Embarrassingly greedy DH

[Ludicruss]

Today, we had a socially distanced gathering for a handful of people in our garden. It was great, but I'd forgotten about the way DH behaves around food when we're entertaining in our own home.
I was serving the food myself to prevent the risk of any covid contamination, wearing gloves. DH goes to find something to do inside whilst I serve the food for everyone and myself. He reappears when everyone starts eating and serves his own plate. What he then does is finish EVERYTHING off, leaving no possibility for me to return to serve up seconds for anyone. I was mortified. His plate was over flowing and more than doubled everyone elses plate.
I could see him standing at the side of the garden eating away his mountain of food out of the corner of my eye, DM got up to see what was left when she had finished, clearly intending to have some more. But all of it had gone.
I had tipped 3 packets of crisps into one bowl and nobody had asked for any during the first time I was serving, when I looked into the bowl after DHs visit, there were around 8 crisps left in the bottom of it. He had demolished almost all of them.
There was a tiny piece of chicken left and a pitta bread which DM ate as she clearly hadn't finished eating ( she had only wanted a small amount on her plate originally). I was also still hungry.
I had made most of the food and I'm pissed off that my effort was wasted on him stuffing himself with it all.
I was utterly embarrassed.
I made a joke about him eating all the crisps and DH went extremely red in the face. He will no doubt call me out on it later on for embarrassing HIM!
He is very over-weight and embarrassed about it, but nobody is allowed to mention it or his eating habits. And yet he stuffed himself with all the food for the guests.

How do I broach this? I love entertaining, I have really missed it, but he spoilt it for me today.

He doesn't do this when he visits other peoples houses,just at ours.

If there is ever shared food on the table at regular meal times,he always seems to wait until we all have a bit on our plates and then eats everything that's left. Sometimes I find myself filling my own plate with too much before he dives in and eats it all. I rarely serve food this way in th3 evenings because of his greediness. But it can't be helped when entertaining.

What do I say to him?
It's ridiculous.

@Railingsohno its a smallish portion. There are times that would be okay for me, but also times that would leave me hungry.

Some days I need more food than others. Greed is a word used to shame people, you might find thats a sizeable portion for you but its not for everyone. Its not up to you to decide what someone else should eat.

@Bluntness100

Railing, you’re missing the point

When you cater for people it’s not about what you’d personally eat on a normal day. It’s about catering enough so people can enjoy the food and eat their fill. Without judgement.

I can’t even imagine how uncomfortable the guests must have felt when the op gave them three small bags of crisps to share amongst them, called it a large bowl and then publicly embarrassed her husband in front of them all for eating too many.

Yes probably fair enough. Just felt a bit sorry for the OP

I still don’t understand why the OP’s DH was considered rude for eating most of what was left, especially given there wasn’t enough left for even one portion of seconds for anyone if he’d had his permitted amount. Someone gets to eat the last bit, why shouldn’t it be him? Why should he have to be a martyr simply because he was the host?

I suspect the OP’s mother and SIL only took small portions because they realised there wasn’t enough there to start with.

It’s about catering enough so people can enjoy the food and eat their fill. Without judgement.

Exactly! For my normal lunch I take one tortilla wrap out, a portion of cheese or tuna that's no bigger than needed for that wrap, and break a couple of leaves off the lettuce to go in with it.

If I had someone round for lunch, I'd put most of the contents of the fridge on the table and invite them to help themselves to whatever they fancied.

OK I pretty much agree with others:

You under-catered

AND

He should have been sensitive to the amount of food and number of people, and eaten less until they'd had a chance to finish off.

But 2.5 chicken breasts and a couple of pitas is hardly extraordinary. Yes, it would be nice if he had better manners, but you could be a bit more flexible too.

Particularly as these are all things that can be kept and eaten cold. In a situation like that I normally just make loads and then have what's left for leftovers the next day.

It's odd that op claims this isn't a new thing, her dh always does this.
I wonder why she hasn't learnt to up the amounts offered or that he doesn't have a hand in the catering, given that he thinks it's not enough.
Why do this over and over and learn nothing from it?

The guests must feel bloody awkward, being served short rations of food and then listening to an argument about who ate all the crisps.

Someone may have mentioned, before serving ask him does he think you made enough for everyone to have seconds because you would like people to have seconds.

I always err on the side of over catering when I have guests. I’d rather that than be in the OPs situation. Nothing goes to waste. I send a lot of leftovers home with the guests and anything else will form the basis of breakfast lunch and tea for the next couple of days. Mmm - potato salad and chicken kebabs for breakfast!

@ReceptacleForTheRespectable

It’s about catering enough so people can enjoy the food and eat their fill. Without judgement.

Exactly! For my normal lunch I take one tortilla wrap out, a portion of cheese or tuna that's no bigger than needed for that wrap, and break a couple of leaves off the lettuce to go in with it.

If I had someone round for lunch, I'd put most of the contents of the fridge on the table and invite them to help themselves to whatever they fancied.

Exactly. I want people to relax and enjoy themselves when they come to eat here. I'd imagine that's quite hard with someone rationing chicken breasts and pitta breads, to be honest!

What he then does is finish EVERYTHING off, leaving no possibility for me to return to serve up seconds for anyone. I was mortified. His plate was over flowing and more than doubled everyone elses plate.I could see him standing at the side of the garden eating away his mountain of food out of the corner of my eye

Bear in mind this “mountain” of food was two chicken breasts and three Pittas and rhe extras she wished to serve everyone amounted to thr one extra chicken breast he ate and the extra pitta he ate.that was it.

This man has been roundly slaughtered on here, because of what the op wrote about him eating mountains of food.

Because apparently that extra pitta and one extra chicken breast to be shared out amongst the six people would have saved the day and stopped her mortification.

That said, if he deliberately waited until last so that he could sweep in & take what was left that was rude imo.

If He had plated first, there still wouldn't have been enough and also been called a greedy pig for filling up his plate , while there wasn't enough for the others.

If he had eaten his allocated portion there still wouldn't have been enough for everyone or even OP, SIL and her mum to have seconds. Possibly only if he hadn't eaten anything.

So what exactly was he supposed to do that didn't involve him going hungry?

It sounds like OP has form for portion control considering she calls what he had "mountains of food", "piled up high" etc and that he doesn't do it in other places. Maybe it's subconscious, maybe it's a sneaky way to "help" him lose weight which is terribly failing.

I just don’t understand what you intended to do op with the one chicken breast and one and a half pittas he ate too much that you wished to offer as seconds.

How exactly were you going to offer five other people one chicken breast and a pitta to share between them as seconds?

And I bet once you’d publicly shamed your husband for eating too many crisps, no one wanted to eat any of the eight (you actually counted?) crisps that were left. You’d not touch them after that.

Before he plated what was left was

2.5 breasts plus 2 slices of chicken -interesting how OP talks in breasts for everyone's food but somehow the leftovers are 2 slices.

3 and a half pittas

a bowl of crisps

Salads and puddings.

Is that really enough for everyone to have seconds ,even if he hadn't eaten anything? 4 people and 1 child, completely ignoring him.

I think that when you're hosting it's rude to take everything without leaving guests the chance to have more.

Although of course the problem being that there wasn't enough in the first place!

Curious to know the size of the buckets that contained the salad

@Jenasaurus that's a pretty mean portion for Hungry Hubby! Poor man.

That was one hell of a trap you set for him. Make it essential that only you know exactly how much is provided for each person, ensure it's in fractions, then once he's waited and thought he was in the clear to eat what looks like a portion, announce to everybody what a fucking pig he is. You think you look great, he feels that he's just not safe even eating around you in his home, your guests feel incredibly uncomfortable at how you're ripping him to shreds in company.

You have now passed your exam in intermediate level domestic abuse. Well done.

A huge mountain of chips- he left a few in the bag but hardly any

I eat all the chips from a Chinese and don’t leave any in the bag

And I’m 5ft 3 and slim

Also every time I serve salads at these kind of things everyone has a small portion of them - they are basically decoration

Shame it was chicken and pittas not fish and loaves... might have had enough to go round then....

Also there were 9 chicken breasts to begin with. If there were 2.5 left plus two slices , let's make it 3, then 6 chicken breasts were eaten. That means at least 3 of the grownups could've had the 1.5 portion OP allocated them anyways and she considered was more than enough, with 1 and a half left for OP and the child.

So why were SIL and OP's mum still hungry? Did another person eat more than their allocated share? Why aren't they greedy pigs?

YABU - you didn't cook enough food. You say he's overweight and the title of your post says he's greedy so you should have accounted for that and made more food to save your 'embarrassment'.

Further thoughts on the possibility of an eating disorder. If your DMIL had an eating disorder, is it possible that she did not provide enough food in these situations, to avoid over-eating herself? This may well have left DH hungry, and have left him with a mindset of 'get it whilst you can, otherwise I'll still be hungry'. There may psychologically be a small child mentality there, which doesn't manifest itself in the same way at other people's houses.

Not enough food.

Weirdly specific amounts.

3 small bags of crisps.

You’re supposed to make more so you don’t run out. You can’t expect that everyone will be fine with your specific portions. What if someone dropped a plate?

What would seconds consist of? 75% of a breast, 75% of a pitta and 9 crisps?

Make more next time so you don’t have to blame your DH for eating.

They had 'tiny' portions though god knows what that was given the actual portions allocated. They asked Nurse Ratched for more and she pointed at her greedy, bastard husband told them to help themselves from his plate.

Did Ops DH also eat the 3 desserts to himself? Just wondering as OP said he finished everything leaving just 8 crisps and salad.