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.

Yup, I agree with this.

I think she means she will eat any traditional UK type meal common from the 70s. My parents and in laws would be completely bamboozled by the food you are offering her and although I would love it my husband who also says he eats anything would also be confused.
I understand your frustration but I think she is trying not to be a nuisance and by trying too hard its exactly what she is being

It sounds pretty obvious that she eats only a traditional diet and is reluctant to try anything 'new'. Her concept of 'eats everything' probably involves all the types of veg and all the types of meat in her meat-and-two-veg concept of what a main meal should be. Your OH grew up with her so should be familiar with what her diet is like. Why not get him to do the meal planning?

Yes, it’s annoying. In the interests of balance it’s not necessarily an age thing. My 15 year old DD talks about how amazingly varied her palate is when in truth she eats a very limited range of foods which have to be prepared in particular ways (she is ND). It just so happens those foods do come from a wide variety of cultures so she eats Japanese food, Mexican etc but only maybe one dish.

My dad gets a community meal service that’s obviously largely for older people and every day seems to be a variation of meat and 2 veg. Even he had to reduce the frequency of deliveries as he wanted something a bit more exciting once in a while!

My mum was brilliant. She’d grown up in poverty with absolutely shite food so had no nostalgia about ‘traditional meals’ and embraced everything. She didn’t like all of it but she’d give anything a go.

I'm sure a BBQ is the best thing for her tbh.

Hope you have a lovely day!

To be honest, I’d always offer guests some sort of egg/toast and marmalade/croissant for breakfast. I wouldn’t want yoghurt and granola first thing either!!

Salad cream is a marker of working classes, I know it because it is what my grandparents preferred. I think that you are pushing the wrong class of food on her - my grandparents would not entertain chickpeas, or tacos. Ethnic foods are the preserve, I think, of the colonial upper middle classes or ethnic communities for that age category - I remember as a child going to a friend's house in the early 1980s and trying for the first time chickpeas in a curry so hot, that there was an obligatory sliced banana on a bread plate for everyone, but her grandparents were born in India and were used to it, their parents were in the Colonial service. I think that it is only young-ish people who embrace all that these days.

Dear Lord, the expectation that anyone over 60 only eats meat and 2 veg is incredible. And ageist, obviously.

Both my parents (gone now, but would be late 80’s/90), both cooked and ate out a wide variety of foods and cuisines. Totally normal.

It’s mindset and life experience that shape attitudes to food (as well as everything else), not age. Never had it, don’t want to try it either. Just as prevalent in young people of a certain demographic I would wager.

And I would. It’s a matter of preference, not age.

She’s in her late sixties. She’s not a dissimilar age to my parents who would eat what I served. I genuinely thought tacos were a staple. We grew up in a pretty rural area and Old El Paso was a favourite of ours growing up.

Yes that’s very common. I’ve encountered so many older people who used to love garlic, onions and curry but can no longer tolerate them.

This! Why isn't your husband dealing with his own picky and annoying mother?

That poster didn't mention age?

But anyway, surely it's just courtesy to offer something cooked. Toast and the very least!

This. What the OP listed, I could eat to be polite but it wouldn't be on my radar of what I would say I didn't like.

Yes I’d always make something special for guests. I wouldn’t just serve what we normally eat.

I am in my 60s and also have this. But the MIL should have told them this first, or brought her own food, rather than be a (preventable) pain in the arse.

Yeh I'm 39 and if someone served vegetable and chickpea anything I'd definitely still be hungry afterwards 😂

We did offer toast too, but didn’t have eggs in. I think she wanted something like cornflakes or bran flakes which we don’t have in at the moment but would have happily bought a box. Our cereal section is centred around the baby so just Ready Brek and Weetabix at the moment.

Enough with the 'generational' crap

All my friends eat a broad range of foods (including 'modern', whatever that is) and are happy to try new things

I don't, because I have always had a limited diet. But that's me, not my age.

PS I love salad dressings and hate salad cream

I don’t mind chickpeas in moderation, eg as a side dish with a restaurant curry, but I think it’s being deliberately disingenuous to offer them as a main meal on a guest’s first night.
I also don’t believe that this makes MIL a “meat and two veg person”… I bet she eats other food. OP’s menu is particularly Gen Z ( Taco Bell anyone)?

Which perfectly illustrates that people are different

I have granola type breakfasts with yogurts most days and while I like croissants and would eat one if on offer my preference for breakfast would be something less buttery

oh and this. I would purely LOVE to eat some of the things I ate when I was younger but its a risky business now and REALLY risky when staying with someone else.

It turns out that anything with garlic, and onions were out, but they’re the basis on most foods I cook. I’m happy to find alternatives but most recipes I make at least start with some variation of onion and/or garlic. And my similar aged parents will eat food with onion and garlic in them, so it’s not like it’s a known rule not to offer onions and garlic to anyone over the state pension age.

This OP.

there is a whole range of more commonplace British, Italian, French, Spanish dishes that you could have picked (and not the more ‘out there’ ones of each cuisine, rather than what you picked).

Just make sure that whatever meat she is having today isn’t marinated in anything so if you have steak or chicken then serve her portions plain but a bbq sounds perfect as it sounds like she will eat sausages anyway