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First of all, I'm going to start by saying I don't expect some sort of a smorgasbord set out for me when I visit. This is just an observation on what I find to be strange behavior and here are some examples. None of these examples are poor people.
My ex fiancee's family was opposed to eating breakfast right when you got up. They had at least three hours of what I called pajama time and the only acceptable thing to do was drink coffee. On the rare occaisions you were offered food it was cereal in a child sized bowl. For dinner it was a ritual of pouring milk into cups that held maybe five shot glasses worth of liquid. That was all the milk you got.
If my dad and step mom have you over for a burger that is all you get. One. Burger. They will make a huge effort setting out the fixings and you can time them with a calendar when they go through the ritual of putting things on it.
My dad and step mom and extended family also go through a presentation of the food and if you so much as take a morsel more than what you're allotted it's a nonstop barrage of you eating too much. It's all very odd to me. I'm not complaining or looking for some sort of advice, just making an observation and curious if others have seen this.
Compare that with my mom's side of the family which is here's the food, dish it up, don't be a pig and eat it all, make sure everyone gets something, and eat whatever you take.
I've never seen food rationing like that. I'm from the south so everyone I know is like your mom's side. My kids and grandkids have had friends who can only eat when a meal is on the table where I have always had an open kitchen. My gson, who lives with me, has had friends over that were shocked he could get in the fridge and cook when ever he was hungry. He has brought food to a friend several times. He told me his friend doesn't get enough to eat and his grandparents don't cook well.
The breakfast thing is weird. When we would stay at my grands in the summer she was cooking breakfast at 4 am. Grandpa and the uncles were carpenters and got to work early so if you didnt get up and eat by 6, breakfast was officially over. But she did keep any left overs on the stove. I cant imagine staying in your PJ's for 3 hours.
The OP reminds me of a family I knew growing up and my brother went to the house to play baseball with their son . My brother came home and told me that the mother rationed out food each kid got an ice cream scoop of rice , one skinny chicken leg and a scoop of mixed vegetables . Ice water to drink . Well when their son came to our house he got a pepsi to drink like everyone else and a chilli dog and some French fries . He told my brother you all eat a lot . Now that I think back on that it breaks my heart to know that those kids might have been going hungry all the time . I know my dad used to comment on how skinny they were he just thought genetics maybe not hunger . I hope they fared well we lost touch with them when they moved .
Rice, chicken and veggies with water sounds a while lot healthier than pepsi, fries and a chili dog. Only problem is that there should not be such a portion limit on the healthy stuff.
If I was that put out by it I would politely tell my hosts I have some errand to run and come back with snacks for myself. If they commented I'd be honest and explain that I am used to eating a little more/earlier/often than they do, and instead of making an issue out of it took care of the problem myself. If their kids are hungry they need to deal with it not me. Not my place to interfere.
I think we did, it just gets awkward because we don't want to screw up their timeline, but maybe that's what they expect us to do? I don't know. When they visit us, they use points to stay in a hotel and don't hang out with us for the entire day. Otherwise, they seem to like us...
Pack a small cooler of eggs, ham, cheddar and bread. Go into the kitchen and make yourself an omelette. Offer them the leftovers if they seem interested. Wash the dishes you use. Done deal. If you don't like the food they eat, make your own.
Same deal with the burgers, except eat what they serve, then drive to a burger joint for seconds if you are still hungry. It's hard to be over 10 minutes from a burger joint anywhere in America. Offer them the leftover fries when you get back.
I've been a guest in homes like that a couple of times, esp. the "we don't eat breakfast so don't expect us to serve it" people, which is really hard if you are a breakfast eater.
It's the complete opposite in my family - my mom is first generation American, and like many immigrant families, food was love and also the big connection to "the old country." So enough food would never mean just enough to serve everyone, if there wasn't a lot leftover, that meant there wasn't enough food. My mom lived with one of her aunts when she was in college, where she met my dad, and he had lots of funny stories about how much this aunt expected him to eat, and he never went to visit my mom without leaving with a big care package of food.
I'm the same way when I entertain - I would be appalled to run out of something. Now for something like a cookout, I do ask people up front how many hamburgers and hotdogs they would like, but if someone said gee, what I ate was great, I really could go for another burger, you can be guaranteed that there are additional burgers in the fridge so I can go get one and cook another one. I might not have cooked it up front but that's just because they aren't great reheated so I want to cook just enough, but never in the sense of limiting the amount someone can have. For planning, I would have enough on hand to cook 2 burgers and 2 hot dogs for everyone, and what was left over gets put into the freezer to get cooked another time.
Same here. I would NEVER count the number of guests and then limit each one to one burger. Your planning sounds about right to me.
One thing my exh and I did do well together was entertain. One year we lived in a garden apartment complex and invited a bunch of friends over for a bbq. A couple of friends threw picnic tables into their trucks and brought them over for us to use. We bought our usual tons of food and beer and soda and made all sort of sides.
We told the couple across the hall with whom we socialized from time to time to come. The man of the couple had adult children who lived in the Bronx, and they would drive out to Jersey to visit from time to time. Well, the day of this bbq was a day when they decided to come visit their dad. They saw us firing up the grill and saw the picnic tables, and they sat their azzes down and started asking my husband when he was going to get the grill going.
Between the neighbor's three sons, their significant others, and all the kids they brought, we had at least a dozen unexpected guests, and man, did they eat. Their father was embarrassed, and hastily made some chicken or something to add to the feast, but we just laughed and were fine with it. At the end of the night after everyone was gone, we had exactly two burgers left. Everybody had a great time.
Never lived like that, nor do I know anyone that lives like that. What did catch my eye was the three hours of pajama time. I have never heard of that. Are you meaning for a weekend or something? We have too much going on, even on a weekend to be sitting around for three hours.
I rarely eat breakfast or lunch. I prefer to do a brunch around 10:30 and dinner around 7:00. Two meals a day, not three. If I have guests, I will stock fruit, bagels, cream cheese, cereal and cold cuts so they can munch if they want.
The heavy breakfast is an American thing. A continental breakfast is lighter.
A couple times I have cooked a 4 lb. roast only to have a guest slice off 2 lbs. for themselves, when there were 6 people at the table. Any more, I slice and serve the meats to avoid having others left with little or none.
Rice, chicken and veggies with water sounds a while lot healthier than pepsi, fries and a chili dog. Only problem is that there should not be such a portion limit on the healthy stuff.
Give me a break im talking 1960s and 1970s and my dad worked for pepsi ...back then people did not worry about sugar , salt and fats like we do now .
We were pretty poor when I was kid. My mum dished out all our plates of food pretty much until I moved out. There were no snacks; we couldn't help ourselves to anything. Everything she bought was for a specific purpose with nothing left over. Her portion sizes were fine. We weren't hungry, but she sure kept a tight reign on that kitchen. I had no idea how to cook or do anything in the kitchen when I left home because I was never allowed in there. As a teen, I used to sneak a piece of toast with mayonnaise when she took my brother to piano lessons. I figured she wasn't actually counting the bread slices, so that was a safe thing to eat.
I remember visiting when my kids were young. They would ask for a snack and I would cautiously ask if there was anything to be had? She would start by telling me she needed it all and tell me how expensive the cheese was. I think it was really stressful for her when we asked for something she hadn't accounted for. She's a lot better about things now and even serves dinner family style if we are all there.
My kitchen is open to all at any time. We entertain a lot and cook and bake for others. So the flip side of this situation is that I do sometimes forget to mark what I have made for an occasion. My son ate two full meals of beef bourguignon I had made ahead for a friend's birthday dinner and my daughter did the same thing with an entree I made for another occasion. Whoops. These would be typical things to find in the fridge, so it was hard to be too mad about it. We joke about it now
We were visiting an in-law (older woman) and her kids and grandkids were there as well. Maybe 10 people. She made a big stir-fry, chicken, vegs, and rice. What got me is, before she served her family, she put away a portion for her lunch the next day. And no, there was not an abundance of food after that. I don't think anyone got seconds, and the firsts were pretty skimpy.
Another relative invited us for dinner -- scallops!! -- oh boy, my favorite. Four people - brought out a broiler dish that I could have easily eaten by myself. I think we each got 2 scallops.
I would much rather have leftovers when I entertain, than to feel that anyone has gone without.
Oh and one more relative - we had stayed over - I knew she was not big on breakfast, so we brought muffins to eat on the road. But her husband finished the coffee from the day before and did not make a fresh pot before going to work. She did not know how to run the coffee maker.
My in laws were late breakfasters. They had to wait until every person in the house is up, dressed and ready to...do what, I'm not sure, until breakfast is even started. My SIL would spend 2 hours showering, doing her hair, while I was dying of starvation. I learned to get up early, eat cereal and go back to my room. I also kept food in my room that they didn't serve, mostly fruit and veg.
I agree that younger people seem to think that multiple servings should be expected. IMHO, it is good manners to assess the lay of the land (or the table) . If there is one burger per person, that's what you eat, and be grateful for it. If that isn't enough for you, eat more later. Once took my cousins for dinner and they each ordered TWO dinners and proceeded to eat about half of each. Soooo not cool!
Americans over eat. you don't actually need two burgers.
And if you are eating at someone's house, take something, even if it isn't to be served at that meal.
Once my family went to dinner at the house of acquaintances. they grilled chicken and sausages. When dinner was served there was a big show made of "Oh, No! We seem to have forgotten to defrost all the chicken, we'll have to cut these pieces smaller!" We thought it was weird, we wouldn't have noticed if they were cut smaller in the first place. Two years later we went back again...the same thing 'accidentally' happened...chicken and sausages. "Oh, No! We seem to have forgotten to defrost all the chicken, we'll have to cut these pieces smaller!" Word for word, the conversation was the same. We thought that was TOTALLY bizarre.
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