To not be able to feed 3 extra adults unexpectedly for lunch?

[ImFree2doasiwant]

I'm single, with 2 small children. I do a weekly meal plan and shop once a week.

If 3 extra adults dropped in for lunch, I'd either be able to feed them but have to go shopping again, or not have enough food in to feed them at all.

Its not like I can't afford to, I just buy the food that we, as a family, will eat. I have a small freezer. I could probably manage dinner better.

Am I that unusual?

@Mostlylurkingiam

Your question is a bit weird when you clarified- you COULD give people a meal just not sandwiches, because you don't eat much bread. Why would you worry about 1 type of food? If people want much they can have whatever, sandwiches are not the only food.!

Right??

So odd to be moved to start a thread about not being able to supply unexpected guests with sandwiches and only sandwiches.

@MyDcAreMarvel

Why do you few people eat sandwiches it’s very odd.

Not odd at all, many people don't like sandwiches or sandwiches don't agree with them, for digestive or health reasons.

I find the obsession with sandwiches for lunch odd, why so many people have them.

I am curious about the OPs visitors, who insisted on sandwiches and wouldn't eat anything else the OP offered them. Why?

I very rarely eat a cold sandwich by choice and certainly not for lunch. It only really happens if I'm out somewhere, need lunch and don't have time for anything except a ready made sandwich, but it's disappointing if I find myself in such a situation because I've wasted an eating opportunity on something mediocre.

Wouldn't necessarily be a very nice meal, but yes I would have enough pantry and freezer food to make something on short notice. If I used bread I would have to pick more up, same for most fresh food. Buy I tend to have a lot of staples on hand.

I usually have a sack of flour, fresh fruit and vegetables and tinned tomatoes etc. We have eggs from our chickens, olive oil, butter and cheese, herbs and spices etc.

I make bread/pasta almost every day and could feed a lot of people if necessary from the above. This isn't exotic stuff - fairly rustic but usually healthy whole foods.

A pack of cheese, a few eggs and some salad leaves growing on the windowsill would make a a beautiful meal!

If you live “very rural” how would people just be dropping in unannounced? Surely it would be miles out if their way so it’s involve a special trip. We live “very rural” - 23 miles from the nearest village, 45 miles from the GO, 75 miles from the nearest town. We are regularly cut off because there’s only one road here and it is prone to landslides. If the road is closed the only way to get to us is by helicopter or boat. We have a huge supply of spare food and could feed three guests if they stayed for a month. But the chances of anyone showing up here unannounced are slim to none. We bulk buy and batch cook. It’s all part of life when you live so remote.

Very few peple in the UK are as isolated as you are @BritWifeinUSA.

We aren't very rural - only 5 miles to the nearest town, but it isn't the same as having a shop just round the corner to get emergency supplies when unexpected visitors drop in. That said, I don't know anyone who would turn up uninvited for lunch and expect to be fed. And I wouldn't do that either.

@WaterOffADucksCrack why am I privileged to have a fully stocked larder and freezer?

I didn't go out and buy everything in one go. Almost everyone can afford to buy an extra tin of tomatoes or bag of pasta when they shop and gradually build up a stock of food.

I could never only have enough food for a week or less in the house. Anything could happen that means you can't get out to shop and quite possibly not able to get a delivery. No way would I want to go shopping once or more a week. I do have a life

It shouldn't be considered a privilege to have extra pack of pasta. It should be considered a standard. If people consider it a norm, a basic, it can better be discussed why people don't have it when they absolutely should as a basic and what should be done for people to be able to have that basic thing.

If people keep refering to bit extra food as privilege in what is supposed to be first world, high GDP, "rich" country, the outlook is all wrong.

I'm also a single parent and I would be able to make lunch, probably, but everyone wouldn't have the same thing. The food will go off if we don't eat it so I only get what we need.

We are a family of 4 with a big kitchen and 2 freezers, which we always keep stocked, along with food cupboards. We could easily survive for a couple of weeks on it and could easily make some decent meals even the day before the big shop. I wouldn't be daunted by extra mouths to feed though precovid it was more likely to be coffee and a snack. It's just how we are - maybe a little bit too hoardy. We are in a city, with 3 Co-ops within 5-10 min walk so we don't NEED to keep loads in.

This thread is revelatory - I really didn't think hoarders non-meal planners existed before!

I just couldn't live like that - it seems so wasteful (and I suspect you were the ones clearing the shelves at the start of the pandemic last Spring!).

We are a family of four and I love cooking from recipes. I've got a European father though so grew up with my mum juggling British and more complicated European meals which she had to learn.

I rotate about 40 meals on average, most from recipes. I'm not a particular great cook and don't actually like cooking that much, but I like eating restaurant standard food, so I've had to learn how to do it myself.

I just couldn't cobble something together.

I don’t think it’s hoarding exactly. I buy pasta in 3kg bags and rice in 5kg bags and eggs in boxes of 15 because it’s slightly cheaper, it uses less packaging and I know I’ll get through it eventually. I also have a couple of instant long life meals like pasta sauces or fishfingers in stock because sometimes the day doesn’t quite go as planned. Teenagers in particular sometimes get invited out with their mates. I’d much rather be able to say “sure go ahead, I’ll knock something basic up for the rest of us” rather than sulk because it doesn’t fit with the meal plan.

FourWords if my teenagers eat out I just stick their portion in the fridge so they can have it for lunch the next day (or scoffed just after they've got in!).

It's not hoarding to have a food in a cupboard. It also doesn't mean a person is a panic buyer

I just couldn't live like that - it seems so wasteful (and I suspect you were the ones clearing the shelves at the start of the pandemic last Spring!)

Wrong on both counts. We always have plenty of non perishables in, just a spare or two of everything apart from fridge fresh stuff and plenty of meat, fish, bread, veg etc in the freezer. I shop to keep a reasonable store cupboard topped up, not what I expect to use within the next week. Everything is rotated, almost nothing is wasted and it means that if supply is interrupted or we have unexpected guests, we can all still eat.

Also meant that last March we didn't have to go to the shops at all, apart from the odd trip to look at the long queue at Asda and deciding to just go to the Co-op, get bread and milk for now and make do with what we had in.

@MyInsidesLoveFrench

This thread is revelatory - I really didn't think hoarders non-meal planners existed before!

I just couldn't live like that - it seems so wasteful (and I suspect you were the ones clearing the shelves at the start of the pandemic last Spring!).

We are a family of four and I love cooking from recipes. I've got a European father though so grew up with my mum juggling British and more complicated European meals which she had to learn.

I rotate about 40 meals on average, most from recipes. I'm not a particular great cook and don't actually like cooking that much, but I like eating restaurant standard food, so I've had to learn how to do it myself.

I just couldn't cobble something together.

I am confused by your post. For a start people being sensible and having a good stock of food is not hoarding. As I have already said, anything could happen that means you can't get to a shop and/or can't get a delivery. Surely lockdown and the empty shelves should have taught us all that we should have food in the house?

I didn't clear the shelves last year. In fact I didn't need to go shopping for a good few weeks because I had plenty of food already.

I do meal plan. I have a rough months plan but then go over it every week and maybe change it a bit. I know quite a few people though who have a good stock of food and don't meal plan but they don't waste food. They use the food they have.

Me and DH both love cooking. Not sure how many different meals we make but it is a lot

@MyInsidesLoveFrench
Lol, it isn't hoarding and it's not wasteful whatsoever. On the contrary.
I would imagine we were precisely the people not panic buying as we already had it in our larders and freezers.
Mine is like my own little supermarket inside my house.
As parents, we have enough chores to do, without adding meal planning to it. Plus i don't like the idea of thinking 'next Friday I'm going to have spag bol' - what if you don't fancy spag Bol on Friday?

I don't know why we're bothering lynsey. We're arguing with the people who last March told us that we caused The Great Toilet Roll Shortage of 2021 by buying a pack of 40 from Costco 3 months previous, before anyone had ever heard of COVID-19.

@FourWordsImMuNiTy Tesco sells 10kg bags of Tilda for £22. 1kg pack is £4.75 (the blue one). So I am absolutely with you that it's smart and agree on packaging.
I usually buy the 10kg pack in some foreign supermarkets where it's sometimes cheaper. Really practical!

Look at us. Hoarders😂

I always keep several pizzas on freezer so if they liked pizza they could have that. I bought an additional freezer as we grow veg and as it often comes all at once I needed additional freezer to make sure it gets eaten not wasted. Grow cooking apples too and freeze apple sauce and sliced apples for pies. Also buy meat on special offer and freeze.

It's unreasonable for guests to show up unannounced and expect a specific meal (sandwiches). If your host can offer you any meal with no notice, that's very lucky.

I would find not planning or making a shopping list exhausting when I went to the supermarket. I get annoyed if I buy even one ingredient and find we actually have it already. Don't you end up spending an unnecessary fortune?

It takes me half an hour to make a list. I list all the breakfast and lunch stuff we need then choose about four recipes. Two will typically be things that last two days, so I only make around five evening meals a week.

I try and shop only once a week, but sometimes split it into two smaller ones.

I do remember the guidelines last Spring were "Only buy what you need".

Yes it is also cheaper to buy bulk rice, canned goods, toilet roll and loads of other stuff or only buy it on offer. I probably save around 30% on our shopping, simply by buying the best value version of most things.

Going back to the toilet rolls, last March, I was surprised to learn that there are families who will buy a 4 pack of Andrex week in week out, never have more than a few day's supply, so were left in the shit, quite literally, when there were supply problems.

And these were not families with no space and no money, but typical, perfectly solvent families quite able to stick a few extra toilet rolls in the bathroom cabinet, under a bed, or any where really.

Yet they were paying twice as much as they needed to for a non perishable item that they needed every single day, because it had never occurred to them to buy a multipack where the price per roll was half what they were paying and forget about having to buy toilet roll for a few weeks. And it's not a matter of upbringing, because my sister was one of them.

I know what I have in cupboards and fridghe so it's incredibly rare to buy accidentally something we have plenty off.

I like to see what veg is nice and fresh and catches my eye and go from there basically.
"Oooh. Lovely leeks, yeah. We can make something with them!" Is how I shop.

If I have lots of veg left over (that doesn't happen usually) towards shopping day, I just make veg medley for dinners.
Fresh food fridge area is empty day before shopping day.

However. I don't have kids. Maybe I would meal plan then.

The thing I'm most looking forward to about finally buying a new house after a year in the relocation rental is having space for a second freezer. And possibly a second fridge freezer as well. Then we will be able to buy lamb again (cheaper as whole, flat packed, direct from farmer) and have space for a reasonable stock.

Won't change my ability to provide decent sandwiches without at least an hour's warning though...

Like many I could provide something, probably pasta, gnocchi but a 'boring' sandwich would be a problem!