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?

I can't understand you driving so far without an invite to actual lunch or dinner. Did they think you were in the neighbourhood anyway and just popping in?

Basically yes as she’s not seeing them again.

Huh, I don't see this at all. I would definitely think to offer cake or biscuits. Or crisps, or pretzels, or fruit, or nuts, or veggies and dip, or any and all of the above. And this is how I'm also treated when I go to others' houses. "Only" two hours is actually kind of a long time. Doubly so if the guest had traveled as long as OP did to get to me.

Ooooh! Thanks for explaining!

Don't think it's a cultural thing, TBH, but maybe they don't have a lot of friends?

I guess they have even less now?

There will be no next time.

Blimey - harsh.

For one visit without snacks 😂

Hopefully you have plenty of other friends who understand the snack situation.

My Eastern European self cannot fathom inviting someone over and not offering them food 😨

At least not cultural in Scandinavia 😀 Yes, definitely would expect to be offered something to eat!

I always have cake or biscuits in if I know someone is coming over, no matter how near or far they've come. As a guest, I also always bring something similar and make it clear they're to eat now, eg "I brought us some biscuits, would you like one?" So it's a bit of both really - odd they didn't offer, but equally something you could have mitigated yourself.

But I agree with the PP who said there seems to be a mismatch in the level of the social event here. They thought you were popping in for coffee (maybe as part of other plans in the area) whereas you had made a special journey for it. The whole pub thing is bizarre though, who cares if they saw you in the pub after your visit?

I can beat this.
I stayed at a friend's and her big sisters apartment in north london from friday afternoon through to Monday morning. I wasn't even offered a glass of water, the entire stay. Had i been pregnant , it would have been very rude and inconsiderate. And if I needed to eat we had to go outside for every meal. It was great fun trotting to m&s every morning to buy stuff, not.

Yanbu.

It was rude of them in my opinion. If we have visitors coming we offer tea, biscuits/cake and that is only the local ones! If we knew someone has come a long way we would at least offer to put a pizza in the oven.

I did wonder if it was a cultural thing, as there is that graph of expectations of food when you visit which shows less likely in Scandinavian countries.

I think YAB a bit U and overthinking it.

-It wasn’t a great a decision to have a light lunch
-I absolutely carried extra snacks with me wherever I went when I was pregnant
-It wasn’t rude, possibly a slight oversight on their part
-I definitely wouldn’t offer cake for 2 hour visit after lunch. A lot of people who come to my house decline snacks as they have already eaten. Yes I would offer biscuits or crisps
-You were silly not to just say ‘i have a bit of pregnancy nausea, do you by any chance have a biscuit or crisps i could snack on please’
-You were silly not to go to the pub

Sorry also just to add that it sounds like you would have still needed to sort yourselves out as let’s face it, a slice of cake isn’t going to stop hunger for 6 hours.

I can't imagine why circumstances where people would drive to visit me and I wouldn't feed them. If it was in between meals then cake / biscuits or maybe cheese and crackers. But more likely I would ask them to come for lunch. I'm Irish, I don't know if that makes a difference. But not offering something would be impossible.

I would not expect to be offered food at someone’s house if I were only there for two hours not over a meal time. But then I have allergies so I think people don’t offer me food as much to be safe. I am really surprised by the replies here.

When I was pregnant I would carry snacks and would have just got them out and offered them round if I got to the point of nausea.

I think stealing crackers from an open packet was very unreasonable.

Yes it is odd to invite someone to your house, even for a couple of hours, and not put on some food. More so when you know they’ve driven a decent distance. Not sure why anyone would argue otherwise.

I don't understand why you felt like you couldn't go to the pub afterwards! Especially if you were starving. Who cares if the hosts saw you in there! They can't say anything if they hadn't offered anything to eat

I thought exactly the same (but didn’t post). Who cares if they saw you?!

If someone comes out of their way to visit, you absolutely should offer them food. Hell, I have snacks on hand for friends that have an hour's journey to me. Plus it's just nice to nibble and chat together.

Are you actually friends? Why didn't you just ask for something? Seems a long way to drive for 2 hours with someone you don't know/ like enough to ask for snacks as your pregnant and struggling.

Also seems daft to only have a light lunch and not take snacks when you know you're struggling and you weren't going over a meal time so were never going to be offered something substantial.

I wouldn't expect food if I was visiting someone nearby for a few hours. But if I'd driven for over an hour I think it would be nice to at least be offered a biscuit! I can't imagine a pregnant friend visiting and not offering her food.
I think I would have just asked if I was in your situation. I would have just said "I'm feeling a bit nauseous/dizzy - do you have any biscuits or crackers?".

We rarely have cake and biscuits in the house and don’t tend to eat between meals. If we have visitors especially those who have travelled at a non meal time I would make/ buy cake and biscuits though.

"I disagree that you'd be starving to the point of nausea after such a short length of time"

Good googly moogly! 🙄
Four+ hours is a long time when you only had a light lunch and are pregnant, especially with lingering morning sickness.

People's bodies and digestive function are different. Agreeing or disagreeing aren't helpful because @Playdoughy was the one that experienced it, not you.

This has reminded me of visiting my SIL at new years though. NY is a big deal in Japan, you get a stretch of a few days off and usually people lounge around, hang out with family, just like a Brit Christmas period.

We were invited to visit, along with our son, who was about 15 months. It's about a 1.5hr drive, and we have a rent a car. Turn up, the house STINKS because they are smokers and have a 2 year old in nappies, and there hasn't been rubbish collection for a week, so there's just bags of stinky rubbish full of nappies and ashtray shit everywhere. Not helped by the heating being on and not even cracking a window.

Not greeted with a drink, no snacks out except for what they've got for their 3 kids, which is a bowl of peanut M&Ms, and a bowl of popcorn. Both choking hazards. Great.

After 2 hours in the stifling heat, I go "right, shall I got to the convenience store and get us some drinks?" Hoping for a short walk and some fresh air. My BIL leaps up and goes "ah, there's a vending machine outside!" So we go together and pay 30% more for drinks for everyone.

In all, I think we were there about 6 hours.

Some people are just crap hosts.

One of my good friends just isn't that interested in food and doesn't eat that often. I've had to (politely!) ask for food at hers before. I would have done the same in this situation. It also wouldn't occur to me it being a problem to eat out nearby afterwards? I don't quite understand why you'd be worried they'd see you eating - by then it must have been dinnertime and time for eating.... And so it'd be normal to go somewhere to eat.....?

If you were local and had just popped in, I might not have anything in, because I mainly try not to keep that sort of thing in the house because I have zero self control (rather because I'm somehow morally superior).

But if you were coming a long way and had made specific arrangements to see me I would definitely have got something in, frankly at that distance I'd probably have suggested something where you could stay the night.

But again, I do think just politely saying something would have been a better solution to the problem that actually existed, rather than suffering silently and then being pretty cross and fed up.