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.

Those are quite different foods for many.
Really, it’s meat and two veg (if you’re lucky).
Ask SO what the culinary status quo be ordinarily.
Spicing can be trying.
Good luck. No one’s going hungry.

My parents and in law's would really struggle with both your meal choices. Surely your dh knows what she likes. I'd have gone with meat and 2 veg plus potatoes. Or a shepherd's pie.

It’s because she likes all the food people of her generation and friends eat. It sounds to be like more traditional British food and accompaniments is her diet so when you ask what she eats she thinks ‘well I eat everything normal’ and then you’re throwing in lots of ‘exotic’ dishes and she’s thinking you’re the one being complicated.

Just give her some BBQ chicken, salad with salad cream and new potatoes in butter. In future have in toast and jam for the morning or Wheetabix. Serve British or French style food. Nothing spicy, nothing modern.

Maybe for some but my dad (mid 70s) is pretty well travelled but has a very limited diet. In Italian restaurants he'll only eat margherita pizzas, in Chinese restaurants he'll only eat chicken curry and it has to be chicken breast. Won't touch anything pasta, ham, link sausages, the list of things he won't eat goes on and on.
Yonks ago I booked my parents a surprise trip to Marrakech and I remember googling to make sure there was a McDonalds (there is) so he'd find something he could eat.🙄

But would your dad say he eats anything though? Surely thats the difference. Being fussy is one thing. My neice so SUPER fussy. But if she came to stay and you asked her she would tell you what she can eat and if you took her to the supermarket she'd absolutely pick stuff out.

I remember my fil replying "oh, anything!" With a dismissive wave of the hand when I asked what he wanted to drink once. I gave him masala chai..he whispered to my husband he didn't like it

As bad was MIL's habit when offered a drink. "What is there?", red, white, pink, g&t, sherry, etc. "well, what are you having".

I concluded after the first 15 years that it was a ploy to make someone else take responsibilty for her choices. "Well They said they were having white, so I had that, but I think I'd have preferred red". My response then became, "never mind what I'm having, you can have what you want, so what do YOU fancy?".

I'm not convinced it's an age thing, more a lived experience thing. My granddad, who would be about 120 now, spent a lot of time in India during WW2. He developed a real taste for hot spicy food and when an Indian restaurant opened in our town in the late 1960's, he would drag my nan there at least once a week. He would definitely have embraced other 'foreign' cuisines. My nan, wouldn't eat anything with a vaguely foreign sounding name. I remember making a french bread pizza and having to tell her it was ham cheese and tomato on toast. She loved it!
My mum, born just a few weeks before WW2 started, was not used to 'fancy' food at all. She was brought up during rationing when food tended to be plain and straightforward. Like others on here have said, she wouldn't dream of getting off fat when making a casserole or similar. Her idea of an exotic meal was to bung a pound if mince and about three chopped onions in a casserole dish with an Oxo cube and water. When it had cooked in the oven for about three hours, shed add a bit of ketchup and call it bolognese. As a child our meals were pretyset - roast on Sunday, leftovers with bubble and squeak on Monday, Tuesday would be liver, Wednesday sausages, Thursday fish fingers, Friday macaroni cheese and fish and chips on Saturday. Even up to when she died earlier this year, she was very much a creature of habit. DH and I, in our 60's and 70's, will try most things and both love an Indian or Chinese. I cannot eat Tex MEX type food as an operation several years ago means that anything with much chilli, physically hurts and there are a couple of ingredients I don't like, but other than that, we'll try pretty much anything. My adult ds's, will not only eat most things but will cook them as well.

My grandpa was a lovely man but when my granny was alive she ruled the roost, right down to laying out his clothes for him (i.e. she decided what he was going to wear, and he meekly went along with it). After she died I think he struggled with the idea that he now had to make his own decisions. I remember going out for the day with him and when the whole family sat down in a cafe and orders for tea and coffee were being taken his response was 'I'll go with the majority'. Not much help to the waitress!

That I can understand but MIL was more pass ag about it and heavens to Betsy, the woman had been a Deputy Headmistress!

There is nothing that is not simple about either yogurt or granola. To suggest that normal people in the real world dont eat it is just daft. Granola and yogurt have been a breakfast staple for a very long time. Consumption of granola is actually going up year on year and traditional cereal like cornflakes shredding etc is going down. OP offered what she eats as that is her normal. I have ever never bought normal cereal in my entire adult life. I buy, porridge oats granola and weetabix. Many of my family and peers are the same.

I’ve never ever bought granola.
Yoghurt is flavoured, not the plain stuff you might have with granola.
I might eat it on holiday if it’s available but I wouldn’t buy it.

Somebody saying that people in the real world don’t eat yoghurt and granola isn’t actually aware of what the real world is! Have a look at supermarket shelves.. do you think they are stocked with tons of yoghurt and granola purely for dream world inhabitants?! Bizarre.

Just keep her food bland.

It’s because she likes all the food people of her generation and friends eat

That is just not true. I don't think it is generational. She is only in her 60s. I won't see 60 again and I don't know anyone my age with such a limited diet. I agree with @oneoffname that it is a lived experience rather than age.

You not buying or eating it dosent make it something that only a small number of people do though. It is, and has been for a long time, standard breakfast food for a huge number of people. You can have any flavour of yogurt you like on granola.

Well your experience differs from mine and many others commenting. I’ve never even tried granola, I don’t think I know anyone who eats that for breakfast on a regular basis so I disagree that it has been a regular common breakfast item for many years! Also weetabix is definitely a normal cereal and has been for many years. My kids were definitely eating it 25+ years ago!

I make my own granola 😁
And Weetabix is vile. It turns into mush when you add milk. Isn't that why they give it to babies and people who require a soft diet?

I don’t think granola and yoghurt would be my first thought if I was laying in breakfast supplies - I’d get things for a fry up, eggs, or croissants, crumpets, nice bread for toast - but equally, I don’t think yoghurt and granola is a completely outlandish breakfast.

Maybe they stock yoghurt for people to eat as a dessert-which is more traditional. If you went out and took a poll of the most common breakfast foods I don't think yoghurt and granola would be in the top 5.

Granola is just a crunchier and often sweeter version of muesli, which has been a standard breakfast food since at least the 1970s.

Well you’re unusual to many of us. We eat either oats, granola (sugar free) or Bircher muesli most mornings. Other breakfast cereals aren’t very nutritious so there’s no point to me to have them. Same for flavoured yoghurt - we don’t eat them because they’re full of sugar we have Greek plain.

61% of Brits said they would eat granola and yoghurt for breakfast - https://www.leonardohotels.co.uk/blog/great-british-breakfast-survey

My mum is very adventurous and loves cooking and is also very well travelled and will always lean towards non British food. My in laws are definitely meat and 2 veg and have genuinely uttered the words, that's not for the likes of us, when offered a meal in a nice restaurant. I have other family members who once got offended that I cooked a free range chicken, as normal chicken is good enough for us.

Nowt to do with age. I do think class and big world experience does make a difference, however it's all horses for courses.

Even my husband would class his fave meal as sausage chips and beans and is constantly bewildered but all the saucy/wet food I serve up.

My mum and I go to all the nice restaurants together as they are wasted on him

Yes, and I would eat it for breakfast at a hotel. I wouldn’t buy it for my own home.