Strange catering habits you have experienced when eating at friends/family houses?

[Chicchicchicchiclana]

The grazing table thread inspired me! I know one should always be grateful when people invite you to eat with them (and I am!!) but I find it interesting the great variety of ways people do the hosting. Have any memorable dining experiences in other people's houses really stuck with you? Without being mean of course.

My OH thinks it weird that I LOVE cold custard with hot puddings eg. Sticky Toffee/Jam Roly Poly etc. But isn't custard very similar to ice cream? (Which he loves!)

@bushtailadventures

I thought of something else, on a Monday my Gran, who looked after me, would give me tinned tomato soup with the mashed potato left over from Sunday lunch. I loved it, and it would still be on my menu if I was allowed it.

Who is stopping you?

@CMOTDibbler - sounds like your mum made dwarf bread!

@MaeveWiley

My (very health conscious) MIL cooks a normal lovely chicken casserole and then will plunge the whole pot into a massive bowl of ice from her ice maker. This is to make the fat (ie the flavour) rise to the surface which she will then scrape off and throw away.

Eh??

Heinz tinned tomato soup featured a lot in my childhood!

When I was about 16 I used to go around to a friend's at lunchtime and she'd boil macaroni in tomato soup until it was soft and the soup had almost all evaporated, then pile gted cheese on top!
Was delish!

@NautaOcts

A beautiful, expensive joint of meat and delicious roast. And then no gravy. Not a jot. No sauce whatsoever. I’m sorry but I can never forgive that

I HATE gravy! Depending on the meat we have on our roast depends on the sauce I have (cranberry with chicken, apple with pork, horseradish with beef) but zero gravy. Bleurgh!

My in laws often forget the gravy with a roast. Not a deliberate decision, they just forget to make it. Then sometimes they’ll make a meal that doesn’t go with gravy at all, and serve gravy 🤷🏻‍♀️.

MIL cremates the turkey for Xmas dinner a few days before then reheats in the microwave on the day to make sure any remaining moisture is removed. Also serves roasts with boiled potatoes (no roasties!) and mushy veg.

@Workinghardeveryday I just find this sort of thing blatantly rude and would probably let it go once but after that, if I turned up and it was the same, I would probably just say I will go back home. Not make a scene or anything but seriously 😳

No. It isn't really done in the U.K.

I used to have fairy bread at my parties in the 1980s

My DM used to make fancy salad things she'd read about in Woman's Realm like beetroot in blackcurrant jelly or grated carrot with tinned mandarins, they were actually quite nice!

We had sugar on lettuce leaves or sugar sandwiches for a sweet snack.

On Sunday teatime we were allowed pudding before dinner - I used to think this was such a treat!

Ah tales of revolting boarding school food...

We used to get Boikd Baby every Thursday. Leftovers in a dish topped with leftover mash. Ususlly sausages, baked beans & tinned tomatoes featured heavily.

Long steamed jam sponge (in traditional long round-diameter tins) looked like giant tampons.

And bloater paste sandwiches (half a sandwich) on stale white sliced bread for our mid-morning snack

And then we'd play Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich man, Poor man, Beggarman, Thief with the stones to see who we'd become or marry

You're taking me back! I had completely forgotten about doing this with the prune stones

@ThumbWitchesAbroad it was made with proper grit and all.

@ivykaty44

Heinz tomato soup is sweet it has that much sugar, it's revolting. there is something like 4 teaspoons of sugar in a cup

There's no added sugar though, it's all natural sugar from the tomatoes. I know it's still sugar but just saying they don't add tons of sugar.

Heck - where to start? My parents and grandparents grew up working class in the early 20th Century and so food was cheap and never wasted.
Apple and bread and butter for tea
Tinned tomatoes and bread and butter for tea
Bread and butter with just about everything to fill us up before the small portions of expensive meat/veg
My nana ate her Yorkshire pud before the meal with thin gravy all her life. To be fair she was from Yorkshire...
My Grandma used to scrape butter onto the bread and then scrape as much as she could back off again and put back in the butter dish. Grandad used to get angry if she didn't. (He wasn't nice, and as stingy as they came.)

Mum used to cook tripe and onions for herself, but only if Dad and I were at least 5 miles away and weren't coming back the same day because we could smell the horrible stuff for ages. BOAK.

On drinking with meals, I think it depends on the person. I can't do it; neither can my dad. We eat first then sit down with a cup of tea. DH and DS have got to have water while they eat.

Boiled egg starter for xmas dinner, in New Zealand
I also have friends who have only ever cooked me the same meal, every time I have eaten there, and a teeny weeny portion of it too, when at my house they eat TONS

Oh yes, I forgot. Local snack bar in town used to sell Cornish pasties sitting in a bowl of minestrone soup and Mum used to take me for a treat. I used to love it.

@DeJaDont

I remember we had a friend as kids and she had one single tea party in her entire childhood. Her birthday consisted of us being ushered in quietly. Standing around a table and we each had a paper plate with a tiny sausage roll, a single crust free cheese spread triangle sandwich, a tiny hot dog and a ready salted crisp. We were given 3 minutes to eat before we were served a dessert of a spoon of cold rice pudding on a triangle of toast , in a plastic cup. Nobody apart from the birthday girl ate it and we were scolded for leaving it. We played one round of pass the parcel where my friend won the only and only prize after 20 seconds . The whole thing lasted 5 minutes before we were ushered out again. Very very strange and this was in 1990 and her parents drove new cars etc. They had all attended many other kids birthday parties including mine /my sisters and my mum always went OTT. It was like her mum and gone waaaaay the other way 🤷🏼‍♀️😂

Some of the responses on this thread are a bit cruel. This one in particular.

@Tractordiggerdump

At a birthday party, white bread & butter with sprinkles..🤮

@Tractordiggerdump I think you could have been at my Dd’s party! Her bff from Oz introduced her to it- they called it fairy bread and it was very special treat. Usually cut into shapes with big cookie cutters!!

I will only have gravy if my mum or myself makes it as i saw my ex SIL put fat out of the chip pan when making hers to thicken it up. I did actually vomit when i saw this happening it was so gross.

When I was young, in rural Ireland, an old guy used to make us sandwiches that consisted of fresh white bread, covered in fresh butter and sugar! They were delicious!

@hedgehogger1

I remember on the French exchange, back in the day when you just stayed at someone's house. The getting in from school snack was a hunk of baguette with a plain chocolate bar in it. That's my kind of snack

Pain au chocolate :)

@Dontfuckingsaycheese

In the 70s I had a best friend called Suzanne. I was out their house once when they were having tea (not sure why they didn’t give me any…) but they were having sausage sandwiches 😮😮😮😮 I had just never seen a family have a tea that was so - well- in-family-tea like!!! Now of course I love a sausage sandwich! I’d think nothing of having it for tea!! How I’ve changed!!

What is "in-family-tea like" ?

As a child, went to a friends house for dinner. The mum asked if I liked tikka masala, I said yes. Come dinner time she puts a plate of what looks like lots of chunks of chicken in the sauce on the plate.

It was thickly sliced banana. Banana curry. I've never forgotten it.