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 was forgetting fish and chips. Chip sarnie is de rigueur.

@cantgetmyheadroundit

What's weird about sliced white bread with soup?

I want to know too! Seems fairly standard.

When I was a child my mum impressed on me that if I went to eat at a friend's house then I had to clear the plate. One day their mum made spag bol, which also contained carrots, baked beans, crumbled up crisps and broccoli. I ate it (though i hated it). She assumed that I loved it as a result, gave me seconds and then every time I went round she made the dreaded spag bol for me

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

We have a running joke that relatives always serve the following as a sunday lunch:

-Mediterranean chicken (think chicken in a tomato and olive sauce)
-Roast potatoes or potato/carrot mash
-Veg
-Yorkshire pudding?!
-Beef gravy

All components are lovely but in combination are weird. I have to make sure I eat each component separately.

Depending on the meal, a plate of buttered, sliced white bread on the table was completely usual, especially on Mondays, which was egg and chips day.

When I was a child, whether at my own or friends' birthday parties, we were all expected to eat bread and butter when the jelly was served.

Egg and chips done well is thing of beauty.

@Workinghardeveryday

I have colitis so my diet is strict to say the least.

I can however eat all meats, fish, potatoes, white bread, rice, pasta, root veg and iceberg lettuce.

Every year when I go to in laws for Boxing Day the only thing I can eat and they know this and also made especially for my meal is a bowl of iceberg lettuce!!!! Yum....

Hang on, I need to know more. What on earth do they serve that doesn't include "all meats, fish, potatoes...root veg" on Boxing Day??

I didn't know we weren't supposed to eat bread with soup. That's the best part!

The sliced and buttered iced bun is a real treat, more so if that iced bun has sultanas in it. It was my favourite breakfast in my first year at university, bought for 20p from the Geology Dept tea bar on my way to lectures (I was just passing, I didn't do Geology).

My dd loves baked beans and peas in cottage pie! I used to make a fancier version but she wouldn't eat it.

Oh just thought of another one..

Went to a friend's house for tea.

Her mum made 'cawl' (soupy stew with meat in it) even though she's been told I was veggie and said that she was happy to cater. She must have forgotten.

She offered to strain the gristly little bits of meat out for me. I felt so awful saying no thank you... Poor woman was mortified, I really felt for her (but not enough to eat it).

Also, my grandmother would always serve slices of buttered white bread with any meal she prepared for us.

I took DS to a birthday party as a toddler. There were about 10 full sized cakes and nothing else. Not even a sandwich, carrot stick or jammy dodger. The mum doing the "catering" had been to all the other parties for the other toddlers in the group so knew the type of things we fed our own children.

I love buttered bread with soup. I think initially it became a thing when times were harder and it was a cheap way to make a meal more filling. I remember my dad saying if there wasn't much money at the end of the week then they'd have buttered bread and bovril.

I think it’s more that it’s sliced white bread and not a roll with the soup that’s an issue. It’s snobbery 🤷‍♀️

I absolutely hate baked beans - it's the taste of the sauce, can't stand Heinz tomato soup either although I like fresh tomato soup - so these stories where baked beans are where they shouldn't be are turning my stomach rather.

I live for these threads

My friends mum served up cheese and bacon sandwiches which were just raw bacon and cheese in between bread then zapped in the microwave. No grilling involved.
Actually quite tasty if you like floppy cheese and bacon and I made it once or twice myself in my stoner years.

My late MIL.

Roasts a chicken for too long, then slices it, removes the skin, leaves it in a plate in the oven. Driest meat I've every tasted. Like a meaty Ryvita.

White bread and butter was always served at tea time in the 60s and 70s when I grew up.
Not in my house much as we were foreigners but always at my friends houses.
I think it harked back to the days of rationing as if you didn't have enough meat to fill you then you could fill up on bread and butter.

I did find it odd though that when we were served tinned fruit cocktail, more bread and butter would be served up.

Oh, and why would you just have a bowl of soup? Bread with/without butter is essential as
1 you need to dunk into your soup
2 you need bread to mop up the remnants

Iceberg lettuce sandwiches at a kids party recently, especially for us as they knew we were vegetarian.

It's the thought that counts!

First Christmas with my in-laws involved mushy peas. They were plopped over the top of everything else . I bloody hate mushy peas too!

I put baked beans in cottage pie. I thought that was fairly standard?!

@DartmoorChef

I'm from Lancashire. Tea with your meal, white bread and butter with soup.. perfectly normal.

Same. Nothing better with Heinz tomato soup than white bread and butter dipped in it

@TomRipley

Iceberg lettuce sandwiches at a kids party recently, especially for us as they knew we were vegetarian.

It's the thought that counts!

I fucking LOVE iceberg lettuce sandwiches. Brown toasted bread, spread with mayo, hunk of lettuce, drizzled in French dressing. Divine.

Bread was standard at meals when I grew up in the 1960s/70s . It was a cheap filler . Nothing like white bread and butter dunked in minced gravy 😁

@Hoppinggreen

DHs family are from Forrin, although they are 2nd gen. First time I went to his Aunties for Sunday lunch she served a very nice normal Sunday roast but there was rice as well. DH had no idea that everyone didn’t have rice with a Sunday roast

My parents always served rice with their Sunday roasts and practically every other meal. I never thought it was unusual as my Granny and aunties did the same. They are from the Caribbean. My DH thought it was odd.