We had friends to dinner last night and despite feeling ill I did my best to do a good meal because my mum brought me up to always treat guests well however hard things may be otherwise.
It set me thinking about meals I've been invited to and then I remembered the horribly embarrassing meal we were invited to at a work colleagues of DP last year. I didn't really know them but we went along. On arrival we were served with a glass of ribena. Unusual I think to myself but I quite like ribena (dp hates it). We stood about politely drinking ribena then were told dinner was ready. In each place was a plate with a piece of toast (most of it cold) and in the middle a packet of tesco value pate not even opened and one knife. The 12 of us carefully shared it out. Hostess then produced an apple each cut into quarters with a slither of cheese followed up by a cup of tea or coffee and that was dinner (served with more ribena).
Maybe I'm just a horrible person but it has to be the worst dinner party I've ever been to! Socialising with friends was lovely but surely a dinner party is as much about the food as the socialising?
DP and I had brought a bottle of wine as had all the other invited couples but all of those were squirreled away by host and not seen again. I don't think they were short on money by the way though you can't always tell by looking so they may have been trying to make the best of a bad situation
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Tell me about the worst dinner party you've ever been to
IwishIwishIwish · 27/07/2013 11:57
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I am in awe of these stories........ they're jaw dropping! 
Mine is from my student nurse days......
A fellow (male) nurse invited me to a party he was hosting at his flat that evening after shift finished. Being a rather naive gormless 18 year old (well, this was back in the 70's) I went along at the given hour and as time passed and my glass was refreshed once too often, I then began to wonder where all the other guests (and food) were.
When I saw him lock the door and put the key in his trouser pocket I sobered up bloody fast.
What followed was like a black and white silent movie farce as he chased me round the furniture from room to room.
Eventually I managed to grab a cushion, hide behind a door and as he came through I clobbered him full in the face. He keeled over like a skittle, hit the door frame, and just lay there like a felled tree! I had to rummage through his trouser pockets for the key and then just legged it.
I never told anyone about what happened as I felt so stupid for falling for it.....but he never mentioned it either....probably cos he got ko'd by a mere slip of a lass....or maybe he got amnesia! Who knows!
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One my DH insisted on cooking for. He managed to pick ingredients for each course that I cannot choke down even to be polite. They were spectacularly poor choices for a coeliac (me) as well including bread integrated into the starter and couscous with the main. I never have dessert as I'm not fond of the inevitable fruit/cream combinations so I went hungry that night.
I may possibly never forgive him
The guests enjoyed the meal though so that's all that matters. I had to sneak into the kitchen for chocolate
Jins, what an awful thing for your dh to do! My friend is coeliac and when we eat at hers, I expect a gluten-free meal, it wouldn't be fair on her or her dh to expect anything else. And you can cook lovely gluten-free meals
Am PMSL at "It's the wrong Chihuahua!" I know that's not your actual name but it makes it sound funnier!
Oh it was just thoughtlessness and lack of cooking skills. He knew I'd swerve the starter due to the goats cheese and I usually just have salad or veg rather than the carbs so he thought I'd be ok with the main. I hadn't made my aversion to peppers and olives clear enough in the past
He's much better nowadays. Ive had some wonderful meals. It was just that one that combined virtually everything I really dislike into one 3 course meal. He was mortified when he realised but there's not much you can do when you're sitting at the table. My 'not for me thanks' said all that was necessary
I gasped at the OP, hooted at Sooty and cheered the army rejects.
But mostly I'm relieved no-one's mentioned any of my attempts
Jins has reminded me of one related to my sister. She realised her marriage was over when her husband said he was going to make a special effort and cook her dinner.
He served stuffed tomato starter, steak main and creme brulee for pud.
My sister is vegetarian and allergic to eggs and tomatoes 
DH and I were invited to dinner by fairly good friends - the day before, the wife rang and asked if there was anything we'd rather not eat. I am generally veggie, but can get by if I'm not asked, but she did ask, so I said that I could eat fish but not meat, and definitely nothing 'obviously dead' i.e. with bones or eyeballs. So we turn up the next night and the main course plopped in front of me was.... a dead pigeon, trussed, still with claws (no head, thank God) that had been shot by our host. One pigeon per guest! I am quite quick at sliding the odd unwelcome piece of steak onto a neighbour's plate without anyone noticing, but I couldnt even bring myself to touch the bird 
. I kept thinking to myself 'why on earth did she even ring up to ask?'......
My story is almost a complete opposite to some of the stories on here!
About 5 years me and ex-p were invited t dinner by one of ex-p's senior colleagues and his new wife.
When we got their the wife said she hoped we didn't mind but she'd decided not to serve a starter but just canapes instead. We said that ws great. She then showed us to the living room where there were about 20 large plates of 'canapes' so that it looked a bit like a small wedding buffet! (There was just the 4 of us eating)Every 30 seconds she would pick up one of the plates and stick it under our noses so we had to take something.
She later took us through to the dining room where she presented us with the main course. It was a roast dinner but one that i have never seen the likes of before or since....It wouldn't have looked out of place as one of those man v food challenges! Each one was on a serving plate like the ones you use to put the turkey on at Christmas. On my platter there was:
enough pork to cover a normal size dinner plate
10 large roast potatoes
3 full size yorkshires
probably enough mash to fill 2 soup bowls
4 different types of veg ( about several large tablespoons full of each)
2 full size sausages (!)
All smothered in gravy
Ex-p had the same. We were both 
at being presented with this mountain of food. But we didn't want to be rude so we both started to plow our ways through it. I managed to eat about 1/2. P managed about 2/3 of his, but by then we were well and truly stuffed. I had to force myself to swallow the last few mouthfuls (ever seen that christmas dinner episode of the Vicar of Dibley? Yeah, like that )
When I (closely followed by P)finally admitted defeat and put down my knife and fork and said 'thankyou very much, that was delicious (which it was tbf) but i'm completely full now' The wife proceeded to burst into tears and run from the room. Her DH followed her whilst we sat downstairs wondering what was going on. Eventually the husband came back and said his wife was very upset as we had offended her by not eating the meal she had slaved all day over and obviously thought her cooking was terrible!
We apologised and repeated that the meal was delicious but we genuinely were just full. The husband then threw away the last of our food and said he'd tell his wife tat we had finished it off whilst they were upstairs. He said this was what he usually(!) had to do when they had guests 
. Eventually he persuaded her to come back down. After spending 1/2 hour raving about how delicious the food was to the sullen looking wife we decided to make our escape. At which point she said "you can't leave yet, you haven't had pudding!"
{faints}
Pudding was bout a third of an apple pie each, swimming in a bowl of custard. She sat eyeballing us the whole time so we had to force down every bite. By that point i had gone beyond stuffed and my mouth just swallowed the food on autopilot without me even tasting it. We then staggered to the front door as fast as possible before she could suggest cheese and crackers
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