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 think we were the odd ones.. my mum doesn’t like waste, and she doesn’t really “do” leftovers, so she always used to cook exactly what we needed, and no more. This was the norm to me as a kid, but my ex was visibly confused to be asked how many roast potatoes he wanted with his dinner before she started cooking it.
The flip side for me was showing up at his parents for Sunday tea, and she’d just put the broccoli on to boil. We apologised as we thought we must have got our times wrong and been late. Nope. Dinner wasn’t for over an hour.. that’s just how long she cooked it. She also made her “roast” potatoes in the deep fat fryer.

I’ve reheated turkey in gravy before (for Boxing Day hot rolls).

@Flufferty

I love a bowl of hot Brussels sprouts with vinegar. My DH is horrified

wow so do I but I also add a healthy (not) dollop of Daddies Brown Sauce x

Thinking about it the same boyfriend’s mum cooked the Xmas meat the day before, sliced it, then reheated it by pouring gravy over it and putting the whole thing back in the oven..

One member of my partners family.

If anything contains mince it's never ever broken up and is just left as huge bland chunks

The skin from a roast chicken is taken off and BINNED (the first time I saw this I looked on in horror and saved it before it got there!)

Leftovers apparently don't exist in their house, everything left over will go in the bin unless it's been saved for Boxing Day, and the rest of the turkey is also saved for a weeks worth of turkey curry (dry re cooked turkey and a jar of sauce with stodgy rice).

Oh. Just remembered as a teenager/early 20s visiting my husband's great aunt and she gave us cups of tea with condensed or evaporated milk in. It was disgusting.

@wantanotherdog I haven't tried it in tea but condensed milk in coffee is lovely (if you like sugary coffee!). It's the norm in Vietnam and someone there told me it's because they didn't have fridges for a long time and even now a lot of poorer people don't. It's too hot there to keep milk fresh even for a few hours. Perhaps the great aunt picked it up for a similar reason.

ExMil used to say to me ‘haven’t you ever heard of cold cuts?’ If I asked to warm my meat in the microwave to have with my hot veg. But I always consider cold cuts cold meats with salads, bread and pickles etc. Not hot gravy poured over fridge cold meat.

She also served the meanest portions of dinner to everyone (2 small new pots, 6 pennies of carrot, 1 floret of broccoli and 1 thin slice of meat) then bring out the most ridiculous amount of biscuits and sweets for afters. She was tiny with a sedentary job and a sweet tooth but her 3 active 6ft+ Sons would get straight up from the table and eat a whole loaf of bread and a box of cornflakes. I was always starving as I don’t like sweet things. She once did half a keg of lamb for 7 of us and had enough for a second meal the next day. I cannot imagine how to get 14 servings out of half a leg of lamb - It only does 2 of us usually!

@NormallyFairlyLevelHeaded I do the same as your BIL.

Waldorf salad can be tricky.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoUH43nI4w

[quote pennysays]@TReXX you’re the winner. Sultanas is fine but serving only one person at the table tinned pasta shapes. Amazing.[/quote]
I know someone who's son doesn't like salad or many vegetables, so she substitutes it for a whole tin of spaghetti hoops.
The son in question was 17 when I first met him and must be about 22/23 now!

I am from Lancashire too and growing up my Mum always served a meal with bread and butter and a cup of tea-I still do this now, Love a cup of tea with my meal.
Whenever Mum had guests she would make them cups of tea and always, always bring out a plate of biscuits(usually about 20)

I remember going to my friends house when we were kids and her mum used to give us celery and salt as a snack-lots of celery plonked in a tall glass with the salt shaker to pour into the groove in the Celery.
Another friends mum gave us "chucky butties"-a tea cake hollowed out and stuffed full with smashed up crisps( only owrked with ready salted-I loved it)

You are mistaken. The skin of a rice pudding is horrible, burnt, and quite likely poisonous.

For this reason, it must be scrupulously removed to protect children from it, and the man of the house is obliged to eat it all so that no harmful traces remain.

Taking one for the team, Piglet?

What a wonderful, protective dad you are.

This has reminded me that one of my in-laws always roasts a beef joint in advance, slices it and freezes the slices with gravy. I am very particular about gravy and this always makes me feel perturbed.

@Pinkfairylights

I've just remembered that when I was a child Dad would drink the juice out of the mushy peas tin.

BOAK

[quote AlbertBridge]@LunaMay

I just can't get my chips to go like hers. It sounds funny but it's one of the things i really miss about her.

I'd find an old cookery book - written around the time your Nan would've been first married snd learning to cook - and follow those instructions. It's probably the fat the chips were cooked in - maybe lard? [/quote]
Dripping

The best chips are cooked in artery-clogging beef dripping.

Trust me on this one.

@Mrsjayy

You don't need to put preserved things like marmalade and marmite in the fridge who is doing that?

I find it I keep jam at room temperature it gets mouldy.

You don't need to put preserved things like marmalade and marmite in the fridge who is doing that?

I do this too, goes mouldy otherwise

I can envisage putting marmalade or jam in the fridge, but marmite? It's pretty much entirely salt. There is nothing in marmite that could go mouldy.

Stayed as a child with a lovely family friend where they laid the table for breakfast, 'a la b&b, every night (definitely not just because we were staying).

Gordon Ramsey was on This Morning last week describing how to cook the turkey on Christmas eve and serve it cold next day with hot gravy on it. Phil and Holly didn't look convinced.

I remember my dad pouring the pea juice over mashed potato and telling us it was green gravy.

Oh I’ve just remembered, I drink the brine from tuna tins, I absolutely love it

I drink the brine from tuna tins, I absolutely love it

That’s just wrong 🤮

Jam and marmalade only go mouldy if you use the same spoon/knife that you use for butter. If crumbs and other spreads don't contaminate it, you can keep it at room temperature for months.

Marmite doesn't need such tender care and can last for decades!

Is pea juice the water peas are boiled in?

Jam and marmalade only go mouldy if you use the same spoon/knife that you use for butter.

I was dating a lovely guy. First time I stayed over he made me breakfast. Set it all up. Was spoons there for some reason 🤔 at age 31 I discovered THE JAM SPOON.
First thing I did is FaceTime my mum. She was 57 and her life was transformed. Feel like we and a lot of people we asked about this led very deprived, ignorant lives.