To find eating out with my parents embarrassing and frustrating?

[NeonJellyBaby]

My parents are both fussy eaters. Both are very ‘meat and two veg’ and traditional. DF is a nightmare to feed, although in fairness he admits it. DM on the other hand is marginally better, but still very picky and would hit the roof if you pointed out how limited her diet is. She has a made up ‘dairy allergy’. She isn’t allergic to it, she just doesn’t like cheese or butter, but as you can imagine that brings its own problems when eating out. She also doesn’t have any problems eating ice cream. So allergy my arse!

Eating out anywhere nice is a nightmare. They will only eat very bland stuff, British stuff nothing fancy. No creamy or spicy sauces. Think egg and chips, pie and chips, gammon and chips, fish and chips. But even then they will get funny if it’s too fancy and not traditional. DM will eat a curry but only the blandest one on the menu. If you go out for Sunday lunch they will reel off all the stuff they don’t want on their plate whilst ordering. Meat has to be cremated or it will be sent back.

A few years ago DB, SSIL and I took them out for a lovely meal for DF’s milestone birthday and they moaned about how fancy and rich it was and there wasn’t really much they liked on the menu (there was loads on the menu). It was an American style upmarket chain place, think Miller and Carter type price range.Food was amazing. It was mortifying.

DM has now asked me to go out to lunch with her today. Guess what? She’s already turned down an Italian place because ‘everything has cheese on it(no it doesn’t), a tapas place because cheese again (once again not everything has cheese on it because I fucking looked), she ‘doesn’t fancy’ Chinese and ‘doesn’t like Thai’.. Looks like it will be the Marstons two for one shit shoved in a microwave again place doesn’t it.. I’d say sod if and suggest McDonalds but she’d probably find fault with that as well.

I love them and want to spend time with them but honestly going anywhere with them is a fucking minefield. AIBU to find them a bit embarrassing?

Oh. Fuck that!

I'd start doing it back to them. Marstens? Too bland. Brewers fayer? Still shitting the last brick out, no thanks.

Goodness, you sound as hard work as your parents. You need to accept you have different tastes when it comes to eating out, you're being as condescending about their preferences as you are snobby about yours. One isn't better than the other. I understand the frustration, its hard when you want to spend time with people that have very different tastes, ultimately you have to reach a compromise. For the sake of spending time with them I'd be sucking it up.

I've no patience for snobbery and that's what this is.

I can't abide people judging others for having simple tastes. Leave them alone. If anyone's embarrassing it's you OP!

@RyanReynoldsHusband

My MIL is so embarrassing to eat out with. She will literally screw her nose up if something isn’t made ‘her way’, and will be extremely rude to the waiting staff.

She is absolutely not like this at all with anything else and she doesn’t criticise my cooking too much. It’s embarrassing and awkward.

I recall many years ago being taken out for Sunday lunch by MIL and we nearly died of embarrassment. She argued that OH, her son, should have another Yorkshire pudding becaaue 'he's a man', that the 'chit of a girl' on the next table had a fresher looking pudding than he did, that she also had the same amount of beef, 'ridiculous'. OH tried to explain that everyone was paying the same but she wouldn't have it. It became a joke between us that if I gave him a bigger portion at home it was a 'man sized portion. I've often wondered what she would have made of her great granddaughter who can eat for England.

@Clydesider

You sound like a rampant snob to me OP. Judgmental, too.

Yep. I knew what this thread would be about before I even opened it. Shouldn't have bothered.

I had this with an elderly friend. We traipsed around ten nice cafes trying to find somewhere for lunch and she rejected each one. Ended up in M&S Cafe so she could have a jacket potato with "salad" (i.e. a few lettuce leaves and pink tomato). I refuse to go out to eat with her now! We can do other things together.

Really don't like the term fussy eater it's so judgemental. I don't like football on TV but do like nature shows. I am not a fussy viewer. Selective eater not fussy.

How often do you actually eat out with them, OP?
Why do you need to eat out at all (ever) with them?

Disclaimer: I prefer home-cooked myself.

it's coming across as a bit first-world problem...

it does all sound really painfull , im not a fussy eater and being honest i havent got time for adults that are , children are a different story as my dd is one and it drives me insane sometimes , just praying she will grow out of it .

id just leave your mum to pick where she wants to go , i wouldnt even bother suggesting anything ,as it sounds like she bloody nitpicks about everything anyway . just leave it and wait to see what she comes back with , id just say ok il wait for you to pick where you want to go .if it was me and she didnt suggest anything id be leaving it altogether rather than put up with all the fault finding

My relatives in same age bracket are difficult too. They prefer quite an expensive style of cuisine - almost no carb, not too much dairy, lots of delicious well prepared fresh fish/seafood drizzled in olive oil and a wide selection of fresh veg & good quality salad.

But they expect to find this offered, together with charming attentive service, very cheaply in holiday resorts without needing to book. If taken to somewhere that offers the right type of cuisine in the UK, they are generally horrified by the price, despite being extremely well off themselves.

They talk nostalgically of holidays to the continent in the 80s and 90s when it was relatively cheap there compared to UK. I think a lot of older people struggle to adapt to changing prices, particularly when their incomes are static.

@JudgeJ my grandad would never eat rice or have it in the house, he was a POW in the Burma war

I am a fiend for cold dairy, cheddar, milk, yogurt.

Love it.

Warm any of it up and I will throw my ever loving guts up. The smell is enough but if I actually try and eat it all hell breaks loose in my digestive system.

Heating dairy changes the molecular structure and some people can't digestively cope with.

People ignorant of food chemistry will of course take issue and carry on being judgy buggers, no matter what.

Each to there own seems a foreign concept to many people apparently. How much would they enjoy someone else ridiculing and slagging off their food preferences behind their back.

"My daughter, she'll eat anything. She is like a human dust bin. The disgusting combinations she shovels into her mouth make me feel unwell to look at", wouldn't be very nice, for instance.

My lovely mum was a Meat and Two or Three Veg Lady. She married a chef but they compromised (we had extremely good food at home).

I would love to have her back with us to go out for a pub Sunday lunch or a carvery.

Or a cafe for an English breakfast brunch.

Or a really nice steak and ale pie and veg at our village cafe.

Can you not find something that you can both eat?

(apologies, haven't read the entire thread)

Here you think you have it bad, my mother is allergic to tomato, cheese, carrot, any and all spices, cream in any quantity and a host of other things. It’s not an age thing either she’s had the issue since her 20s (and it’s genuine illness it causes, though probably intolerance not allergy)

And my mother in law point blank refuses garlic (which mum can eat) and anything fancy/foreign.

Our last family meal all together was at our wedding in 1999.

Even steak pie can be a drama, need to check if it’s made with tomato purée!

I heard aninterview with a care home resident complaining that she was discriminated against and never had anything to eat because she wasn't foreign and didn't like foreign food. It turned out the menu always had a couple of traditional English/British/Irish meals for lunch and evening. The foreign options involved a rotation of anglicised Italian, French, Indian, Chinese and so on options so if they had someone Italian as a resident then they had nothing authentic and had the anglicised ITalian option available once or twice a week. Presumably all the foreigners were homogeneous.

Oh eggs are problematic too there goes breakfast...

@IsItJustMeOrYou

Really don't like the term fussy eater it's so judgemental. I don't like football on TV but do like nature shows. I am not a fussy viewer. Selective eater not fussy.

That’s really not the same at all. Your not liking football doesn’t really impact on others does it? Fussy eating inevitably does though as it means planning an entire social occasion around one or two people’s weird attitude towards food.

As I’ve said umpteen times, it’s not age related because they’ve always been the same. I also know many of their peers aren’t like this at all.

I have an elderly digestion and I too dread rich, spicy foods, al dente veg and all the things you prefer because I'll pay for it later with indigestion. A nice bland boring meal suits me better, or if I could choose, pretty much any activity other than eating out.

My sympathies lie with the people you are mocking.

Just don't eat with out them or accept if you do you have to eat a meal that's not to your taste - it wouldn't be mine either but you can force them. My adorable grandad is a meat and potato man. Doesn't like pasta but will happily eat spaghetti Bolognese because spaghetti isn't pasta...I always make them shepherds pie.

I'd go out for the day to an NT type place, cafe lunch or tea and cake.

Oh god my mother has recently developed an intense dislike of black pepper. It's "too spicy" for her despite her being happy to eat chilli sauce on things

If she forgets to tell the staff, sometimes a dish will come out with black pepper ground over it and she will sit there peering over her glasses as she picks it all off with her knife and fork. She once even made my dad shine his phone torch over the meal so she could check it was all picked off.

So you think the term fussy eater is not judgemental?

My nan loves a curry, she says it's coz her taste buds are going.

They're picky about what they eat - you're picky about where you eat. You probably both feel the same about each others preferences. The apple hasn't fallen far from the tree has it!

I think you need to pick your place carefully. They’re not going to change and knowing what you have said the last place I would suggest is a Tapas restaurant or an Italian. They’re not going to want to eat anything, no one will enjoy it, it’s a waste of time and money.

It’s frustrating but just accept they are fussy, only like traditional food etc. and just eat in a nice pub. It doesn’t have to be a Brewer’s Fayre, just somewhere you know does steak pie and gammon without making it fancy.

Afraid I think you sound like a snob. Just let your mum pick the place and go along and enjoy spending time with her. Or find a nice local pub that caters to her taste that you are happy to eat at too.

And why on earth would you take someone who doesn't like being adventurous with food out for a 'nice' meal and expect them to be grateful about it? Why not treat them to something they would have actually enjoyed?