To expect a snack when visiting someone's home for a few hours?

[Playdoughy]

Context matters clearly, so I will give some background.
We've been invited to friends' place who live outside of London (90mins car ride) and we agreed to come by over the weekend for a few hours in the early afternoon. The invite was not for an overnight stay but more of a housewarming situation - as in come and see how the place looks like (not for a group of people but just us visiting). They have been living in the flat for 5 months now, I am pregnant so couldn't take a trip during first semester due to sickness - now more up for it.
Anyway we had an early light lunch (luckily) and took off today to arrive after almost a 2 hour drive due to traffic. We had a lovely time chatting and stayed for around 2 hours (I literally had to leave and gave signal to my husband as I was starving to the point of being nauseous).
We got offered a tea upon arrival (drink, not a meal - to avoid any confusion) so I had a cup of tea -no biscuits involved.
I have to admit that on my way to the loo I literally stole a couple of crackers from an open bag sitting on a sideboard near the kitchen and I ate that in the bathroom (yeah...).
After we said goodbyes and went into the car my husband started googling for any nearby pub to have dinner - I advocated against in case they go out later, it would be super awkward if we stumbled upon them. So we grabbed some snacks in an off licence for the car and were on our way.
I mean surely as a host you have some concept of your guests travelling to see you and need to travel back - for us this would be almost 6 hours without a meal and I am pregnant.
I just don't get it. Even a box of digestives would have helped.
Maybe it's a cultural difference thingy, she is american he is scandinavian. Anyway aibu?

We offer coffee as soon as somebody arrives..and that’s with cake and biscuits or an offer of lunch depending on the hour. Heck, even the postman used to stop for coffee and biscuits, every delivery driver was offered a bowl of homemade soup and a drink. Nobody turned up invited or otherwise without getting food and drink. It’s the least one can do for invited guests. I am seriously shocked

I'm not sure what's going on on MN lately but there seem to be more and more posters being purposefully argumentative. OP YANBU.

It all sounds really odd how you were invited round and then begrudingly offered water or coffee once, and nothing else.

I wonder if they had had a row or something?

Either way they should have at least offered something small with the drinks eg biscuits. Like you I was taught it's good manners to offer guests a snack, and also bad manners to ask and to just wait nicely lol.

I wouldn't be rushing round for another visit anytime soon that's for sure.

If someone popped in to see me at 3pm for an hour or two it wouldn't occur to me to provide food. If I asked someone over for a meal or for the evening I definitely would and do.

I think its utterly bizarre to go somewhere for 2 hours and think you should be provided snacks. If someone came to my house after lunch and before dinner for 2 hours I wouldn't even think to offer food as I would presume you just ate and don't need to gorge on biscuits an hour or 2 later.

I've seen a chart as to how likely you are to be offered food in any country; and in most you are likely to be offered something in most homes. If I'm having friends who have driven that far you would have been invited for a meal. For people travelling less far, not staying that long, I would have bought a selection of cakes or at very least offered biscuits. In case of doubt best to ask.

I think mostly everyone agrees it was poor hosting but OPs responses are so intense and uptight. If they’re real friends laugh it off no? Or is it that she doesn’t actually like them very much?

So many posters saying they don’t eat at certain times of the day, so there’s no need to offer anything. Or they have nothing in the house. It’s not about the normal run of things. It’s about having a visitor and, I dunno, rolling out the red carpet just a wee bit. Especially if YOU invited them. It’s about having good manners and being hospitable. Such a miserable bunch on here, not prepared to put their arses out of gear.

I wouldn’t ever assume that I would be offered food if I was only dropping into a friends for a couple of hours. I’d be quite likely to suggest going for food afterwards, and invite them to come. I most definitely wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen by those friends, if I was eating there after a visit. It might be embarrassing if they’d offered me food and had turned it down, or was still hungry, but not if nothing had been offered. You really do seem to making a meal of this, anyway. I get that you’re pregnant, but seriously, give your head a wobble. Feeling that unwell because you’ve not eaten for a couple of hours is way over dramatic.

If i was close enough to someone to drive a 4 hour round trip just to see them for a few hours I would definitely consider myself close enough to ask for a slice of toast or something.
That said if someone was driving that long just to come and see me I would be putting a little snacky platter out.

I would have offered if I was your friend (to share them with you) but I was taught that the etiquette is you take a gift for the host. She may have taken your offerings as a gift, not something to share.

Nowadays I tend to take a gift and something to share. If I go to a dinner party I will take a bottle of wine/pudding for the host and some wine/pudding to share too for example. If going to a friend's for a housewarming I would take them a gift and also take something to share out.

Would you really ask for toast when visiting someone for 2 hours? when they have lunch and could of ate in the car on the way down. So bizarre,

I wholeheartedly agree. They OP describes a situation more like polite acquaintances. if you're friends enough to drive all that way to visit, I think you're friends enough to either know what their hosting habit is like, and in which case YOU take some snacks, or you're close enough to ask for something to eat or suggest going out to get something.

Was it one of those places where nobody cares about the postmen taking hours to do his rounds?

If I had friends visiting in the afternoon for a few hours, if they were local to me I wouldn't necessarily offer a snack. But if they were travelling almost 2 hours to see me I would firstly expect them to stay longer than 2 hours, otherwise that's too much travelling time to make it worth the visit. In those circumstances I would 100% include a meal in their visit, or at least a substantial snack/sharing platter type of thing.

It’s not advocating for themselves, it’s being incredibly rude

I would never expect anyone to do a four hour round trip to see me and not offer them a meal. If they were coming in the afternoon I'd offer a proper tea with sandwiches and cake at least.
Very inhospitable to offer nothing.

What time was it when you were there?

If it was during standard meal times 12-2 / 6-8 then I'd expect / offer food. But between those times I'd have expected guest to had already had lunch. Do adults snack throughout the day usually? To the point that they feel nauseously hungry without the snack? I thought that was just toddlers

YANBU OP, if I travelled all that way to see a friend I would expect a biscuit at the very least. I would never make a cup of tea and not offer something sweet along with it.

I alway remember driving 3 HOURS to FIL's when the kids were tiny. There wasn't an offer of wine, coffee, water, food, zero. NADA. I said to DH, is there wine??? If not, you'll have to get some 🤔🤔

Food situation was equally pitiful. There was basically nothing that small children could eat. No bananas, sliced bread, nothing.

Same situation as a pp, I was actually wondering if we'd got the wrong day as our arrival seemed so unprepared for. Nope. We'd got the right day...

YANBU. I was raised that a drink and snack was the norm for visitors. Nothing fancy, biscuits and tea or cold drink. If someone was coming from further, as you were or staying longer than an hour or so, it would be more.

It surely wouldn't have hurt to just say, "It's a lovely cup of tea Brenda, but if it's no trouble I'd also like some grilled cheddar and ham on buttered multigrain toast with a little Dijon mustard, followed by a small bowl of apple and quince crumble, served with light sour cream."

That's so rude. OP and her DP did a 4 hour round trip whilst pregnant (I felt pretty ill during most of my pregnancy so I know how she feels) and she got one cup of tea offered. I find that really off. It's good manners to look after your guests when they have gone to such trouble to visit you.

I think it was a muck up not eating a normal sized lunch at lunch time however you arrange it, packed lunch, stop for lunch half way through the journey, pub lunch when you arrived at the destination. An early light lunch is going wear off at around 3pm.

I’m not sure how you could have been nauseous with hunger if you’d had lunch - is it a pregnancy thing?

But yeah, but thoughtless not to have offered snacks to someone who travelled over an hour to visit you.

I wouldn't listen to these people @Playdoughy who are saying that you were wrong or too much to expect a bit of hospitality when you were invited to visit and you did a 4 hour round trip to get there. My friend came to stay for the weekend and I got so much wine and food in she ended up taking a lot of it home LOL. I would just learn from this situation - the benefit of them living 2 hours away is that you won't have to do this again or frequently if you don't want to. Especially when the baby arrives! Hope the rest of your pregnancy is good and you feel a bit better😊