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.

Since this is your MIL, you must know what kind of food she typically eats/cooks OP? I know very well what my MIL likes to eat and no, it's not what we would normally eat, but when she comes to stay I make an effort to make things that I know (or at least am fairly sure) she will like to eat. If I served the foods that you have, neither she nor my DM would like them and broadly they do both 'eat anything', but what they mean by that is that they eat normal 'British' food with other familiar non-British staples like spaghetti bolognese, coq au vin, etc. But a vegan dish with chickpeas? No. A breakfast consisting of yogurt, granola and fruit? No. Tacos? No. All things that we eat when we're on our own, but I wouldn't serve them to my parents' generation.

That doesn't really explain why the MIL didn't say, in M&S 'actually, now you offer, I'd love a box of eggs/some cereal'.

These things may be staples for you - but they wouldn't be for everyone. I don't eat cereal, personally; it'd just sit there going out of date. So I would expect someone to speak up when asked what they'd like to buy, when actually in the supermarket.

Sorry I think you’re being a very challenging host.

It’s going to be much easier to discuss the menu with her, preferably before she arrives, perhaps with a couple of options per meal for her to choose from, than ask her to think of things she’s never even heard of, or present her with the most expensive food shop in the country and ask her to pick whatever she likes under pressure without knowing your budget or YOUR preferences.

And your Dh may be completely unobservant and unaware of what it takes to feed a family, but if he mostly ate sausages growing up, that gives you a strong steer that it’s not a foodie household.

Being a host is trying to meet your guests where they are and not to put them under pressure.

but boomers were in the VANGUARD of fancy/foreign/new.

got to say I thought the same about going to Marks unless its where she usually shops....also apart from the "plain" meat and veg, I think a lot of it now would be unlikely to be on her food planet.

This, with bells on.

Also very surprised by how many people classify tacos as some sort of exotic food new to the UK.

Old El Paso was selling taco kits and Fajita sizzle n stir sauces (top pot for spices, bottom for sauce) in the late 1990s in normal supermarkets IIRC.

I get the impression it was a bit like going with a recalcitrant teenager and saying “So what DO you want then?”!
MIL is probably terrified of OP after much eye rolling over chickpeas with raisins

Also there’s a big difference between a massive dish of chickpeas and 1950s meat and two veg

I bet MIL might eat Italian/french/other European food and curry etc.
And most of Europe is a variation on the meat and veg combo

Older people are set in their ways and eat more traditional foods.

Not this nonsense again. Can we take age out of this? Some people are very fussy about what they eat, and as others have already pointed out, are often unaware that others eat differently. This can apply at any age. I am in my mid 60s and eat almost anything - I always have. My parents were born in the early 30s and often tried new things, within reason - nothing too spicy! My husband is 70 and was a bit picky as a child but his mother was a terrible cook. When we met he started to eat much more widely because I am a reasonably good cook. And so on. I've known young people who had extremely restricted tastes and it's a matter of personality, not a result of their date of birth.

Well this thread has certainly been eye opening! I'd consider that all fairly standard and would never think to check some one likes chickpeas as to me they don't really have a flavour.

If I'm cooking for someone for the first time, I ask for any allergies and dislikes as well as favourite cuisines for a guide

But I've no idea how you can be so clueless as to what your in laws eat. Surely you've been to theirs or out for meals and seen they are very traditional diners.

Well said @Stillreadingalot
This thread is pretty ageist. DH is 74 and eats chickpeas, tacos, Indian, Chinese, Thai, Greek, Italian and anything else I can think of except for celery and bananas. I won't see 65 again and eat pretty much anything (except for parsnips).

Even my late MIL, who grew up very poor in a very rural area and ate a very limited diet as a child would try new things. If she was still alive she would be 96 now.

I have to say, as someone in their 70s, I’d be very sad to be offered what an awful
lot of you seem to think is ‘normal’ food for someone my age. Ham, plain salad, boiled potatoes, boring cereals, plain chicken… I mean I’d eat it, and wonder quietly why you didn’t eat normal food like veggie chilli and fajitas, spiced salads, and curry.

I bloody loathe chickpeas though.

I do agree with a couple of PP that it’s probably better to ask what people’s favourites are, rather than what they don’t like.

I'm older than you and love chickpeas, and have been eating them for years.

This isn't a generational thing, not at your age.

I see a few people suggesting you tell her what you’re planning to cook in advance and ask if it’s ok for her - the problem with that is that she may have no real mental image of whatever you say so doesn’t realise in advance she won’t like it. Also she may feel like it’s rude to say “no I don’t like that!”.

Our extended family has a lot of dietary issues/intolerances etc so I always frame it as “I might cook x….or y…..what do you think?”. Obviously make sure x and y are very different! Hopefully that way you get closer to a meal they actually want.

We never eat fajitas or tacos, I wouldn't think it was odd if over 70s hadn't. I love cooking tagine, but my 20 year old doesn't like cous cous or fruit in casserole esque meals like this. It's one of the very few things he's not keen on.

It never existed. It's a myth that there was ever a time when British people ate nothing spicy. Ginger, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon have been staples for those who could afford them for hundreds and hundreds of years. All our classic traditional Christmas sweet foods are spiced with them - Christmas pudding, mincemeat for mince pies, Christmas cake. Nutmeg on rice pudding. Cloves in bread sauce. Lots of British people who had lived abroad during the days of Empire brought a taste for the local cuisine back here. Mild, anglicised curries served with rice have been fairly well known in the UK since the 19th century and curry powder has been on grocers' and supermarket shelves for decades. Ketchup, chutney, pickles, kedgeree, mulligatawny soup - all flavoured with spices. The Empire is the reason for large-scale immigration to the UK after WW2 and ultimately the crowning of chicken tikka masala as the nation's favourite dish.

Those all sound brilliant. A lot of that would have garlic in if I'd made it and can almost guarantee would have garlic in if ordered in a restaurant.

Would you eat moussaka, lasagne, pasta or chicken and rice dishes when ordering out?

I think chillis are a lot easier to avoid than garlic. You'll even find garlic powder in a lot of supermarket stuff you wouldn't necessarily expect.

In some cases it's texture more than taste. I've known people who can't bear chicken, bananas, mushrooms, aubergines and various other things who all say they can't stand the feel of them in the mouth and would struggle to swallow them. The older I get the more I realise what a complicated thing eating can be for some people, for all sorts of psychological reasons as well as allergies, food intolerances and anatomical issues.

Chickpeas for example are something people either love or hate and if that's the only thing for dinner then it's a bit awkward

Glad to hear it's not just me - and it's probably not something that would be on my radar if someone asked me if there was anything I didn't like, but as some of my family are vegan of course it has come to the fore. So they don't cook anything with chickpeas in for me and vice versa. I also have to say I don't like dried fruit with savoury but I'd eat it if presented with it as a guest.
Not chickpeas though.

😂Had one of SILs staying for a week last year. Nightmare. One day we went to a little seaside place for a wander round the shops and lunch but she couldn't find a single thing she wanted to eat at any of the many restaurants and cafes. Eventually my DH asked her what she wanted to eat - "just normal food". OK but we're in Normandy, so we might struggle to find a Morrisons all day breakfast!!

And she's the easier SIL to please, food wise. The other one once went nuts at me for giving her cream cheese (during that particular visit she'd announced she was dairy intolerant). It was actually hummus and she was with me when I bought it.

I don't mind catering for people with real food intolerances but I do mind having to twist myself into a pretzel to try to satisfy the demands of pensioners with poor manners. Sympathies OP!

I am in my 70's and the food doesn't sound weird to me either....its just that i don't like it (and know because I have tried it) or couldn't eat it.

In which case, were you the OP's MIL, you should have said when asked. I find it hard to understand how anybody can have reached the age to be a MIL and not grasped that not everybody has a cooked breakfast. That was the case when I was growing up, so it's hardly new.

I think I’m very lucky with dad (85) and late MIL (died at 91). They ate what we ate. Curry (mild), spag bog, you name it. MIL only ever wanted cereal (pref crunchy nut cornflakes) and toast for breakfast. And we always had a pud when she stayed…. But otherwise it was business as usual.

OPs MIL isn’t much older than me and I’d find her painful. Good luck!

this. I am in my 70's. The things I don't or can't eat. I know I don't like or can't eat because I have tried them. As I have already said, boomers were in the vanguard of "different" food.

Yes, but the OP asked her MIL about food. That was MIL's opportunity to say 'I always have a boiled egg, toast and marmalade for breakfast' or whatever. If you say 'I'll eat anything' and then balk at granola and yoghourt you only have yourself to blame! To rub salt in the wound, the MIL then went to M&S with the OP and for whatever reason refused to suggest anything she'd like to eat. Cutting off her nose to spite her face.

Sounds like a generational issue. My grandparents grew up with traditional British food. Pasta was fancy and they didn’t have it until they were in their 50’s. My parents are now in their 60’s and have a varied palate but that’s due to them being on many holidays.
For years my Dad would have salad cream with salads Never that fancy stuff, mayonnaise.