I WOUDL BE GRATEFUL IS PEOPLE WOULD STOP OFFERING SHITTY FOOD AT BIRTHDAY PARTIES.! Thank u kindly!

[MintyandTink]

Having been to a few birthday parties since my little one was born I am quite shocked at the shit quality of the food being served at bday parties.

Shitty cocktail sausages- yuk, rancid carrot sticks, hard cheese just to provide some examples.

The thing that gets me is not the kind of food but the bloody quality... CRAPITTY CRAPITTY CRAP!

Rant over.

Have not read whole thread, but did the OP not say, it's not the type of food she minds about, just the state it's in, eg the cheese being hard and so forth?

Reactions on first page or two read as if she has been misunderstood

Having said that, it is a fairly boring thread anyway [leaves]

Haven't read whole thread but I agree with Minty. Great swearing too. That is a lot of usages of "shitty sausages"

I love doing nice party food, no shitty sausages, and everyone (adults and children) gets the same. Last time it was homemade hummous and fruit tarts, posh crisps, schmancy waitrose pizza and bread, nice cheese, nice olives etc. They all ate it too.

It wasn't the cheapest food but that was it, no venue, no entertainer, just at home in the garden so not expensive overall.

Having said that DS went to a birthday party at a soft play centre with plasticky fairy cakes and neon icing galore and a big bag of wotsits for each toddler and he loved it. I don't object to a pile of crap once in a while.

So how does your dc feel about this???

I hope you're not so rude in RL as your dd will almost certainly be off most party invite lists.

An invite to anything should always be excepted graciously,somebody is providing food for your child and trying to give her a good time. Unless you're paying for it I don't think you have a right to complain.

I'm afraid re parties I wouldn't dream of feeding "quality food" to a gang of 4 year olds. The vast majority of it gets ground into the carpet or left.

Why on earth would I throw money away on other peoples kids when to them a sausage is a sausage, a cheese cube a cheese cube? Parties are expensive enough anyway and for a lot of parents after a venue has been hired,entertainment planned etc there isn't a lot of money left for a cornucopia of organic titbits.

Also like most kids my lot eat very healthily most of the time so it's a pleasure watching them excitedly tucking into a dream spread of all the foods they don't have that often. It's what being a kid is all about. Actually when I think about it the food is what they look forward to the most.

I also hate cheap sausages (ditto sausage rolls). They just taste so nasty. But then there is a big difference to parties where you are inviting families (toddler parties really) and those for older kids (mainly primary age). I think if you are expecting grown ups it is a bit sad to have very poor quality food. I'd rather have less food/plainer food than nasty food. But then it's one of the few times when I really cook, and I am also quite fussy in respect of pre-prepared food (I blame this on my lentil weaving mum) for example I really dislike shop bought cake (even from expensive shops).

But I suspect that most people commenting here have older kids, and I agree they don't really eat anything, complain if you make what you think is nice food (ie non junk) and don't bring their parents anyway. Also to be honest any home party food is way way nicer than the truly awful stuff you get at any organised party venue (McDonalds in this respect serve high quality food!).

I think you may have a bigger garden than me Snowleopard .Would love to do the same but as our garden is sooo teeny we have to fork out to hire a venue. I do all our own games etc(which adds up too) but even so I'm afraid the food has to be done on a budget.

I include some grapes,hummus etc for the pfbs and my own lot who love all that too but the majority is I have to say cheap party fare. I check for no rehydronised fat-can't spell(I have my limits) but other than that as far as I'm concerned a 50% pork sausage on a stick aint going to kill anybody as a one off.

I

I don't care about crisps and wotsits and sugary biscuits and other party shite. But I'd never serve really bad quality meat products. All made from lips and arseholes off the abbatoir floor.

I'm also PMSL at thread title which seems to be shouting an order at us.

"Thank U Kindly"

I think that generally parents realise that the food isn't that important to the children and prepare the food in advance so that they can concentrate on other things. This may account for carrot sticks being past their best and the cheese not being in perfect condition - its not so much not caring about your guests as prioritising how you spend your resources. I think most children would prefer to spend the party budget on a bouncy castle and ditch the superior brand of houmous.

Ofcourse, some people may be able to get hampers from fortnums, hire a bouncy castle, a clown and a donkey to give rides around the grounds. I suspect these people are also able to visit a spa on the day of the party. Lucky them.

All open to interpretation too. If you gave my dcs the most perfect hummus in the world they would consider it shitty as they all hate it.

Tis a small garden, but I know not everyone has one. But I would have a picnic in the park or cinema outing rather than go to a soft play type venue. I hate the noise and kids shooting around everywhere - at ours, they have several different parties going on at the same time with coloured tabards so you know which party you're at! DS can enjoy all that at other people's parties

I also think this thread is a little insensitive at the moment,have read several threads and posts from people who are clearly struggling at them moment financially. Being berated for serving "shitty"food at their kids parties isn't exactly going to make them feel great is it.

yeah, I can be called a snob! No probs with that label- I'd rather be a snob that let my kids/myself eat shitty sausages.

Wait until they are attending teenage parties where the dubious quality of the food being served will be the least of your worries!

Message withdrawn

Agree with the OP. I hate the crap served at children's parties.

Am planning my daughter's fourth party for November... NO ENTERTAINER AND NO CRAPPY FOOD

I am educated, relatively well off and DS only eats shit (and fruit) all of the time - I have tried and tried to get him to eat something different but he hs issues with textures!

Parties are fun and for us a time when DS eats loads.

YUBU!

wooo hoooo Anna8888...
It feels lonely at the this end of the snob-spectrum!

Cocktail sausages, cheesy wotsits and fruit shoots always went down a storm at my dc's parties

... particularly with kids brought up on a diet of filtered water and organic nut cutlets

sorry to be pedantic but a carrot stick can never ever be rancid. I'm not sure what word you where looking for but rancid can only be used to describe oil which has gone off.

Perhaps if they were boiled carrot sticks coated in loads of butter and then left to hang around for a few days? I would agree that would be pretty nasty. Maybe the OP has just been to some strange birthday parties. Perhaps the hard cheese is left over bits of Stilton rind? Maybe the houmous was homemade, but they made some awful mistake like using lemon squash rather than lemon juice? Maybe we should keep an open mind. Perhaps the OP has had a really bad experience.

oh i would love some party food now, sausage rolls,cheese straws,slightly warm ham sandwiches cut into triangles

I think perhaps a better question might have been "why serve this food at a party if you wouldn't serve it to your children normally?". I would try and make sure that I was buying decent-ish sausages for parties, because I don't like the idea of serving anyone's children spine-in-a-casing type sausages and as a rule I try and buy decent ones for anyone I'm catering for. But I certainly wouldn't worry too much about the occasional cheap sausage consumed at someone else's party...

I am giggling at the idea of rancid carrot sticks....

And hard cheese rather than what? Soft cheese? Am struggling to imagine a crowd of 4 year olds munching their way through a ripe Camembert. Or am I missing something?

And I am highly entertained by the idea of crappy hummus...can someone enlighten me on what the ingredients list on a pot of crappy hummus would look like?