

Haticockpins and Nearlife - yes, I am from that part of the world. I actually work in an industry in which the use of words are very important so I was a bit surprised to be corrected on my usage of it, then realised I had used it in a local kind of way. I know I haven't expressed that in the best way but am damned tired!

Brie, I do know what you mean - if I was writing down the recipe for a strip fry I'd have to think quite carefully about it. It was a glaring omission though and she's done it before.

BeyondThePage- you sound very strange about ""your" recipes, to be honest!

My MiL does this OP. She is very spiteful and passive aggressive. Outwardly she insists she likes me but when I've asked for recipes she umms and ahhs then says it's not written down then lists a few things I know are wrong. Once I even found the recipe on side in her kitchen after she said she'd made it up and couldn't remember exactly what went in.
I don't know why. I've tried my best. I think she hates that I can cook and she sees me as a rival for the top family cook. I rarely have time to cook so she's welcome to it!
A few years after I married DH I started getting sick (severe vomiting) every time I went to hers. We couldn't work it out - at first I thought food poisoning (I never said this) but it was only ever me. I repeatedly quizzed her on common ingredients for meals especially cooking oil but she insisted she'd always used vegetable oil for the last 20 years and she got very evasive and dodged questions. On the last occasion my DH lost it and insisted she was more helpful and she then 'suddenly remembered' she'd changed to rapeseed oil for all cooking a year earlier. And that was the answer. No more vomiting.
She really is a piece of works.

I think this might be linked to age. Certainly Oop North where I hail from (and yes, I recognise the regional use of the word ignorant) recipes were often closely guarded. I wonder if it goes back to a time where the only place the Woman of the house was allowed to 'rule' was her kitchen. Perfect cooking and house-keeping may have been as near as they got to what would now have been a career wohm. So, very sad, and of its time, unfortunately. Also, women then were much more encouraged, IME, to be seen to be nice, so she may have more difficulty saying she just doesn't want to share the recipe. I'm not making excuses for her, if she doesn't want to share, she shouldn't expect you to either, and she sounds mega-annoying.