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.

Rude and childish.

It's fine to have food preferences and it's fine to have blind spots about how flexible you are with eating, but once you'd taken her to M&S and given her the opportunity to choose, she really should either have done that or accepted what you were making.

I really struggle with people who turn their noses up at things that are just not their absolute favourite (eg., not wanting yoghurt in the morning when they do, in fact, eat yoghurt). If your host has already asked what you'd like, and you didn't speak up, then it's on you to eat what's offered you politely.

My parents are getting worse about this one (and I think some people do as they age, because they become a bit more inflexible and/or because they just assume their children's houses are a natural extension of their own homes and ought to include all the same foods). I find it really hard, because I would quite happily buy exactly what they would like, but what I find rude is them saying 'oh, anything will do' and then making it quite obvious they actually expected me to be a mind reader. My brother said he gave up and bought my dad a box of a cereal he knows dad eats, for the sake of giving it to him for one day's breakfast, and then told dad to take the box. 'Oh no, you keep it' dad said, and was absolutely gobsmacked to be told no one else liked it and it'd go in the bin. He's just hit the age where 'everyone' eats that cereal for breakfast and he can't get his mind around the idea you wouldn't.

Vegetable and chickpea what? Tagine as it had dried fruit in it? That was always going to be a bold choice especially for someone who you don’t know what they eat and your dh has childhood memories of sausages and marmite sandwiches.
Just cook ‘normal’ food.

My ILs are exactly like this. We went to the theatre with them once and they wanted to go to a restaurant afterwards - anywhere would be fine as they'll eat anything - well they won't eat spicy, won't eat East Asian food, don't like pizzas and pasta, Cafe Rouge could have worked but it was 'too expensive', Wetherspoons was rejected because it was now getting too late for our young children to be let in. They rejected every single eatery in an entire city. We ended up in a Little Chef on our way home.

When they visit we get a lots of pies in, lots of salmon encrout, meat and veg. Pudding is chocolate mousse, apple pie, fruit crumble, trifle.

but by me, your food choices are as limited as mine, just differently limited. I LOVE garlic bread but its one of those foods that is doubly risky for me, both the garlic and the butter. I can't eat any of the cereals you mention and avoid much wholemeal bread too. Oh but I do love fruit in savory dishes, especially a cous cous with chopped dried apricots and cranberries added with the hot stock so they rehydrate together.

Stop being nice. You’ve made nice food. You’ve asked her what she wants. You’ve taken her shopping. She is a grown adult and she should be able to express her own needs- if she doesn’t that’s tough.

forget her for today. Enjoy the bbq.

Next week your husband needs to call her and say incredible clearly that next time she needs to say what she likes for breakfast lunch and dinner. If she doesn’t then she is getting what you’re having and she might not like it and she will go hungry.

OP, you have done your best to try to accommodate her preferences but she is not helping you to help her. You now need to be gently assertive and frame it as trying to find a solution. I say gently in case there is an eating disorder or some other emotional stuff around food.

”MIL, I know you don’t want to be a bother around meals, but this is causing me stress. Trying to guess what you will and won’t eat is hard work. You aren’t getting the food you prefer and it is making me feel like a bad host. How can we put this right?”

Ignore posters that are suggesting particular types of foods. You will never get it right by doing this. People in their 60s eat all kinds of things and have different sets of foods that they see as ‘normal.’

If she still doesn’t cooperate, still be pleasant but leave her to it.

This thread makes me realise how adventurous my elderly dad is with his food choices. He doesn't eat meat, but will eat pretty much anything else that we give him and enjoy it - curry, enchiladas, tagine etc.

I think your MIL is being a bit unreasonable and has misrepresented her food needs. You do, however, sound really lacking in staples. I would always have eggs and cereal in. Granola and fruit would be a breakfast choice, but never the only option. It sounds quite restrictive.

The thing I'd really like you to answer, that you're clearly ignoring, is chicken pea and vegetable WHAT? Also 'plain salad'. Did you not have cheese/meat/fish/quiche/jacket spud? Just salad? If so, I think there are definitely two sides to this story.

Oh come on, you must know this is really a generational thing. I’m 63 but not particularly acquainted with chickpeas (although I wouldn’t turn my nose up). Surely you had an inkling of what she liked.
And surely you knew that tacos were a gamble.

Doesn't DH not know about his DM's food preferences? I know when my parents or grandparents came to stay, they would say similar about eating what we eat, but I knew what they liked and shopped accordingly. I knew my dad and grandad would actually eat anything, my mum preferred healthy food with lots of veg, one set of grandparents were strictly meat and two veg types, and my other nan liked the sort of stuff you'd find on a wetherspoons menu. I knew they would all prefer some sort of cooked breakfast.

As an aside, onion and garlic are often triggers for IBS, so it's not uncommon for sufferers to avoid them, but I agree it's a massive PITA as nearly everything I cook has them as a base!

This makes me laugh about the time we had to teach MIL what a fajita was. 😂 She’d never eaten anything in a wrap before, so we had to show her how to put the food in the wrap and roll it up and eat it. She’s only 70 and this was a few years ago so by no means ancient. I don’t know how she’s made it this far in life never having a wrap or a taco or a burrito or similar, but anyway.

We stick to traditional safe foods when she comes over - the fajitas were a bit of a wild card. It’s usually meat and two veg, BBQ, quiche with salads, sausages and mash.

That said, apart from allergies, I don’t ask people what they’ll eat as you won’t get an accurate response and I wouldn’t be taking anyone to the shop. It’s weird though that by now you don’t know she’s a bit of a fussy eater and what she’ll eat. I have a SIL who won’t eat mash and another who won’t eat olives, but I know that now and I just avoid those when they come over.

This is silly as we didn't know how old OP or her MIL were until she posted later late sixties, well my parents are "British people of that generation" and certainly eat chickpeas and tacos! Some of that age may be meat and two veg folks only but I don't know any myself. Narrowminded, generalising comment.

Sorry, I hit YABU by mistake- you're definitely not being unreasonable. I have a friend who I go out for dinner with every so often. She is a VERY fussy eater, whereas I am not. Whenever I ask her where she fancies going, the response is always, "oh, I don't mind." I always want to say "but yes, you do!"

No, why? Seems to me like it's more a personality thing. I don't know any of my parents friends (or PIL either) who won't eat pulses, curry, Mexican food, etc etc.

Yes my mum would think she ‘eats anything’ but she really means anything that’s quite a basic typical boomer generation meal. Nothing too fancy/ forgeign/ new 😂 she’d never have heard of a taco for example so wouldn’t consider telling you she doesn’t eat tacos in advance.
you’d be better off basing meals around plain ish meat or fish and potatoes. Provide toast for breakfast.
I Also wouldn’t be afraid to say ‘please can you provide me with a typical day’s meal plan, as you said you eat anything but turns out you don’t eat XYZ (list them all) and it would be much easier to know in advance what to buy’

It's a very common misunderstanding- people like to think they are not fussy, and that they would eat any normal food

This is very true, @FourSevenThree, though after a few examples of hosts having to reorganise meals you'd think they'd twig ... even more so when they've actually been offered a choice in the store

It's all why I wonder if it's attention seeking, which sadly is also very common

Sounded like it was a tagine to me.

I have a relative like this. She joined us for a family holiday one year wouldn't even eat the spaghetti Bolognese we made. Said that's not how she cooks mince and never known anyone to fry the fat off first. Said she puts the raw mince in water and has it with potatoes and a bit of veg.🤢🤮

Many years ago we were at a family party with the PIL. FIL always declared that he only ever ate pork and no other meat. He asked me to get some food for him from the buffet - lazy arse couldn’t be bothered himself - I grabbed a plate, chose a few sausage rolls, crisps, cheese on sticks and what I thought were roast pork cobs. He scoffed the lot and later on commented to the hostess on how tasty the roast pork cobs were…………they were filled with turkey breast! How was I to know, all I could see was white meat between the top and bottom of the cobs …….he never left me forget that I had forced him to eat poultry!!! Funny how he didn’t notice a difference in the taste of the meat 🤷‍♀️

Absolute nonsense.

I’ll eat anything, except goats cheese, but even I would be a bit meh about a chickpea and dried fruit salad.

Unless I’d seen the person eat more exotic food when they’ve chosen it themselves I’d still stick with something pretty ‘standard British food’ even if they said they’ll eat anything because that’s something people say to be polite.

my mum made us tacos growing up 35 years ago, we mostly ate very standard fare, Elizabeth David’s rich beef casserole, curry tuna slice, mince and potatoes, shepherds pie, roast chicken, two varieties of stir fry.

How on earth is veg tagine a 'bold choice' for someone who says they eat everything?

It's not 1982. My child's school does veg tagine on their two-week menu rotation; it is hardly the outer reaches of exotica.

Onions yes, garlic absolutely not. Nor chillies, I manage to find something different to eat every day so whilst I’m a bit picky I wouldn’t say limited. There’s usually always something I can have at restaurants (the only exception ever being an Indian vegan restaurant where everything was spicy except plain chips). We make most of our food from scratch including soups, casseroles, lasagna, moussakachicken based dishes with rice, handmade pizzas, salads with new potatoes, fish, Sunday roasts, hot and cold sandwiches, homemade burgers, omelettes, beans on toast, cheese on toast, chicken wraps with salad, toast, croissants, plain cereal like bran flakes, cornflakes etc, quiche, pasta in a nice non garlicky tomato or cream sauce, sausage and mash, jacket potatoes with various toppings… I’d hardly say limited 😊

Yes, my parents were like that.
I was thought as a very fussy eater and my siblings very easy.

Turns out actually they are far fussier, and less inclined to try things, than me, but they liked the food my parents served and I didn't.