When is Sunday lunch "Sunday lunch"

[Foreveryseason]

Dh and I agreed we hadn't seen our friends in a while and thought about inviting them for tea/brunch/lunch on Sunday. I said text him and say how about lunch, specify sort of toasties and salad. He texted and said "Sunday lunch, nothing too complicated" 🙈🙈🙈they have come back to say thanks so much we will bring a dessert. He CANNOT understand that he invited our friends for "Sunday lunch" ie roast chicken and potatoes and thinks he is totally fine to serve toasties. I may kill him. Aibu????!!!!

thread hijack alert
Sorry OP, my question does not warrant a thread all of its own.

Here goes, on the topic of inviting friends for sunday lunch or lunch on sunday how would you all feel if your guests (family with three children = 5 people) arrived over an hour late, did not message to inform host they'd be late and gave no explanation as to why they were late and a half arsed apology packaged as a joke? How bad on a scale from 1-5 (5 = really shitty behaviour)
end of hijack op

@hundredmilesanhour I suspect we run in different social circles all right. I don't have any issue with having close friends round for a catch up and a few toasties and tea. If you do that's your thing not mine.

BUT I appreciate that on a Sunday if you're invited for "lunch" it's a totally different thing.
I don't think there's any reason to rethink your social circle over serving toasties for lunch (but perhaps my inner Irish carb monster is influencing that!) but I do think if you serve "Sunday lunch" to anyone it needs to be a substantial meal.

@F3or I'd be raging and I'd serve them toasties as punishment

As an aside, when is it ever acceptable to invite people round for toasties?! shock I guess we move in different circles. Cheese, charcuterie and good wine perhaps but toasties no!!! Who are these people eating carbs?

Me! I'd happily go to a toastie brunch or lunch. Love 'em. Just don't call it Sunday bloody dinner lol

Sunday lunch definitely implies roast. Serving toasted sandwiches would be like asking someone over for afternoon tea and literally only giving them a cup of tea.

I don't have any issue with having close friends round for a catch up and a few toasties and tea. If you do that's your thing not mine.

Toasties and tea sounds yummy. If your friends fall out with you after being told they're getting a Sunday lunch and getting toasties instead, can I be your new friend instead

Toasties and tea are fab but I wouldn’t serve them to guests... if it’s a casual get together it’d be M&S picky tapas bits or just a take away pizza.

Do you have a toasted sandwich maker? One of those breville things? I was just thinking yesterday I might re-invest in one for a cheese toasty I can dunk in Heinz tomato soup when in on my own not to serve to Sunday Lunching guests

@F30r I'd tell them lunch had been eaten already and was delicious, fare thee well on the way home.

Or feed them toasties while the rest of you ate the roast.

I don’t do Sunday lunch, it’s Sunday dinner here BUT if I got invited for Sunday lunch, it would be a roast I’d be expecting.

Get a big roast in the bag chicken, a cook in the tray gammon. Bag of frozen (naice) roasties, Yorkshire puddings and some pre-chopped veg to boil. Its basic but that’s how I started doing my roasts 15yearsago . Now I’m very fancy with goose fat potatoes, honey roasted chantany carrots and parsnips with beef jus.

Beef jus is still 2 oxo mixed with Bisto with splash of Worcester sauce and tablespoon of tomato purée .

F3Or Oooh, that'd seriously wind me up. I cannot abide lateness.
Have you seen Friends? I'd be Monica when they're late for Thanksgiving dinner.
Put the chain on the door, the food in front of it on a table and all you floating heads can watch and drool.

I don’t do Sunday lunch, it’s Sunday dinner

Sunday dinner here too, but it's much the same thing and I'd be expecting a lunch to be the roast too.

Sorry, a 'season' for roast potatoes? No such thing. Uh uh!

If I was invited to my friends for Sunday lunch, then it would a roast something with ALL the trimmings with wine. Will he be serving wine with his toasties? If so, what would he recommend? I guess its all dependent on the filling

Asking people to come for a meal and then offering them a poxy toastie with salad?!

People do jail time for less serious offences.

So we're in NI, and not very up ourselves, like most people I find locally! If I felt I had to serve charcuterie and marksies nibbles at every gathering of friends I'd be really disappointed in my friends.
The only reason this is an issue is because I think you can't reference "Sunday lunch" and then expect informal.
Maybe there's a wider point about only having people who "get you" to lunch. I wouldn't be offended at all at toasties (I wouldn't even need charcuterie with it!!) but Sunday lunch is such an explicit thing to many people. Thanks so much for replies!

I once went to MILs for Sunday roast. I couldn’t wait to have the lovely succulent chicken and yummy roasties, crisp Yorkshire puddings drowned in big fat dollops of homemade gravy. I thought about it all morning. When we got there she was making chips eggs and beans. I nearly cried.

@mrlovrebucket really, with close friends? I think dh is a dipshit in how he offered lunch and we're now doing it but I would never judge friends like this.

Perhaps you could amend the invite to Saturday lunch?! ;)

OK..I'm going for spinach roast chicken stuffed cheese and sun dried tomato breads with herby potatoes. That has to be OK right?

Sassy I'm seriously tempted!!

Yes Forevery, a toastie is a snack not a meal.

I wouldn't "judge" close friends but I'd be very disappointed if I was expecting an actual meal and someone just bunged some bread & cheese on the George Foreman.

If they're that close then just call and tell them they're having toasted sandwiches not a cooked meal.

The trickiest bit of a Sunday dinner is prepping and cooking all the bits that go with it and the timing rather than the actual roast...

In the summer I sometimes roast a chicken and serve it with garlic bread and/or potato wedges or potato or pasta or rice salad and salad stuff (peppers, tomatoes, cucumber) and maybe coleslaw

Would that work for you?

It has to be roast potatoes, , roast meat and gravy. Nothing else is acceptable.

Cross post and sounds lovely

"The trickiest bit of a Sunday dinner is prepping and cooking all the bits that go with it and the timing rather than the actual roast...
"

It's not that tricky, surely? If you want you can buy ready-made gravy, and parboil the potatoes ahead of time and then just bung the joint in the oven with the potatoes and boil some veg just before serving.

So we're in NI, and not very up ourselves, like most people I find locally! If I felt I had to serve charcuterie and marksies nibbles at every gathering of friends I'd be really disappointed in my friends

You sound lovely. Toasties sound lovely too, I'd love to go round to a friends for toasties and salad, (I don't care about charcuterie nibbles either)
Sunday lunch I think most people automatically think of the roast dinner hence the outrage of the thought of getting anything different after being promised Sunday dinner/lunch.
Sunday lunch is obviously sacred. Don't mess with it haha.