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?

Bingo!

Offering someone a jaffa cake or digestive is "gorging". Fucks sake some of you are miserable.

Come to mine for coffee @Playdoughy . We've got a box of shortbread in the drawer, and if I knew you had driven 2 hours to get to me, I'd make scones or offer you soup.

Because I am not downright rude and inhospitable.

Never have snacks? Wow!

"it is actually healthier to eat often and little?"

This isn't true and I personally find it very anti-social when done by people who aren't pregnant/diabetic/whatever.

Wow, in our Pakistani culture we would never allow a guest to leave without providing a meal, the very least either tea, coffee, sort drink and then fruit platter and snacks in the form of samosas, kebabs or pakoras. My daughter bakes so the fried food is usually swapped for sweet treats such as brownie, cakes or cupcakes etc.

As part of our Islamic religion, we are advised to provide visitors with the best we have in our homes. If they are staying then it’s the best food you have for the first 3 days. After that it’s what you would eat yourself on a daily basis.

Of course they should have offered something! Presumably they knew the distance op had travelled and the fact she’s pregnant. 4h with nothing at all when you’re pregnant is a long time.

The visit wasn't on the off chance

Do you bring your own food when you're visiting then??

" I know in op's situation at a friend's house I could have said "I feel sick" and any decent friend would offer some toast or something"

Only if they understand the kind of pregnancy sickness you have. Usually if someone feels sick they lose their appetite and/or food would make it worse. I think she could have easily just explained she needed to eat because of her pregnancy.

That's what I'm talking about. They've ignored my point that it's friendly and welcoming to offer a snack and zoned in sarcastically on my comment that it's not actually a necessity (except in some cases of health conditions) because on the whole, we all snack too much.

Nah, I'm an amateur at being offended. I can only hope to reach professional status in future. And I'm hardly in a froth, for finding your grudging hosting with a side of scolding amusing. I'd advise asking for a doctor's note outlining one of the conditions under which an offering would be acceptable - so many scroungers about these days!

TBH it's not about thinking the visitor is hungry...it's more about showing your appreciation of the time and effort they have made in visiting you.

But then the gardener/window cleaner/British Gas get tea/coffee and a kitkat even if they're only at my house for an hour

I often wondered why they always seem so grateful!!

Do you speak for all of us?

My background is Polish and Scottish and Irish. We all feed people. It doesn't have to be a full meal or anything fancy, but there could be scones and butter, or cheese and biscuits with some grapes, maybe a cake if I've been baking. I don't know about Americans but I've lived in Scandinavia and when I was invited out, even for a couple of hours, there was coffee and cake. Or lovely yeast pastries. On the other hand, we were once invited out for a 'drink' to very wealthy friends who produced a couple of tiny bottles of beer between four of us, and a little bag of seeds, like the ones I feed my garden birds with! We've never forgotten it.

I agree with you op it’s really rude not to offer guests something to eat 🤷‍♀️

I’d have asked for some toast or something though.

Let me guess that able bodied cis men are your default human

It's pretty rigid and antisocial in personal no snacking rules to not offer snacks to a friend, pregnant or not, visiting after a 90 minute drive to get to yours.

Wow I didn’t think I was so parochial but I’m actually struggling to picture a life that doesn’t involve biscuits and tea ever (I’m British, obviously)

I’m not an “eating often and little” person but am really curious why you think this is antisocial?

What life form are you? I cannot vouch for much beyond the last 15 years, let alone most of the history of our time on the planet.

I don’t necessarily think they were being unreasonable. You said you had a light lunch then left and it took almost two hours due to traffic. So they had expected you in what an hour? But it took longer because of traffic? Maybe they thought you’d just eaten (I mean if I ate an hour before I’d say I’d just eaten) and didn’t have anything in.

Myself, I always have something to nibble on but maybe they don’t snack. So I don’t think they were necessarily being unreasonable.

Ha ha. I live on the continent. People eat biscuits here and you're actually MORE likely to get a biscuit with your tea and coffee in a cafe than in the UK, but at work they're a bit less visible. I used to work somewhere in the UK with a biscuit club and I found that a really unhealthy thing to have.

Just having people around you eating constantly is quite anti-social I think.

Yes, but some posters here are saying you have to 'keep snacks in' i.e. not just go to buy them when someone is coming, but have them in all the time.

What are you on about?

It's mind boggling to me that they would invite people over without having so much as a plate of biscuits to offer round. Madness.

Well if someone came round to my house for an afternoon visit, I wouldn’t offer them “a snack” because I thought they wouldn’t make it through the visit without (unless they were a toddler).

But I would always offer them a drink and then also put out a plate of biscuits (or homemade cake, or brownies or scones), because that’s just the hospitable thing to do.

If I knew they were coming well in advance, I’d probably bake something. If I didn’t have much notice, I’d sprint to the corner shop for a packet of chocolate digestives.

I’d be totally embarrassed not to put something out on the table, and it doesn’t mean anyone needs to actually eat any of them if they don’t want to.