Guests taking food home

[LakeFlyPie]

We've hosted some friends and family gatherings over Christmas and on a couple of occasions guests kindly offered to bring food (home baked cake, biscuits etc).
I was a bit shocked when, on leaving, they packaged up leftovers (of their contribution) and took it home (uninvited). When I take food / drink to a party I consider it a gift / contribution and would dream of reclaiming it at the end of the evening. AIBU?

Equally that’s a different situation because you were using food as a weapon

Im surprised no one would think to leave at least a bit of cake for children and would instead eat the whole thing themselves. It's obviously just me, but i thought it was strange and actually quite funny to be honest.

I once bought a pack of croissants for the 4 of us to eat in the morning after 3 friends stayed over. They were staying because I’d hosted a bbq the night before to celebrate one of the friend’s big birthdays.
The friend whose birthday it was packed up the rest of the croissants in her bag as she was leaving. In plain sight with me there, no shame! I’d bloody bought them!

Like someone else said, if people feel they need the food so badly then whatever, just have it lol. Bizarre mentality though IMO.

So all of you think you should get to keep it even though they paid for it? You’re funny

This is different as you bought them. Also, did you not just call her out on it as it was right in front of you?

I’d only ever take home excess food that would go off quickly or something so specific drinks wise that no one else would want. I’d always ask before doing so and I’d only do it at very close family/friends where I know they’ll be honest about what they had planned for stuff so would let me know if they were set on something specific for breakfast leftovers. They’d do the same at ours and it’s more to avoid stupid wastage than being possessive.

I wouldn’t dream of it at a less close friends/distant family members- as you say, anything brought there is absolutely part of the “cost”/a gift so I don’t take a bottle I wouldn’t leave with them!

I would have offered to leave some for the children personally but would still have seen it as “my cake” to decide what to do with.
Maybe she had a friend visiting later this week and wanted to show her the lovely cake she got on her Birthday? As well as enjoy it for a few days.

The OP didn't say it was birthday cake, just home baked cake. If the guests brought it with them, it is gift to the hosts, surely, not to themselves????

@Twiglets1 what?! Lol. I was using food as a weapon?? What does that mean?

Or they brought their cake over for the other people to have some

It’s not the OP we are responding to but @Nirvanarama who said they bought a Birthday cake for her MIL who subsequently took it home with her.

No, your ILs were using food as a weapon by not serving the stuff youd brought. Not you.

It’s rude, but it was their stuff in the first place so I wouldn’t be too upset by it.

Did you comment on how delicious their home-made stuff was? If there was enough left to take it home again perhaps they assumed the hosts didn’t appreciate it.

i think both you and you guests need to communicate better. when we go to either my parents or PIL or my sister's for Christmas they want us to take some of the leftovers home because there's no way they will get through it all before it goes off and they want to get their fridge and larder back to normal. we are quite accustomed to leaving with a carrier bag of leftovers, and if your guests have experienced similar at other places they visit that will seem normal to them, but Yanbu that they should check with you. but equally if you have plans for the leftovers it's not much effort to say so rather than seething silently and posting on mumsnet about it.

It means you felt your in laws had been unkind to your family during the visit so you thought Sod it and took back the lovely food you had bought with you. I’m saying it’s different to the usual situation where people wouldn’t take their food back home with them. You retaliated and showed your anger through taking back the food.

I've just witnessed some seriously weird dynamics after a 24 hour visit to bil.
I started to detail it but the whole thing was so mean, exhausting and a crazy lack of effort that I cannot even go there.
Why invite people if you cant be arsed to host?
I wished I'd taken stuff!

When I'm hosting I always catch everyone together and have a discussion about divvying up left overs. If you play it right everyone has enough of everything to avoid cooking for a day or two. I always thought distributing leftovers was a good hosts job. Why wouldn't you ensure everyone left with something nice if you could?

Reminds me of a situation that happened several years ago.
Year 6 leavers party. All parents were asked to contribute something for the food.
One mum provided two big cheesecakes.
Unfortunately none of the kids chose to have any, so they were taken to the staffroom (for the staff to have at break time).
The mum was fuming when she got wind of this and demanded them back!

I really couldn't care about this. I usually end up wit too much left over anyway so people taking it is helpful.

I really don't know why people don't challenge their guests on this kind of stuff if they object. You see them packing up the leftovers of food & drink they'd brought and you just silently fume?

I also understand if someone has brought something to share for the visit but wants to take remainder back but that should be made clear when it's presented to the host and probably only applies to certain kinds of items, not the last morsel of cheese.

If the host is left with things they don't want, they can offer it to guests to take home. But I think it's a bit greedy and presumptive to do it without the hosts saying they'd like you to.

We went to family for Xmas day/eve.

We took: two bottles of spirits, one a premium whisky and one a standard gin.

All the food for Xmas eve meal that I cooked.

Mixers.

An anonymous card with cash in (because they wouldn't let us contribute to the food for Xmas day, they were hosting loads of us on two occasions and it didn't feel okay they had all that expense).

We took home our opened whisky and unopened gin. And the mixers that we didn't drink.

Don't feel remotely grabby tbh. Or CF.

It's about context - we often host those particular family members, they don't drink whisky, it wasn't amazing gin. So definitely not a gift - I only gift nicer alcohol, and I took it to be drunk by me instead of me drinking theirs. As it was, I ended up not drinking other than one glass of wine with dinner. And the beer I took as well.

I think saying it's CF or grabby, is too broad stroke without considering other factors.

If another family member did it, yes I would feel it was CF/grabby, because they didn't and don't ever contribute. But we do, all the time. So it evens up, and I'd entirely expect them to do take theirs back.

More weird than rude, no etiquette!

I once hosted a birthday BBQ for my son and some family members went and took all our unopened crisps home that were hidden in the corner of our dining room... we did say to take leftover food home but I thought they would understand we meant the perishables like the BBQ meat, potato salad etc, they took these aswell. Better spell it out next time. Still perplexed to this day.

When my Dad hosts we take away all the booze and most of the cheese home. He doesn’t drink and lives on his own, we’re a large family. If we didn’t take it, it would be wasted.

We leave all the stuff he can use and all the sweets/mince pies because he likes those.

When I say he hosts, I mean we do all
the food and bring it to his house. His disabilities mean it’s more comfortable for him to be in his own home rather than come to us.