Is it unreasonable to be frustrated by a guest who says they eat anything when they actually don’t?

[funinthesun22]

My MIL is staying with us over the bank holiday. When I asked in advance what she’d like to eat, she said she eats anything and was happy to have whatever we usually have.

Friday dinner was a vegetable and chickpea but apparently she hates chickpeas and dried fruit in savoury food. Saturday breakfast (yogurt, granola, fruit) didn’t go down well either. I took her to M&S so she could pick things she’d enjoy, but she kept insisting she was fine and didn’t add anything to the basket until I said we’d planned tacos for dinner she said she didn’t know what that was and didn’t sound keen, so we bought an alternative dinner for her.

At lunch I made a salad with homemade dressing. She didn’t like the sound of the dressing and asked for salad cream which we didn’t have. I offered vinaigrette, olive oil, or mayo as alternatives but she turned them all down and had a plain salad. She also asked for a few additions we didn’t have, despite us having been in M&S two hours earlier offering to buy food. We’ve got a BBQ planned today and I’m hopeful now that I know more of her dislikes but still not entirely sure.

AIBU to find this frustrating? I genuinely don’t mind catering to a picky eater. I just need to know what she actually likes. But every time I ask, I get “I’ll eat whatever you’re having” when that’s clearly not the case.

We weren't vegetarian growing up. Actually I am not vegetarian now but DH is so we don't have meat at home. I thought the wide use of pulses dated from the 1970s hippie movement, so 50 years ago.

I suppose it depends on if you or your parents moved in / were influenced by the 1970s hippie movement!

Pulses were really not widespread where I grew up in the 80s / 90s, and still aren’t particularly common with most of the non-vegetarians I know. Lentils perhaps more widely used than chickpeas.

This!
I have hosted several relatives of 60+ (some in their 80s), coming from abroad at that. I like being adventurous with cooking, so have served them mostly food they'd never eaten before.
They happily tried (and ate) everything - British, Indian, Mexican, you name it... plates clean, never heard a complaint. They had fun learning about new cuisines.

I’m not a fussy eater minus mushrooms - and love humous - but chickpea and veg doesn’t sound thrilling and wouldn’t be my first choice

breakie - croissants - toast - cereal or fry up /bacon/sausage sarnie

we seem to be living off good chicken - new pots - ceasear salad - coleslaw at the moment. My 9ys loves it so have a couple times a week

bbq /jackets /salad hopefully she will enjoy

think of basic food

im more shocked you have no salad cream 🙀🙀🙀🙀

Doesn’t your DH know what his mother likes to eat?

I've had loads of tacos and will avoid them if at all possible 😂 Just a load of mush with overly hot sauce to make it sound interesting, and the bloody things squidge all over the place unless you're a wizard at strategic napkin deployment.

If I'm having a hand-held flatbread with meat, salad and sauce in it, I want a kebab with some body! I spent months in Mexico, and that was a nightmare. Not only handheld squidge as mandatory, but filled with refried beans (boring mush I can't digest).

I would not be OP's ideal guest! I am over 60, though, so she could blame it all on my imaginary Oxo-family upbringing.

Class, wealth, education, life experience all play in to this stuff as much as taste preferences, I agree that age is a bit of red herring. We all live in our micro food cultures, I think, as this thread has shown.

My PILS were pretty adventurous eaters. Well travelled with a couple of stints living outside the UK. But they were also quite formal and reserved. I once took them to a (very good) street food market thinking they’d be really into it, but they were bewildered and were clearly horrified by the idea of wandering round outside eating. So we found a cafe instead,

Some people are weirded out by “build your own” meals like tacos and eating with their fingers, unless it’s a sandwich.

Whether you’re used to meals plated up in the kitchen by the cook or self serve from dishes at the table (or sideboard!) is also a bit of a tell, I think.

It's not always an age thing. I cant tolerate that sort of thing due to GERD, and I'm not state pension age.
My mother in her eighties had a cast iron stomach and could eat anything 🤣

Ohhh I love this- please explain the tell

Crudely:

plated up = working class
everything in serving dishes = middle class

How people eat is as interesting as what they eat and is maybe playing out a bit in OP’s dilemma. Tacos!

Another ageist comment. The MIL is late 60s, as am I, not late 80s. I would eat tajine and tacos.

Baked beans. Lentil soup. Chilli con carne. Hummus. All pretty common for decades now. I grew up in Scotland and have always loved pulses and barley in soup. No hippy influence involved!

This. Lots of people tend to stick to what they know and like. I can’t think of anything I actively dislike but there’s probably a whole world of foods out there that I’d prefer not to eat.

This is a very good point! For example, I know my dad is adventurous, loves super spicy food, and will genuinely eat most things. My mum, on the other hand, likes plainer foods, isn't adventurous, hates spice, and prefers potatoes over rice or pasta.

When my dad visits he enjoy whatever we eat, but with my mum I plan more carefully.

So you'd tell your hosts you eat anything, then refuse to eat what they served? And if they took you to the supermarket to buy food you recognised, you wouldn't buy anything, so you could continue to turn your nose up at the food they served?

It it not about MIL likes and dislikes when it comes to food, it is about her being a pass agg nightmare guest.

This is spot on.

not generational, I too am in my 70's

Well that really depends on what sort of family you come from- I was born in 1961 my mother scarcely cooked and her mother scarcely cooked- they came from a Northern industrial town and women were expected to work full time from leaving school- cooking did not feature in the plan. My great grandmother cooked because she had 9 children and was therefore not expected to work.
Not cooking , under these circumstances and having a limited taste palate absolutely is a generational thing.
In my mother's family it was cold meat from the roast and chips on Monday, sausage and mash on Tuesday, chops on Wednesday, egg and chips on Thursday and fish and chips from the chip shop on Friday, frying steak or chops Saturday and roast on Sunday, every week, no cooking as such involved except on Sunday.
I learnt the basics at school and taught myself the rest, but many from my background won't cook much and those younger will cook even less.
My food choices cover most of the world- but I was not brought up with that sort of variety.

Goodness. I was born in 1960 and there was an abundance of pearl barley, haricot, broad and butter beans. There was also a vile concoction called Pease Pudding. Then others arrived but I've never been a fan of lentils.

Oh yes, mushy peas! Wonderful accompaniment to fish and chips.

DP is like this and it drives me up the walls. It’s actually probably the one thing I dislike about him.

“Oh yeah I’ll eat anything” - yeah… anything frozen, wrapped or fried, that is.

Doesn't like bread, doesn’t like pasta, doesn’t like chickpeas, doesn’t like most beans, doesn’t like fish or seafood except for fish & chips or calamari, doesn’t like raw tomatoes, a salad that’s only lettuce is not a salad. There’s probably more I’m forgetting 😭

Having bought some frozen battered fish on the back of an MN thread about fish fingers, I had to buy a tin of Batchelor's mushy peas from the International section of Woolies.

It would be wrong not to.

That’s what I thought. Not everyone has to like it or want to eat it, but it’s a totally standard breakfast. I think every hotel buffet I’ve ever been to has some variation of yogurt and granola. We did also have other options, but MIL settled on the same as us.

Yes but often pulses were seen as part of the meal… so pearl barley in a meat stew. Not on their own.

I wouldn’t eat granola and yogurt but that’s because I’m allergic to dairy, which had I been your guest I would have made clear and made some suggestions of things I could eat. Probably would have brought my own breakfast with me