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.

@CoffeeBeansGalore

Grandmother served cold tinned rice pudding with tinned fruit. If she had bothered to ask we would have chosen just the fruit. She was most annoyed that we refused to eat it.

Lucky you, that you were able to refuse to eat it. If I refused any food that was put in front of me I got a clip round the ears.

One speciality I quite clearly remember, at a friend’s house, was a delicious sage and onion pie. 🤢 No meat, just sage and onion stuffing mix with some (barely cooked) onions in a rock hard pastry pie. I ate it as fast as I could to get it out of the way….big mistake….friends mother picked my plate up and put another helping on it, seeing as how I must have been really hungry to eat it so fast! 🤮

My husband eats jacket potatoes with hot beans and cheese..... and cold tuna mayo, AND coleslaw??!

I have to say, I could not get my head around this when I first saw him do it, but actually, it's not so bad 🤷‍♀️

@whoopy1 ha like Jim from Friday night dinner with the rice pudding 🤣

We eat bread with every meal where I come from (Spain). It’s actually the first thing you’re served in a restaurant and it’s considered rude not to offer your guests copious amounts of it.

Where I live now, rice pudding is located next to the yoghurts in the shops. Yup, it’s only sold cold. No such thing as rice pudding served cold. You must also store it in the fridge. It’s bloody delicious.

I went to a birthday party when I was 7 or 8, in this kid’s garden. The parents hadn’t got around to preparing the food before we all arrived. So everyone was directed to a table where we had to assemble our own sandwiches. Piles of bread, cheese, ham and so on. Thinking back it gave us something to do and it saved them some work. But we thought it was really strange back then.

Exs mother used to make rice pudding. Then leave it to go cold and stodgy. Then carve a wedge out for everyone, to be eaten cold. I love a hot homemade rice pudding, but a huge chunk of cold solid rice pudding.....

My grandmother served DH and I blood pudding and to my shame we managed to just eat everything else. She’s an excellent cook and grown up happy to eat any part of an animal like pigs Trotters and brain which I admire as much less wasteful , but I cant bring myself to. Chicken Liver is as far as I’ll go.

I can only think of meals I’ve enjoyed really at other people’s houses . They are usually better at cooking than me!

My grandma puts grapes and slices of tangerine into a salad, which she calls a SALID.

She also serves "POMPADOMS" with a stir fry.

She is also well known for serving rice pudding with "skin" which horrifies my very middle class DH, he is so polite he never says anything even when asked if he wants extra skin.

She also has form for having condiments on the table that are WAY out of date, forgot to tell dear old DH and he had some horseradish from the 90s with his roast - let's say he's learnt his lesson!

• No such thing as rice pudding Served hot

@Bluntness100

my dad will always serve up foods into a small buffet if he's cooking for anyone more than just himself (even if he's making homemade breaded chicken and chips, he won't plate up EVER, always puts it in bowls on the side in the kitchen and starts a buffet line - even if its just the 3 of us). Even when cooking for just him and my step mum, he'll decant the chips or rice or whatever the 'side' is into a large bowl. I understand not wanting to serve too much, but why can't he ask as he serves?

I do this, I never ever serve, i only did it when my daughter was little. Past that I put the food in bowls and let everyone help themselves, I hate being served a portion too unless in a restaurant.

I am the opposite! Hate having to serve myself and take my own portion, especially as a guest at someone else's table. Always end up taking less than I actually want and remaining hungry because I'm conscious of taking too much and being judged LOL.

I prefer rice pudding cold I'm not fussed if it's hot.

[quote ImFree2doasiwant]@Limer were you never tempted by the hot meaty milk and the soft sausages?? ? I have never met anyone who has heard of sausages boiled in milk, where is your Dh from?[/quote]
My Mum used to cook sausages in milk for my Dad. He had it served on a think slice of bread. It made my Mum feel ill!
She thinks it originated in Norfolk..

Friend’s mum used to make “pizza” which was slice of white bread, poured tinned tomatoes on top (so the bread was all soggy & bloated) then grated cheese on top then microwaved it

think thick

I often serve crumble with stones...... can't be bothered with the faff of pre-stoning. I stand by baked beans in shepherd's pie cus it's yummy. Also, bread with soup..... obvs. And I serve steamed veg with most meals even pasta, just to be healthy. Like to get my 5 a day!

Cold sardine soup served by a very eccentric friend of my late DPs. It was as horrific as it sounds.

Cold set chicken custard with what looked like a big lump of snot in the middle at a Japanese friends lunch. It was just so alien to my taste buds.

Will everybody please stop saying “hot meaty milk”. I think it may give me nightmares.

My dad likes tongue and often serves it if we go round for lunch. I get the heebie jeebies even looking at it. Goodness knows where he’s even buying it from these days.

@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!!!!

That made me laugh 😂

@hariothoyle.
Of course you can still make duckies, I do it still whenever I have soup.

My mil does spag bol with frozen Iceland mince 🤮. It really is grim.

My dad was a chef and our dinners were always beautifully presented. My mil just dumps it on the plate in a pile in any old order. Literally tips it onto the plate then shakes the plate a bit to even it out and then dumps the next thing on top. We get a roast dinner pile on our plates and it turns my stomach.

Why is bread with soup weird?!

[quote Anothermuddywalk]We did it too, and used to say the "tinker tailor" rhyme as we counted them. A quick Google suggests it was a traditional thing www.agefotostock.com/age/en/details-photo/boy-and-girl-counting-plum-stones-on-a-plate-tinker-tailor-etc/MEV-11079104[/quote]
This! It is totally a thing. Still do it now. If you take the stone out of things like cherries you lose so much of the fruit.

My MIL once poured homemade Lentil soup over a chicken breast on plain pasta for my mum (who had made the soup). My DM said it was the most tasteless thing she hd eaten!

@BIoodyStupidJohnson

Schoolfriend’s family had a toaster in pretty much every room. Lounge — toaster. Dining room — toaster. Bedrooms — toaster.

That sounds like a good way to attract mice!!

@MydogWillow

What does everyone have with soup if not buttered bread????

I reckon the judgement is on the type of bread...reckon they may have been expecting rolls/crusty bread?

Weird though, any bread with soup is good.

I had a boyfriend who was very weird as a teen.

Each member of the house was allowed one bottle of soft drink per week. That was it. And it wasn't for sharing.

So when I went to the house I was rarely offered a drink and when I was it was tap water. The drink from the bottle was only for my boyfriend.

Same applied with mealtimes. Everything was measured out per person ( once cooked) and also weighed. I was never invited for dinner or offered snacks as I just wasn't in the equation.

They were fairly affluent as a family so there was no real reason for this carry on.