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 born in the South dh got a shock when I told him tongue was tongue. I'm a northerner. He was so horrified I told him it wasn't really. Once he'd calmed down I told him the truth. He's never eaten it since. To be fair, I'm not sure I knew what it was when fed as a child or at least never thought about it. Tbh I wasn't looked after well at all so I ate anything I was given as wasn't given much.

Why is bread with soup weird?!

I think the issue is using plain sliced bread instead of rolls or bakery bread. MIL wouldn't dare serve sliced bread out of the bag with soup. If there isn't an alternative, she makes french toast style croutons by slicing them into small squares, dipping in egg & herb mixture and frying until crisp.

My Aunt has a load of food issues. my cousins grew up with her calling them fat pigs. It will come as no surprise they are both bulimic now. Anyway, we went to dinner once and she served 5 salmon fillets between 7 adults.

@Standrewsschool

I know an elderly couple who still lay a breakfast table, have their main meal at lunch and have tea in the evening - bread, jam, cheese, cake etc, with tea.

To be fair that sounds amazing - I think I will start doing that at weekends!

@TheGrumpyGoat

‘Hot meaty milk’ is one of the worst combinations of words I’ve ever come across

It sounds like something out of the bad sex award [jealous]

Ha HA HAAAAA not jealous!! I was trying to do which apparently is [ envy ] not [jealous].

What's wrong with a cuppa with your meal ?

The thought of a hot drink with a meal makes my stomach feel queasy, I don’t know why. Then again I don’t drink tea anyway (scandalous I know ).

@sleepyshiftworker

A friend of mine, dear dear friend - serves absolutely everything with a handful of dried crispy salad leaves. The sort that are half dead and crap in the bag before they even leave the shop. At the end of every meal they get scraped back into a bowl and put back in the fridge so as to not waste them as no one eats them.

I have a friend who does this too!! LOL

[quote RosesAndHellebores]@ShagMeRiggins - ha ha - I get your point. I should have said lengthways or cross ways.[/quote]
Thank you! I do feel somewhat relieved.

But am now wondering if this is rounded, rectangular bread or square bread.

Because on square bread the 90 degree rotation is still a secret weapon.

Anyway, what a plonker’s demand.

What's wrong with a cuppa with your meal ?
Can’t speak for everyone and there’s no “wrong” – suspect it’s entirely a class/regional/upbringing thing of whether you’re used to it or not – but for me it’s:

• Water and wine or beer only with food
• Cocktails are a pre-food thing, finish your G&T first or switch drinks
• Fizzy drinks are by and large unspeakable
• Tea and coffee are standalone drinks
• There are exceptions, so a mid-afternoon cake or scone: yes, tea, no question. Fish and chips as an evening meal: yes, tea in a cup, not a mug. Greasy spoon hangover breakfast: tea in a mug, not a cup

Perhaps I should draw a diagram or chart.

Anyway, hot tea/hot drink plus hot food just feels wrong to me (aside from exceptions above). It doesn’t complement the food the way wine does, or act as a neutral the way water does. It overrides it – only fish and chips, fry-ups and cakes can cope with the audacity of tea. Coffee overrides breakfast tastes, but that’s fine, I don’t want to taste my misery muesli, I just want fuel and caffeine.

@AppleBlueberryPie

Why is bread with soup weird?!

I think the issue is using plain sliced bread instead of rolls or bakery bread. MIL wouldn't dare serve sliced bread out of the bag with soup. If there isn't an alternative, she makes french toast style croutons by slicing them into small squares, dipping in egg & herb mixture and frying until crisp.

Plain sliced bread with soup is totally normal.

@hotmeatymilk

What's wrong with a cuppa with your meal ? Can’t speak for everyone and there’s no “wrong” – suspect it’s entirely a class/regional/upbringing thing of whether you’re used to it or not – but for me it’s:

• Water and wine or beer only with food
• Cocktails are a pre-food thing, finish your G&T first or switch drinks
• Fizzy drinks are by and large unspeakable
• Tea and coffee are standalone drinks
• There are exceptions, so a mid-afternoon cake or scone: yes, tea, no question. Fish and chips as an evening meal: yes, tea in a cup, not a mug. Greasy spoon hangover breakfast: tea in a mug, not a cup

Perhaps I should draw a diagram or chart.

Anyway, hot tea/hot drink plus hot food just feels wrong to me (aside from exceptions above). It doesn’t complement the food the way wine does, or act as a neutral the way water does. It overrides it – only fish and chips, fry-ups and cakes can cope with the audacity of tea. Coffee overrides breakfast tastes, but that’s fine, I don’t want to taste my misery muesli, I just want fuel and caffeine.

Agree with every word of this!

Soup is one of the few dishes that requires a side plate for the bread, of whatever description. How else do you spoon the soup, hopefully in a little swirl, onto the plate to mop with bread, preferably good bread.

One should never dunk.

This thread is hilarious.

We used to be fed sugar sandwiches by my grandparents, lemonade with a spoonful of sugar too as the bubbles were dangerous and the sugar apparently counteracted the danger 🤷🏻‍♀️. My grandfather used to give us slices of Mars bar which he'd frozen so we sucked them, coating our teeth in sugar!

My stepmother had lots of specialities, mainly involving pork. She loved pork chops fried in sunflower oil then grilled with double cream slathered on top and finished off with a squire of lemon.

DH's parents first meal for me was sandwiches which were v v thin white bread, the smallest scraping of margarine and dry tune in one and dry prawns which had been washed under the tap to remove and flavour of the sea from them.

Literally every vegetable they serve is pot luck as to what it is as it's all boiled for long enough to turn it into beige slop and then served at room temperature. Even courgettes, boiled courgettes are not nice.

They defrost chicken on the radiator for Sunday lunch and if you don't finish your meal they scrape it into a Tupperware, freeze it and make roast soup for themselves. And anything that isn't eaten at any meal is frozen and made into another meal or soup. Chinese, a buffet, everything ends up as soup. 🤢

SIL likes a buffet too, doesn't end up as soup but she allows her cats to sample things straight from the buffet table before humans get a look in.

@LowlandLucky

What's wrong with a cuppa with your meal ?

Exactly.

I don't know why people are being so sniffy. Unless it's a class thing?

One of my SIL's version of pizza back in the late eighties.

It was pastry in a deep rectangular baking tin with the pastry going up the sides and over the top edge.

She smeared tomato puree in the bottom of it before adding a slight sprinkle of mild cheddar and a few small cubes of spam.

It looked a bit like one of those giant jam tarts that were cut and served to school kids back in the day.

I am sure she had used a packet bread pizza dough mix to make the pastry but didn't try to rise it so it was really hard where there was no tomato puree.

It wasn't terrible but it didn't look like pizza.

Served it with the thin greasy partially cooked white floppy chips that were her speciality because that was how she liked them. These chips were made for tea nearly every day with something like fishfingers, a frozen burger or a little frozen pie or pasty from Iceland or Kwik Save. Spoon full of baked beans. Served with at least one whole sliced white loaf of bread and margerine that anything up to eight kids would fight over. I was one of those kids plenty of times. It was ok. Not much experimenting could be done to it so it was preferable to the few times she was in the mood to cook something new and different.

I liked her a lot in those days and would always find something to be complimentary about even if she had gone way off tangent.

I remember her weirdnesses fondly, even if my digestive system doesn't.

This particular SIL, I have loads, used to be the head dinner lady in a primary school in the days when the staff actually cooked from scratch.

She was fully trained and qualified but she had some strange ideas about food when it came to her own family.

Slightly grey rice pudding on top of boiled apple and chilled in cut glass footed sundae bowls was another, thankfully rare, treat. It was as close to looking like it came from the local pond in frog spawning season as you would want to get and had an odd smell. Her kids lapped it up but I just couldn't bring myself to touch it. "No thank you, looks lovely but I am so full" was my friend on those days.

I might sound snooty and judgemental but I remember her food with affection.

She was great at some things. She could turn out a batch of beef and vegetable pasties that would melt in your mouth. Her cake and biscuits also very nice.

She's gone now, by not forgotten. R.I.P complicated sister.

Yes, probably the only time I now have a big mug of tea with a meal is when I have a 'chippy tea' ( 'tea' being evening meal up north )
There is nothing quite as satisfying or relaxing. Pure nostalgia of a 1970's Lancashire upbringing. 🙂

Lots of sliced bread and butter with the fish'n'chips too ( though I prefer wholemeal to white- mortal sin for this meal I concede 😔 )

@SunshineCake1

My born in the South dh got a shock when I told him tongue was tongue. I'm a northerner. He was so horrified I told him it wasn't really. Once he'd calmed down I told him the truth. He's never eaten it since. To be fair, I'm not sure I knew what it was when fed as a child or at least never thought about it. Tbh I wasn't looked after well at all so I ate anything I was given as wasn't given much.

It took a good 15 years of enjoying my (also northern) grandma's tongue sandwiches before I realised that it was actually a tongue. I'm ashamed to say I haven't had it since.

She also served oatcakes which resembled a brown flour pancake/crepe, toasted and buttered, sometimes with cheese. They were delicious but I've not seen them in the south. My grandma's cooking was fantastic.

@Wombat49 is a total class thing. Basically snobbery.

@GlitterSquid

I remember being absolutely aghast as a child (and still am) that my Grandparents -on posh occasions- would have a glass of fresh orange juice as a STARTER. It was to be savoured too, as a very rare and exotic thing.

Crushed up crisps on a pasta bake.

An unnecessary egg. (Basically plonking a poached egg on every dish)

Bean juice! I cook baked beans in their juice but then have to sieve it off. And god forbid I find a 'bean shell'

There'll be more!

The crisps (with melted cheese) are the best bit of a pasta bake!!

Orange juice as a starter used to be common in restaurants. It was when fresh juices as opposed to squash, were rare.

It is odd. Most people I know would have mint sauce with lamb only and Yorkshire puddings only with beef.

I can't be doing with such rules in my life. I have mint sauce and Yorkshire puddings with whatever I choose.

I don't know why people are being so sniffy. Unless it's a class thing?

Not a class thing for me, I come from a very working class background. It’s just the thought of hot milky liquid sloshing round in my stomach with food!

I sometimes have a cup of tea with my lunch or tea, mostly though it's diluting juice. Is that wrong too?

Likewise I have a couple of slices of bread and butter with a bowl of soup. The colour depends on whatever loaf is out at the time. I'm quite taken aback that this isn't a normal thing.