to think that, allergies/moral convictions aside, it's only polite to eat what's cooked for you?

[JaneS]

Disclaimer: This is a thread about a thread ('Is my DH a fussy eater'), but it's not intended in any way as an attack on the OP there, or anyone else. I just found myself wondering something I've often thought before.

What I'm wondering is, when should you accommodate people's food preferences, and when do you give up? I'm incredibly greedy, so the list of things I won't eat is tiny (very hot chilli is what comes to mind). I'm fine cooking for DP, whose religion means he mustn't eat meat for 1/3 of the year, and must have a vegan diet for around six weeks every year. And I do accept that if you have a bad reaction to some foods, or consider it morally wrong to eat them, then that's non-negotiable.

But I really find it amazing the number of people there are who seem to be perfectly normal adults, yet who think it's quite ok to provide a long list of likes and dislikes to whoever is catering for them. Not because they can't eat the food in question, but because they don't care for it. Is this really ok? At what point should you just accept that Dish A isn't your choice, and eat it anyway?

I am very, very, very fussy. There is a list of foods that I won't touch a mile long. As a consequence I very rarely eat at someone elses house unless they know me well.

To be honest I find that other people make more of a fuss than I do. When I have been out they fuss around worreid that I am not eating. I prefer not to make a fuss and say I am here for the company not the food.

I have been to a pizza/pasta restarant and eaten only a plain jacket potato meant as a side dish for example and everyone fussed, it was so embarrasing.

It is a real food phobia but nothing in the world will make me eat something that I don;t want to.

Cheese is the worst, if I touch cheese I have to wash my hands immediately, if it has been on,my plate I won't eat anything.

DD is a bit fussy, but not too bad. I always taught her that if she doesn't like something she is served, she should just leave it. The only exception is Indian food, which she loathes. She actually blanches and looks like she's going to throw up, so it's not just a 'dislike'. We still go to Indian restaurants and get takeaways - and we get her naan bread. No it's not ideal, and my mum pitches a fit and tries to get her to eat something else, but it's just one meal, stuffing herself with bread isn't going to hurt.

If people come over to dinner, I always put the food out in dishes in the middle of the table so everyone can help themselves. I do ask ahead of time if there is anything they won't eat, and I'll do a couple of main courses and loads of sides so everyone can just pick and choose.

If someone was rude enough to ask for something else, they'd get an earful and not be invited back!

I don't think it's unreasonable to have dietary restrictions catered for as a dinner guest. Most of my friends I know well enough to know their likes/dislikes/can't eats vs won't eats - although one friend brought his girlfriend round for dinner and they didn't tell me until they arrived that she was allergic to cheese and couldn't eat cooked tomatoes (and I'd made lasagne containing both...) (she got pasta carbonara without the cheese - she was fine with cream apparently).

Normally if I'm inviting people round I check with them to make sure there's nothing they really can't or won't eat - regardless of reason, whether they don't eat pork because of religion, or because it makes them throw up at the smell - because I would like to think my guests would enjoy themselves here so I would like to serve food they liked.

Likewise if I'm invited out I do check to make sure they know I am allergic to peanuts (no idea re: other nuts, never been brave enough to try one - peanut reaction being fairly extreme) - I would hate to arrive to find some kind of satay dish!

I do think it's rude to present your guest with a lot of food-fad type requests, arrive to find a meal which caters for all these requests and then say "oh I don't like that either" and ask for bread and ketchup. Probably puts a bit of a dampener on the general social mood too.

Oh and amber - you are right in your theory . There was an article a while back (I think in New Scientist) which came to fairly similar conclusions.

I suppose it cuts both ways - I can't stand anal fussy eaters. Just want to shake them. Invariably just smile though and bitch about them later to dh

I guess there are lots of scenarios here though. If you are inviting friends that you know and love spending time with and have eaten with many times before then catering to their preferences isn't too hard, and you invite them for a meal fully knowing their fads. Or you go out if you can't face trying to prepare food they like.

Entertaining family is possibly when we tend to get the most annoyed, because it's not that unusual for the person who you have to cater to especially to be someone you don't especially like, but have to invite. So it feels particularly annoying I guess. Plus it seems that they are possibly the most likely to be rude about it.

Entertaining work acquaintances and other people that you need to impress/don't know very well is incredibly stressful, so adding faddiness on top of that is I think even more stressful.

I would of course ask people I haven't cooked for before if there is anything they can't eat, and expect to have to avoid maybe one or two things. I would only ask if there was anything someone would especially like to eat if I am entertaining one of the children's friends for the first time and I wanted to make sure they were happy, as children can be nervous visiting a new household, and are more inclined to be fussy. I don't expect adults to have the same issues!

Of course one solution tio the problem of catering for everyone's dislikes/allergies/intolerances/convictions is to have them cater for themselves. I once - more than once, as it happens - had a party where between the lot of us we had:
coeliac
dairy allergy
peanut allergy
vegetarian
vegetable-hater
fish-hater
foreign-food hater
So everyone brought a main or a desert, plus something else, and it all went on the table. Mix-n-match.

Nobody went home hungry (or ill).

But I do think that the rule of thumb has to be: when you are a guest in someone's house you must behave graciously, and when you are a host you must help your guest feel comfortable.

I usually ask people if there's anything they hate/don't eat but luckily have only had responses along the lines of don't particularly like celery/rice pudding/whatever - but just one, maybe two things. Veggies or allergies no problem. But if someone sent a massive list of things they don't/won't eat I'd probably incorporate their wishes that one time and never invite them again.

As others have said, the thing that really gets my back up is those who say "ooh, don't like that. have never tried it but I know I won't like it". My mum does that, I make something anyway, she eats it, likes it and then I tell her what was in it. Usually get a response along the lines of "oh, but it didn't taste like - insert relevant so-called disliked food here" - and I have to bite my tongue and not say "of course it tastes likes whatever, you're just bloody stubborn and because it doesn't taste like a particularly crappy ready meal you had 5 years ago and didn't like means that everything tastes like that".

Sorry, didn't know I was that annoyed by it

I can't stand it when adults act like children around food. I know a couple in their 30s, the woman - Sarah - only eats quorn and pasta. I guess that's fair enough, her choice. Her DH - Tom - only eats caramel wafers and cups of tea . They go over to Sarah's parents' place most nights to have dinner 'cooked' for them - that is, her parents cook a balanced meal for themselves and the combo of crap for the couple.

Now, seven months ago Sarah and Tom had baby Max. Baby Max is weaning at the moment. His granny, Sarah's mum, called my mother in delight:

'Tom ate a roast potato tonight!'

Yes Tom, the grown-up. He's being weaned at the same time as his son...

vivia, that made me laugh

My xSiL constantly turned her nose up at anything I cooked or prepared. She would literally wrinkle her nose, pull faces, and audibly 'urr' while everyone else tucked in.

(It riles me when older children display this level of awkwardness over eating, particularly in front of my DC's, lest it give them ideas let alone an adult!)

She refused to touch salad at bbq's ...and instead brought along a pack of her very own 'value' boing burgers ...while everyone enjoyed a selection of non processed meats and yummy bbq'd veg, etc.

Twit.

Oh, and xSiL didn't have allergies.

She just preferred 'plain' food.

Like McshitDonalds, for example

people can be weird.

i had people round not so long ago for a sporting event on tv and as it was late, was serving supper too. told everyone what i was making (lamb chops, veggies, mash potatoes and gravy). everyone happy.

until dinner served.

one guest had full plate in front of him and ate nothing off it. NOTHING. didnt even attempt.

another wanted a full run down of how i made the gravy (me, uuummm, the usual way?)him, if there is bisto in it i wont eat it! cue 10 min rant about the evils of not 'cooking from scratch'.

the wives just carried on like it was all normal.

so, being me, i said, if you dont want it, dont eat it! and next time, bring a bloody pizza with you!

(disclaimer: am actually a pretty good cook i promise!)

I wonder if it's a particularly English thing - adults being disgustingly fussy?

90% of the eating establishments that exist in the UK at the moment attest to British people being ignorant philistines about food. I've been to restaurants where food is obviously prepared by people who have no training in cooking or interest in food - your average Harvester being a case in point (my mum and dad dragged me there - I didn't go willingly and would never go again).

I know so many adults who are horribly fussy, but more to the point, they're ignorant about food. Anyone who can have a discussion about the best way to wrap cheese, how to make bread, or about cooking offal is called a 'foodie' in the UK - a 'hobby' cook. In other countries it's considered entirely reasonable for ordinary people to have some expertise in cooking.

I find myself rolling my eyes when people talk about being 'adventurous' with food, because they eat mussels, or artichokes. FFS - this is only adventurous if your idea of everyday cooking involves packets of orange breadcrumbs and plastic wrapped chicken fillets.

I think its a hugely English thing! My godmother's children went to school in France for a bit and school menus had things like pate, asparagus etc. on them. No assumption that the children wouldn't mostly like these things, and consequently, far fewer fussy adults.

I had a model guest recently. A family were staying with us, and the teenage boy was vegetarian. So I made some of our meals vegetarian, some of the meals I ensured that there was either enough variety on the table for him not to go short, and some meals provided a veggie alternative to the meat.

I noticed that he took most things, tried everything, and sometimes left a bit on his plate. Towards the end of the stay I proclaimed at the dinner table what a lovely guest he was to cook for, how polite he was and how he never made any fuss. (They all were.) I told them how I'd been showered with horror stories about catering for veggies who hated vegetables.

Just before they left, BoyGuest's mother quietly told me "He hates vegetables." I think she was proud of him too.

LittleRedDragon - my kids are 4,6 and 10 and there's very little they don't eat. They eat all seafood, fish (including sashimi), sushi, all vegetables (though they're not enthusiastic about sprouts!), all fruit, all cheeses - including Stinking Bishop and Gorgonzola. They eat offal and game without complaining.

But they'll also happily choke down a chicken nugget along with the best of them and love take away pizza.

All we've done is give them the same food as we eat - right from the start. I absolutely won't cook separate meals, unless DH and I are eating something very expensive, in which case the kids may well sit down to fish fingers and chips earlier in the evening!

That's what my parents did, standanddeliver. I think it used to be more normal not to cook separately for children?

I raided the fridge once and took some black olives to share with my friend (we were 7 or so). She burst into tears, poor love - I guess they are a bit of a shock if you've been told this is something delicious and you're thinking of sweets! I wonder if she's grown up with an olive phobia now?

LOL LittleRedDragon. Yes - a black olive would be a shocker if you were expecting a sweetie!

The weirdness and suspicion about food is something I noticed when I came to UK. The fear about one's breath smelling of garlic. Of a hot lunch at your desk stinking up any common work areas.

So I would say there is something cultural about it.