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.

I wondered why there was a white film on my baked beans with my cooked breakfast. My mother in law to be ( friends first). Fried them in the pan after cooking the bacon and sausage., strange looking but tasted delicious!

My mind was blown when I stayed with a London uni friend and her mum thought nothing of doing a roast chicken dinner on, say, a Tuesday night. With gravy (or more a "jus" made from the juices. And all the veg (although boiled new potatoes rather than roast).

In my house roasts were strictly for Sundays and it had literally never occurred to me that people would make a roast on a weekday.

Also in my house, the roast dinner was a long production involving many pots and pans, washing up, hot fat and cabbage smell and my parents getting hot and bothered, bickering over who didn't turn the pan down etc. Kitchen was always boiling hot. This London friend's mum just simply buttered a chicken, sprinkled it with herbs, popped it in to roast, steamed the veggies and made a tasty jus with the minimum of fuss and washing up created. I was so impressed.

We ate pretty well as kids - not much money but cheap cuts of meat always and home grown veg and potatoes, so DM would often serve up heart or tongue.

The oddest combo I ever heard of was a gang of catering staff who had bacon and marmalade toast on their morning break - And it was amazing! Just toast, marmalade and a few grilled rashers thrown together.

I remember sharing a recipe for an easy spicy chicken & rice dish with someone - it's a crowdpleaser in my house and not a single person disliked it. Except this person. Very vocal about how disgusting it was and 'how could I ever eat it??'
Turns out she swapped out the chicken breast for beef mince, because, you know, they are totally the same, right? She also swapped the chilli powder for sage, swapped the cumin seeds for some other sort of herb and the rice for pasta and left out the coconut milk. FFS. There's like, 7 things in it and swapped or left out most.

@HotSauceCommittee

PIL often want a cup of tea with their meal. I have enough to do without making tea while I am dishing up.

Um, that's totally normal. It's seen as really strange on the continent, but in the UK it tends to be posh people who insist on having their tea/coffee afterwards. Us plebs have them together. Consider the traditional English breakfast.

@monarchoftheglen

my flatmate at uni. Super noodles, mayonnaise, tinned tuna and curry powder. all mixed together

You’ve just reminded me of my very posh but utterly clueless uni flatmate who used to eat rice and ketchup for dinner.

Just a vote for cold rice pudding out of the tin. Yum. We used to have that, also pork knuckle pie (complete with some of the thick fatty skin). Sugar sandwiches. Mars bar sandwiches ( thickly sliced, from the fridge, in white bread)
In Cornwall we have 'thunder and lightning' which is sliced bread spread with 'treacle' (Lyles golden syrup) then a layer of clotted cream. Bleddy gorgeous mind.

Plain white spaghetti. Lots of it, boiled in water.
Nothing else at all. No sauce, butter, even a smidgin of oil.

Both adults worked; they can’t have been that poor.

My mum used to love syrup butties. I think it must have been a rare wartime treat at first when there was nothing else sweet. She also had dripping butties as a child. She also continues to make salmon sandwiches with the salmon mixed with spread to make it go further. (Note that salmon is in a sandwich and not a buttie.)

Sunday "tea" we had bread and butter to dunk in the tinned peaches and custard, heaven

Not strange really but I always hated it when I went to a friends for dinner as a child and we weren’t allowed a drink as that would fill us up and we wouldn’t eat our food. Can’t say I’ve ever had that problem 😂 and just meant I was really thirsty!!

@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

Some families only have gravy with roast beef. I was quite horrified at Christmas dinner.

A relative would make a big tin of tomato soup go four ways by watering it down and that was the sort of dinner we'd get when me and brother were staying there. I remember being very bloody hungry! They're still weird about portion size - now I take my kids there on occasion I have to scrimp on what I serve myself as there's never enough to have as much as you actually want. I have to smuggle pepperonis and bananas in for us to top up. I suspect there may be eating disorders at the root of it tbh :/

Counting plum stones or cherry pips in puddings was a fun thing - "tinker tailor soldier sailor rich man, poor man beggarman thief"

Yes to Tinker/Tailor with the prune stones from prunes & custard, which was pretty much the only ‘dessert’ I remember my Mum ever serving. I’d completely forgotten about it but happy to be reminded for the warm and fuzzy nostalgia.

One of mine that I’m slightly ashamed to admit to: roast potato baguette.
As a teen/early 20 something, I worked in a pub kitchen along with a load of other youngsters. On the Sunday lunch shift, every single one of us would arrive hungover 9 times out of 10. We arrived early to clean the BnB rooms and prep the veg for Sunday lunch and then we were allowed a short break and something to eat before we opened the doors. I discovered the joy of a buttered baguette with hot, crushed roast potatoes in it. A sprinkling of salt and some mint sauce and perhaps a little gravy. Perfect hangover food and set me up for the next 5 hours of sweaty graft in a hot kitchen! I still crave it now from time to time.

We were invited for dinner by some young Americans and were given a dish of salad with marshmallows on top and a glass of Doctor Peppers....very strange.

a buttered baguette with hot, crushed roast potatoes in it. A sprinkling of salt and some mint sauce and perhaps a little gravy

Ooh that sounds wonderful!

Not mine (fortunately) but friends of mine once went to visit friends of theirs, and they were served ONE tin of Stagg chilli between four adults, with rice. Nothing else.
Apparently when they left, my male friend started the car and said "Where's the nearest chippy?"
It wasn't because the hosts were skint, either. Both had well paid jobs. My friend reckoned they'd just dished up what they'd usually have had for two of them. Still not a lot....

@waterlego OMG!!! Why haven't l heard of (or even though of!) a roast potato baguette before?! With salt and mint sauce!? That sounds amazing!

waterlego - I can relate! I was a chambermaid (sorry "housekeeping") in the 90s and we cured our teenage hangovers scoffing the leftover fried eggs, bacon and baked beans from the breakfast buffet on our 11 o clock break. Draped on really good granary toast piping hot from the industrial toaster and soaking in real butter.

Yours sounds far fancier and very very deliciouse!

A few years ago after l'd had major surgery, a kind friend came to take me out to lunch. We didn't want to go far (l was still on crutches, and sore) so we went to a local Toby Carvery.
My friend said she'd have the carvery (hardly suprisingly) but l don't eat meat, so l ordered a prawn marie rose baguette. Which, when it came, was lovely, but I was amused to see it was accompanied by roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings. All of which were lovely! Just never occurred to me to put those things together.

People do things in different ways - when kids were little my local friends and family if we were socialising together at the weekend would give the toddlers a kids tea then put them to bed then have wine and a nice adult dinner say curry or something French and chicken-y. We went to stay with my old school friend in midlands. The Saturday night we had baked potatoes at 6pm with all the toddlers and no wine. Thought Dh might cry.

My other half, who is a very fit, otherwise health conscious marathon runner/triathlete, has a strange liking for 'soup cocktails' as he calls them.
He'll mix two tins of soup together and heat them up. Favourite is oxtail (bleurgh) and tomato.
The thought of it makes me heave.

Properjob Yes to cold rice pudding out of the tin! Love it.
And have you ever tried toasted Mars Bar sandwiches?

Find it strange some here don’t have tea or coffee with food. On Christmas Day and New Years Day we have alcohol with our meal. At the end of that dinner we have tea or coffee. We have a hot drink, tea or coffee with all our meals. All families I know do this.

My Mum was actually quite wealthy but very frugal and would always shop in the reduced aisle, we lived in a poor city we used to have:
Sole, tuna steaks, sea bass, crabs, langoustines
With kale, freshly cooked beetroot,
Pudding lychee, physalis, kumquats and random fruit sold for pennies!
She was delighted when could pick up four fish fillets for less than £1!

I used to get so excited going to friends who had a pasta bake and sausages and chips!

@Dnaltocs

Find it strange some here don’t have tea or coffee with food. On Christmas Day and New Years Day we have alcohol with our meal. At the end of that dinner we have tea or coffee. We have a hot drink, tea or coffee with all our meals. All families I know do this.

The only person I know who has tea/coffee with food is MIL. Everyone else I know has water, or maybe wine.