To think party food is tacky and tasteless?

[Fudgeycake]

Every Christmas the supermarkets really push all that sort of beige finger food (bung in the oven stuff) as if it's delicious and what everyone wants? M&S and Waitrose offerings this year look vile, eg. mini prawn toasts, feta popcorn, chicken doughnuts? Does anyone really love this food?

I think this type of food is really outdated, bit tacky, doesn't look very appealing and mostly pretty tasteless? Some of it is quite expensive too. I'd rather just do a cheese board and some nice breads, meats, chutneys, pickles etc. Aibu? What do you have for your Christmas buffet/party food?

I’d never ever serve it and I know it should be left in kids’ parties in the 90s but my pregnancy craving is Cheddar and pickles/pineapple on sticks. 🙈

I love a cheese board too - nice cheese in normal circumstances! But what else do you have with it for a proper buffet with more choice? I like a nicer buffet with a homemade smoked salmon quiche, crisp green salads, a grain based salad like tabbouleh, that kinda thing… I also love things like deep fried prawns with aioli, tapas-y stuff…

I don't like it so I don't buy it.

Bloody hell is no one allowed to talk about anything anymore without the ‘you don’t have to eat it’ brigade piling on.

Op is just having a discussion, which is the point of a forum.

And I bloody love a cocktail sausage and a homemade peppery sausage roll.

I really like Marks and Sparks canopies. They do some gorgeous ones, like mini coquille st Jacques, beef en croute, salmon blinis, tiger prawn dim sum,

cant believe the op called it vile and tacky .😂 Meat chutney , bread and a cheeseboard, has its place, but so do canopies; we have them about 3 or 4 hours before Xmas dinner with some champagne, as a starter. I certainly don’t want cheese meat bread and chutney instead.

It's like anything else in life, you just have to pick the bits you like. If something is disappointing, don't buy it again. Some of the beige party food is all style and no substance, sure, but not all of it. The Iceland duck spring rolls are delicious.

Op was sneering at food some people enjoy and calling it tacky. So more a judgement than a discussion.

Kids love beige party food (as does dh)
I'm a sucker for stupidly expensive tapas style trays

I haven't been able to go to a buffet for over 10 years without commenting on carbonated dipping jam and no one had a clue what I was on about... Glad someone else thinks on this when they hear the words "party food" 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I'm laying in bed and thinking about prawn toast now....

YABU. If you're hosting it's up to you to make the food as tasty and appealing as you like.

The adverts are just for ideas. You don't have copy them.

How do you make your own chicken legs? Do you mean simply cook chicken legs? Do you normally buy precooked, is that why you phrased it oddly.

canopies are not a buffet meal. They are a small appetiser served with drinks. Two very different things.

Middle class mners only eat organic salad leaves washed with the tears of free range unicorns, it's really tedious.

Love a bit of M&S party food & have a selection on Christmas Eve.

We will have cheeses on Christmas day anyway & have ham & bread as part of all buffets.

I think the op doesn’t understand what canapés are. She’d equated it with a more substantial meal . They are not, they are simply small decorative appetisers served with drinks or cocktails; they are not a meal or intended as such. Basically they a pre starter.

Some of it is actually really tasty! And you can't beat a good old vol au vent!!

M&S camembert with chilli is divine!!

Yep. Don't you just love a good old "my diet is so superior to yours" MN thread?! 😂

I totally agree with the people who say that they should also be served as canapés with champagne on Christmas Day at about 12pm. That's not really the time or place for a cheeseboard.

I'd judge the fuck out of someone serving up just a bit of ham, lump of cheddar and some chutney.
Bring on the sausage rolls and pork pies.

She’s not sneering, M&S and Waitrose food is bloody expensive, if OP was sneering she would have talked about Iceland.

And all for less than FOUR POUNDS!

Two staple Christmas phrases in this house 'dipping jam' and 'vodka margarine'

Exactly, with meat and cheese and bread before hand. I think thr op thinks that folks have parties and that’s what you feed folks. You don’t. They are served with drinks or cocktails, before you sit down for your meal, or have your buffet.

The only thing I've ever looked forward to from markses is the spring roll selection because it's usually especially nice. Can't eat it any more, though, as I've realised I'm gluten intolerant. I've taken it all in my stride, as I was already excluding so many foods that disagreed with me but miss this sort of thing so much 😭

I quite like a beige oven feast of party food nibbles, but only if served with a massive salad.

Yup unbelievably naff. They always remind me of findus crispy pancakes. We’ve moved on from the 1970s highly processed beige sludge have we not?

Some bits of it are OK- brie and cranberry filo twists for example and I don't mind M&S vol au vents, but how hard is the following:

Cocktail sausages with dipping mustard
Mini quich/tartlets with onion and mushrooms.
Crustades with boursin, mayo and prawns
Smoked salmon triangles
Cocktail sticks with a cherry tomato, olive and mozzarella pearl
Chicken marinaded in Yoghurt, garlic and lemon, diced and skewered
Square pizza cut into inch squares.