Is my husband right to be embarrassed when I serve soup for lunch to guests

[MusicLass]

This is a bit of a long-running joke in our house, but underpinned by genuine feelings…

i like making soups from scratch (E.g vegetable, lentil, minestrone) and try to make them tasty, nutritious and filling. For some visitors I make soups for lunch or dinner, for the same reasons above, plus I can make them in advance and just reheat giving me more time to be attentive to guests. I also either bake or buy nice bread and butter to go with the soup. Something for pudding would be offered too.

DH gets embarrassed when I serve soup to guests, saying it’s not proper food and it’s not being hospitable. He would expect a pasta or rice dish round someone’s house, or meat.

He happily eats soup when it’s just us as a family.

AIBU to serve soup to guests? Or is he right? Generally he is more sensitive about social etiquette than me. He’s also from a Mediterranean culture, which could be a factor here.

Thanks for reading and helping us to settle this!

It's also a great lunch.

@MusicLass

Soup is absolutely fine for lunch! As a few posters have said, if he is THAT bothered, he can get off his lazy arse and do something bigger/more substantial HIMSELF.

It never ceases to amaze me how many men moan and complain about things, but are not prepared to do a single thing to change anything. All mouth and no trousers as my grandmother used to say. Always gobbing off and moaning about things, but doing fuck-all about it.

Me and DH only ever have small things for breakfast AND lunch. And then a 'proper' meal for dinner, and a small snackette for supper. People only need one full/bigger meal a day. The '3 cooked meals a day' thing is a fallacy. No-one needs that.

@toastofthetown absolutely nails it with this IMO:

There’s also the fact that a bowl of soup is largely the same flavours and textures throughout, so even if you increase the serving size, people are likely to get bored with the dish before they are truly satisfied so eat just enough to take the edge off their hunger.

I don't think anyone suggested 3 full cooked meals.
Snackette-JFC!🙄

A bowl of whizzed up veg/lentils is fine but hardly making any effort or substantial.
Like brunch with cornflakes and toast rather than eggs benedict.
Op is sort of implying that her " from scratch" soup is an amazing culinary feat rather than umm a bowl of soup.

Depends on how good the dunking bread is and as long as it’s not Sunday.

:)

Are you always so breathtakingly pedantic and snarky?

Yep

I am entertained by the disconnect between 'soup is too quick, cheap, easy, nutritious to count as a meal' but also 'we're all so busy and broke that we have to gorge ourselves to obesity on ultra-processed foods' 🤣

Our food culture is absolutely fucked.

Lunch is fine but not for dinner.

Does anyone really have three cooked meals a day?

No, never.
Soup is a fine lunch IMO.

Maybe just have honest conversations with your guests?
I'd much prefer soup (with no bread, or only small bread portion ideally) over many alternatives. Just see what people say they like.

So, a Tuscan bean and pasta soup isn't very filling for you? Are you a manual labourer?

My mum makes fabulous veggie soup and freezes it. Nothing better than a bowl or two warmed up for lunch with warm bread. Or dinner with a toasted cheese sandwich and some fruit.

Good - you can sit next to me. I love a fellow pedant even though we may not agree regarding soups! 😁

(I love soup, me)

Not the poster you’re quoting, but I wouldn’t describe a Tuscan bean soup as ‘very filling’. I’m not a manual labourer but I am an adult at a healthy weight. Found an example of a recipe online and per serving its 240 kcal, which is a light meal. As I said in an earlier post, soup is one of those meals where the taste and textures get dull after a while so it gets boring to just keep eating more and more if it.

It’s fine as a midweek lunch (I have soup planned for lunch this week). It’s ok for lunch guests, though I would serve something more substantial and special seeming (I liked the serving cornflakes for brunch analogy above). For a main meal it just straight up wouldn’t be enough and I’d be hungry and disappointed- and maybe accidentally a bit pissed if I were drinking wine with such a light meal.

Unless it is a celebratory meal lunch in our house is always just soup, salad or a sandwich. We eat our main meal in the evening.

If I invited a group of friends for a big lunch I would do a bigger meal, but if we had guests arriving in time for lunch for an overnight stay then it would more than likely be something like soup because I would be pushing the boat out for the evening meal.

I have just made a chunky,spicy veg soup and if I say so myself it's delicious. We recently had lunch at at friends and she served a lovely soup with cheesy topping with homemade bread .Followed by a warm homemade chocolate fudge cake with ice cream. We were full for hours and very much appreciated. And anything but lazy.Lots more effort in a relatively simple homemade meal like that than plenty of other examples.I'm with you OP.Plus it's the hospitality and company that count.

If you have guests then its traditional to offer a ‘special’ and above average cost meal such as a roast. Although not everyone think so, it is tradition that soup is a ‘use up the leftovers’ meal, even a poor person’s meal, so he’s right that it isn’t traditionally seen as a polite thing to offer guests unless it is just a starter.

(Also I hate soup and would be gutted if I was offered it as the only option.)

I know it’s very popular in the UK as a meal, but it weren’t cut it in the Mediterranean country that I live in. Especially for lunch: maybe soup as a starter, but only if followed by the main course, then cheese, then dessert 😂

soup in the evening? only for women on a diet.

I would think it was great that you had gone to the trouble of making me homemade soup. I would enjoy it.

In your case, I would wonder my husband thinks it is ok to criticise what I serve to guests. If he's not cooking, the only appropriate words out of his mouth are, 'That's really nice soup, love. Thank you.'

If he wants to make pasta instead, let him have at it.

😂
I like soup just it's a pretty bog standard thing not an invited out to lunch thing.

You appear to be quite smug, and proud of being pedantic and snarky. It's nothing to be proud of. It doesn't make you clever, or special, or witty, or 'tough.' It just makes you look childish, and a bit attention-seeking, and daft.

Erm you used the word " snackette" and I'm childish, attention seeking and daft ?

Stepping away from this ...

Soup isn't a meal - it's a starter
I once went to a friend's house and his new wife cooked us a watery soup with literally a couple of tiny carrots and half a sausage in it.
That is NOT a meal !!