Dinner Party Where Guests Show Up With Their Own Food (holidays, wife)
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I'm wondering what the main course was. Soup and salad? Shrimp cocktail? Chips?
I will not eat anything put in front of me. I am not a dog.
I can't remember being invited and not being told what they were having, at least the main course. People usually say "would you like to come over for ....?" I don't think I have ever been invited to dinner without at least a hint of what they were serving.
I guess we will never know the entire story behind this---especially the guest's motives. It does seem like a remarkable coincidence that the guest brought soup when the meal itself was soup! What are the chances of that? Not a bottle of wine, not dessert, not a salad, but soup! So I'm wondering if the original invitation from OP or OP's husband wasn't something like "we're having a very casual low-key meal, just some soup." And if this didn't sound to the guest like a potluck type event---like that everyone would be bringing soup. There are themed dinner parties where everyone brings the same type of dish.
OP, you can fume about this and see your dinner as being ruined/infringed upon...or you can turn it around and realize that even if the guest didn't want to eat your soup (for whatever reason), she still wanted to spend time with you. I've had people who accepted dinner invitations just for a free meal and who brought nothing, not even the (almost) obligatory wine/flowers/candy. So the guest came solely for your companionship...in my book, much more of a compliment to you than just mindlessly or resentfully or guardedly eating your soup.
I did have former friends who brought their own food over for dinner (former because of other stuff they did, like all the drama fighting with each other, even to the point of calling a cab to pick one of them up early since they couldn't drive home together!). They knew that we are vegan (even made sure to have veggie burgers for us when we came to their place, which we appreciated) so they brought their own fast food meal! Here we had deliberately made something that almost everyone likes, not just vegans ( a chili that you couldn't tell didn't have meat in it), and made triple the portion we would have just for the two of us. It also wasn't great since we are unaccustomed to fast food smells and find them unappetizing and prefer not to have meat in the house. But I wasn't that upset by it----obviously they thought they couldn't/shouldn't get through a meal without meat...but that was different than OP's guest who brought a third soup to round out the meal, complementing the other two soups.
I do think a good host tries to accommodate guest's eating style. I know that many people claim to be gluten intolerant and don't have true celiac disease, but not for me to question. Why wouldn't I want to cater to a guest's preferences/needs---it's not just about giving them food...it's about food that says, "hey, I care about you." Of course I will admit that one of my hobbies is finding new recipes and making them (other people just use the same few recipes over and over, so that could make it harder). The only time I felt burnt catering to someone's eating style was when I was a vegetarian, before I became a vegan. Some new friends stipulated that the meal had to be vegan and gluten-free. It was no problem to make a vegan meal and I discovered that gluten-free pasta actually tastes good! But I was annoyed that their contribution to the meal was a cake from Whole Foods. It was a gorgeous, delicious, expensive cake, as those from WF tend to be, but the label on it said that it had wheat flour, eggs, and cream! Why wouldn't they have looked at the label if it was so important to them to be gluten-free and vegan? WF does have some vegan and gluten-free things, so weird that they would choose a cake that was likely to be neither vegan or GF.
And at the risk of derailing this thread, for those of you who think that it is fussy to let the hosts know about your eating style and should just stay home (a few years ago I did let a host know that I didn't eat meat because I thought she would be horrified if she served something like meat lasagna and I was just picking around it or meat and potatoes and I just ate the potatoes---a lot of people on here thought I shouldn't have informed her ahead of time, but I knew she would be horrified and upset if I sat there not eating much. She served veggie lasagna and everyone seemed to like it, but I didn't get an invite back in subsequent years), please understand that sometimes it's not possible to just suck it up and eat something your taste buds or ethics just can't handle. Chocolate versus vanilla is a viable choice for most people. If you are hoping for chocolate ice cream and you get served vanilla, it's not much of a problem. But if you can't stand the smell/taste of fish or your religion/ethics forbids animal products, it's not just being picky. Think of it this way---most people, except in a few cultures, would not be able to handle being served grilled dog or fried cat. For some of us, we also can't do cow, pig, goat, lamb, fish, etc.
SOUP NAZI: You are the only one who understands me.
KRAMER: You suffer for your soup.
SOUP NAZI: Yes. That is right.
KRAMER: You demand perfection from yourself, from your soup.
SOUP NAZI: How can I tolerate any less from my customer?
Or dinner guest? Ha! Seinfeld never gets old.
Hee Hee
Vs. OP who is basically saying "No soup for you, unless you eat the ones I made! If you insist on eating yours, I will make it disappear in a bread bowl!"
One additional note is that this guest complained of having a sensitive stomach (which may be why she brought the watery chicken soup???) but I noticed she was able to drink almost a whole bottle of wine, eat several chocolates as well as apple pie and ice cream.
This is a person who, imo, is just trying to be petty and difficult.
As I said before, lesson learned, we'll meet in restaurants from now on and let the waiter/kitchen staff work with her.
Try not to be like this people and teach your children manners too...
The same could be said about you. Quite a few people here have explained why tomato soup or clam chowder would be tough on their tummies in ways that wine and dessert may not be. Sounds like you have been blessed with a strong constitution - I see tomato soup and a bread bowl of any sort and think "gas" (and the '80s...).
If someone invited me to a soup night, I would assume it meant we all brought soup to share and would bring some kind of brothy soup - creamy bisques and such are not my cup of tea and it would be obvious that I was only politely picking.
This guest is not the only one who is being petty and difficult.
The OP has never told us what kind of an invitation was issued.
"Please join us on [date] for ______."
"Hey, want to stop by for soup and salad on Monday?" or
"Come eat with us tomorrow" (with no specification of menu).
Was the invitation written or verbal? Just WHAT was said?
I'd also like to know whether this just happened over the weekend or if the OP has been stewing about it for awhile.
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