Offended by friend’s comments about party food

[LinsMum22]

We hosted my friend, her husband and three kids yesterday afternoon. Our sons are in the same football team and we said we’d put some food on at ours after and watch the Liverpool match who they both support. My friend agreed to party style food being the best option as everyone could pick at it as and when.

Amongst other things, there was - Indian selection, tempura prawns, sausage rolls, mini pizza’s, mini sausages, chips, breaded chicken. So a good mix all from Iceland where we’ve had positive comments on the food before.

I could tell my friends’ youngest looked unimpressed when they tried one of the items, and pulled a face to my friend. She made no
attempt to get them to try another item and basically said ‘I know’. I noticed five minutes later she had barely ate anything herself either.

15/20 minutes later, the youngest moaned again and this time my friend said ‘don’t worry, we will stop at McDonald’s on the way back as I’m hungry too.’

I text her after they left to say sorry if they didn’t enjoy the food. She replied to say they didn’t realise it would be that sort of food and that they’d have got something else before coming round if they realised!!

AIBU to find this really snobby and ungrateful? The fact she then took the kids to get a McDonald’s makes no sense!!

You don’t have to defrost it - it all cooks from frozen, and at the same temperature too.

Erm… I mean, I think that’s what my cleaner said when she was rambling about some family event she’d hosted the other day. I suppose that in the part of town where she lives, one has access to these lower cost frozen food emporiums. One has never come across one oneself, you understand. But it’s nice to know the lower orders have something they can take pleasure from in life, however basic.

That is so rude! Don’t invite them again, ungrateful twats

Nobody is falling over themselves to distance themself from Iceland frozen foods

But this is an opinions forum and people are simply being honest

Beige buffets are not everyone’s cup of tea

No one said it was special.
No one was trying to shine as a host
It was picky food for a football match!
Very rude of the friend.

Party food is what you served and yes it's beige and stodgy but so what.Party food is not a fruit platter or crudites and dips.

Do I like party food, not really. Would I eat a few sausage rolls and samosas, of course. Would I get a McDonalds on the way home, possibly.

Would I be as rude as your friend, never.

Did you not put on some salad, French bread, cheese or the like? I love all that you did (except for the prawns, don't do shellfish), and would have enjoyed it but I'd have liked salad with it - which you can buy ready made and a baguette or two with cheese. Also some fruit.

You know she didn’t. It’s in the opening post. It’s the key point of the thread. Why this disingenuous crap?

Christ, I’m glad I’m a man sometimes. My friends I’ve made an effort as long as the beers are cold enough when they come round to watch football or rugby.

shine as a hostess

That's got to be all time mumsnet classic! Shine as a hostess for a couple of young lads watching football!

I love a bit of Iceland party food! Better than raw carrots!!!

Isn't the point of party food is that it's something you don't have every day? Can't remember the last time I had "party food".

Although I've had plenty canopies at all the posh work events I go to, but there is only so many tiny winy finger food you can eat before it bores the shit out of you!

Your "friend" is so damn rude, she wouldn't be my friend any more if I was you. She doesn't deserve you as a friend!

Hardly the point though, is it?

If you are served something at somebody's house which is not "your cup of tea" are you incredibly rude and dismissive about it? That's the point.

It’s all frozen cheap processed meat. No vegetables or anything fresh at all

I’m a pretty fussy eater and was even more so as a kid but I was never rude and wouldn’t have acted like your friends kid because of how I was raised to be considerate of others feeling.

I think your friend was rude and is teaching her kids to be rude.

It doesn’t matter what she expected, you served them food at your expense and they could have been more polite about it and not announced they were going to McDonald’s.

Ah perfect. To top this thread off some top tier misogyny has entered the arena….

i doubt your friends’ kids drink cold beers so leaving the food aspect / childcare to the ‘missus’ are we, whilst you crack open a few cold ones?

She doesn’t like the food. She could have been a bit more discrete about it but all it is is a difference in tastes. Assuming she hasn’t been slagging you off to your mutual friends, do you have to take offence? Couldn’t you just make a note to yourself that she doesn’t share your food tastes and leave it at that?

Nobody is falling over themselves to distance themself from Iceland frozen foods

That’s exactly what they’re trying to do. Desperately trying to prove their good manners credentials, but at the same time making sure we all know they would never lower themselves to processed food (and supposedly downmarket processed food at that).

“Your friend was terribly rude. While I agree that Iceland food is cheap and awful and that you should have served fruit and lots of lovely vegetables, I would never be as rude as to SAY so. That is being a terrible guest”.

If they really gave a shit about the guest’s manners, they’d reply to say so without all the caveats that they also would have withered in horror at the sight of a samosa.

Is it misogyny? What I took from it was that men are low effort hosts. Having recently stayed with a male friend I’d agree 😂

although to be fair I have another male friend who has always been a fantastic host even before he got married.

Should have got some Morrisons platters!

It’s was all-round bad mannered in the extreme.

Some of the replies on this thread perfectly exemplify why I think food logistics can be more trouble than they're worth sometimes. Tbf I find food pretty boring a lot of the time, and I realise many/most people take more pleasure in it than I do, and I also accept that lots of people take pleasure in cooking/serving nice food, but all this retrograde Suzy Homemaker stuff over a few nibbles while watching football is bewildering to me.

Spectacularly rude friend OP! Did she agree to bring a contribution or chip in to the cost of feeding her family of five? Of not, she can put up, shut up, smile nicely and tell the kids to say thank you, even if the food was from clutches pearls in anguish Iceland.

And? It was food to eat while watching football, sitting around in the living room, not a sit down meal at a table. One meal. Across the week very likely all concerned will eat other kinds of food. They're not going to get scurvy from having one meal where there isn't much vegetable matter. OP didn't say but she may well have had a fruit bowl available if anyone had asked, and could probably have rustled up some carrot and cucumber sticks on request.

The amount of pearl clutching on this thread is unreal. Some people on this thread seem so anxious about food that I wonder what attitudes are being passed on to your children.

Here's a thought: perhaps OP put the buffet on so people would have something to eat. Not to prove a point about what healthy food she serves. It honestly doesn't matter for one meal. If OP's friend didn't like what was on offer no one was forcing her to eat, but there was no call for her to be so rude about it.

Well you’ll be pleased to know I saw my friend on the school run! And she actually said sorry that her youngest didn’t eat anything (didn’t mention her mcd’s comment). She said she thinks this was because it was frozen food rather than ‘cooked from fresh’ which she thought it would be (she doesn’t mean me cooking from scratch, just the same type of food but not frozen).

I asked whether she had any recommendations for future and plenty of you guessed it….apparently M&S is where she’d go! And that they do 4 for 3 which ‘she’d usually get a few lots of’. We had that stuff at Christmas and it wasn’t cheap and to be honest not really worth the money IMO, plus we’d have needed probably 10+ items to have catered for everyone on Sunday!

Frantically typed this sat in my car before work, I look forward to reading back on lunch 😂

They may have liked some vegetables and dips etc rather than just beige oven food. But it was very rude of her to comment

I'm a bit cynical about all the big supermarkets. I would put money on the same factories making ready meals and party food for several different supermarkets, as well as big brands. The difference will mainly be in the packaging.