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.

At the time I hated them but looking back Sundays were wonderful.

Mum would cook a roast, terrified of the pressure cooker. Some awful country show would be on the radio and she'd be singing along whilst dad read the papers.
Afternoons were lazy, no Internet and whatever big movie the BBC had on.

Tea was usually sandwiches, cucumber and onion that had been soaking in vinegar all day with salmon followed by the rice pudding mum had put in after lunch. If I was lucky I got the skin. Sometimes it was a tin of fruit cocktail and evaporated milk.

Simple times. I still crave mums rice pudding now and can never make it anything like as nice as she did.

@Lemonsandlemonade

Something I do is beans on toast with mayonnaise 🙈. I only ever serve it to myself but people think I’m weird for that one.

Nothing weird with that. I add grated cheese to this and it so good

@KilledByWitches

At the time I hated them but looking back Sundays were wonderful.

Mum would cook a roast, terrified of the pressure cooker. Some awful country show would be on the radio and she'd be singing along whilst dad read the papers.
Afternoons were lazy, no Internet and whatever big movie the BBC had on.

Tea was usually sandwiches, cucumber and onion that had been soaking in vinegar all day with salmon followed by the rice pudding mum had put in after lunch. If I was lucky I got the skin. Sometimes it was a tin of fruit cocktail and evaporated milk.

Simple times. I still crave mums rice pudding now and can never make it anything like as nice as she did.

I was traumatized as a child after our pressure cooker exploded showering my Paddington bear in mashed potato.

@Babyroobs poor Paddington!!!
It had never actually exploded or given her cause to think it would, but she go at the weight with a spoon wrapped in a tea towel at arms length. It was funny.

I use an instant pot now and I always think of her brandishing her spoon when I release the pressure.

I can remember my sister and her husband going to lunch at a friends and the friends partner was hoofing around grabbing his dogs cock and balls. He then went on to cook WITHOUT WASHING HIS HANDS!!

This was at least 30 years ago and I can still remember my bils outrage, I can't decide what he was most appalled by.. The fact he was grabbing his dogs genitals or the fact he hadn't washed his hands....... Kudos to him tho. He told him he was disgusting and they both walked out.

Ooh Yorkshire's for pudding. In my house we have them with jam. I have raspberry, the kids have strawberry jam and squirty cream. Going to have to try them with syrup now!

I also put jam in rice pudding. I thought that was normal though??

Baked potato with beans and cheese and lots of mayo is the best! They used to do a Pizza Hut pizza which had mayo on it. It was really nice.

My dd went to tea with a friend. They were given tomato ketchup sandwiches!

I have one. As a child I was invited to a friends birthday party and the Aunty went round the table with a saucepan of cold water in which all the kids had to wash their fingers in, as a finger bowl but defeats its purpose once more than one person has dipped their mangy hands in it. I just didn’t know what to do 🤢

@KilledByWitches

At the time I hated them but looking back Sundays were wonderful.

Mum would cook a roast, terrified of the pressure cooker. Some awful country show would be on the radio and she'd be singing along whilst dad read the papers.
Afternoons were lazy, no Internet and whatever big movie the BBC had on.

Tea was usually sandwiches, cucumber and onion that had been soaking in vinegar all day with salmon followed by the rice pudding mum had put in after lunch. If I was lucky I got the skin. Sometimes it was a tin of fruit cocktail and evaporated milk.

Simple times. I still crave mums rice pudding now and can never make it anything like as nice as she did.

I can feel the happiness in your memory of this, what a lovely post!

I know a family who eat breakfast over kitchen sink so not too make a mess!

My v v North Yorkshire grandpa always used to have some Wensleydale with his apple pie, and I think Granny used to sometimes do a pie crust with cheese in it (she was surprisingly adventurous in the kitchen). My DF still has crumbly Yorkshire cheese with fruitcake if it is on offer.
The other thing this thread makes me think of is having to leave a young Quaker gathering in the 1990s because they had decided to go fully vegan- I did not know then that my IBS is fodmap sensitive but after 24 hours I thought I was going to die from the pain and bloating and all the poo. My DM came to rescue me but it took weeks for my system to recover from all the beans. The fully vegan policy was adopted afaik and I never when to another residential meeting. To this day I am inclined to get a bit shouty when people tell me I need to adopt a plant based diet to be more eco.

The meat rummaging MIL reminds me of DH's aunt who every time I cook a roast and invite her along with MIL, SIL and FIL, she waits till everyone's eaten and then gets to the meat tray and leftovers and "sorts through it: with her hands...transferring things onto one plate to keep....

She never washes her hands so all the leftovers are ruined! This is the same aunt who makes a dish and licks the spoon openly and repeatedly as she preps.

I can never seem to beat her to the leftovers before she's groped them all. I always offer them to her to take home and she never will, so we're left with them!

As children we went to stay with an aunt up north. The first morning she served tripe and onion for breakfast! Guess who has not eaten it since?

@marton4710

As children we went to stay with an aunt up north. The first morning she served tripe and onion for breakfast! Guess who has not eaten it since?

I mean who does that? Some people have no insight do they? Kids eat cereal and toast in general....there's always some who like cooked breakfasts but it's best and safest to have cereal, toast and various spreads available!

@FlatteredFool

I'm making fairy bread at Halloween but might make it ghoulish colours and call it fairy fright bread or something. Dc would love it.

There are some truly disgusting things on this thread 🤢

Not Scary Bread?

@HarrisonStickle

Nobody outside Scotland calls squash “diluting juice”!

That's hilarious. I used to live in Scotland, and have always found it difficult to name this product. Squash seems really alien (makes me think of fruit being literally squashed by sitting on it), but at the same time no one here calls it diluting juice, but I've always gone with the latter because it sounds more right to me, even though I know I'm out on my own with it!

I'm actually a Northerner, hence tea with meals and a slices of bread and butter with my soup.

Is squash / “diluting juice” what we call cordial in Australia?

@MacMahon

Cracking an egg on a pizza before it goes in the oven.

Pizza Florentine? 😋

@CrankyFrankie

Some of these have had me in stitches, especially the iceberg lettuce ones!

Something that has stuck with me is being at a friend’s house, watching her mum feed the baby spaghetti hoops. They were so piping hot that her way of cooling them down was by putting each spoonful fully into her mouth first and then regurgitating it onto the spoon for the baby. I was only little myself and have I feeling I was very close up to the mum and very obviously transfixed by it all.

Also, ketchup - my lovely cousin who is a genuine foodie has not outgrown a real love of the stuff. I’ve heard her utter, as she douses her food in it, how she just needs something to cut through the richness. I also remember my husband saying ‘Urm, you’ve something in your hair’, to which she put the hair in her mouth and sucked it away before matter-of-factly noting, ‘ketchup.’

In some cultures it's the norm for mothers to suck the food before.giving to baby, it's a way of protecting them from burns or any other nasty surprises. Just like birds do ☺

@Pinklittle

Went to a friends house when I was younger and for pudding we had iced buns (iced fingers) that the mum had cut in half and buttered! Wtf!!!!

I love an iced bun with butter. Though I do remember a friend turning her nose up when I had this as a teen

Being given a spoon to eat a pot noodle with 😕

Does anyone have a proper chip pan?

What's wrong with eating a Pot Noodle with a spoon?

1980s
At a primary school friends house , they had full dinners cling film covered on plates in the freezer. Mum announced what the options were and microwaved your selection.
Everyone took their dinner and sat in front of the television to eat.
Even the toddler sat on floor in front of the television.

@PinkPrawns2

A colleague once brought to the Christmas buffet a prawn mayo and banana salad...

I was also served raw broccoli with a hot meal in the US

I wonder if they'd seen a recipe for banana prawn salad (banana prawns being an actual type of prawn in Australia, at least) and got the idea wrong?