No one eats in this house

[Anonymous]

I feel like someone posted this exact post last year.

[Anonymous]

Either go to the store and get yourself some food or go raid the kitchen. Tell them, don't ask, that you are hungry and are going to eat. How can they stop you when you are a grown adult?

[Anonymous]

My Pakistani ILs are neither cheap nor have eating disorders. SIL is just extremely lazy and BIL is completely clueless. Breakfast is at noon (eggs, toast, tea). Lunch is at 5pm/6pm. Dinner at 10pm. She'll cook a huge batch of one item (usually haleem/stew or biryani) and we'll eat that for days on end.

I come from a family (a different kind of South Asian) that is over the top with food. When guests are visiting, we have 5 meals, and each meal has 3-5 dishes minimum. When I first got married, I would starve and beg my husband to take me out to get food. After 5 years (and now having a kid to feed), I've learned never to visit without access to a car. I also will buy groceries and cook meals for everyone when SIL has disappeared for hours. The poor kids in that family - omg they get so happy when we provide food because they're freaking STARVING.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My Pakistani ILs are neither cheap nor have eating disorders. SIL is just extremely lazy and BIL is completely clueless. Breakfast is at noon (eggs, toast, tea). Lunch is at 5pm/6pm. Dinner at 10pm. She'll cook a huge batch of one item (usually haleem/stew or biryani) and we'll eat that for days on end.

I come from a family (a different kind of South Asian) that is over the top with food. When guests are visiting, we have 5 meals, and each meal has 3-5 dishes minimum. When I first got married, I would starve and beg my husband to take me out to get food. After 5 years (and now having a kid to feed), I've learned never to visit without access to a car. I also will buy groceries and cook meals for everyone when SIL has disappeared for hours. The poor kids in that family - omg they get so happy when we provide food because they're freaking STARVING.

^^I should mention that everyone wakes up at 9am, except SIL. So we would sit hungry until noon (or later) until her lazy ass crawled out of bed. So now when we visit, we eat breakfast on our own and then eat "breakfast" again at noon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My Pakistani ILs are neither cheap nor have eating disorders. SIL is just extremely lazy and BIL is completely clueless. Breakfast is at noon (eggs, toast, tea). Lunch is at 5pm/6pm. Dinner at 10pm. She'll cook a huge batch of one item (usually haleem/stew or biryani) and we'll eat that for days on end.

I come from a family (a different kind of South Asian) that is over the top with food. When guests are visiting, we have 5 meals, and each meal has 3-5 dishes minimum. When I first got married, I would starve and beg my husband to take me out to get food. After 5 years (and now having a kid to feed), I've learned never to visit without access to a car. I also will buy groceries and cook meals for everyone when SIL has disappeared for hours. The poor kids in that family - omg they get so happy when we provide food because they're freaking STARVING.

^^I should mention that everyone wakes up at 9am, except SIL. So we would sit hungry until noon (or later) until her lazy ass crawled out of bed. So now when we visit, we eat breakfast on our own and then eat "breakfast" again at noon.

I don't know. NP. But expecting 5 meals, with 3-5 dishes minimum is a bit much. If she's feeding you three home-cooked meals, that's pretty good, notwithstanding her getting up late.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My Pakistani ILs are neither cheap nor have eating disorders. SIL is just extremely lazy and BIL is completely clueless. Breakfast is at noon (eggs, toast, tea). Lunch is at 5pm/6pm. Dinner at 10pm. She'll cook a huge batch of one item (usually haleem/stew or biryani) and we'll eat that for days on end.

I come from a family (a different kind of South Asian) that is over the top with food. When guests are visiting, we have 5 meals, and each meal has 3-5 dishes minimum. When I first got married, I would starve and beg my husband to take me out to get food. After 5 years (and now having a kid to feed), I've learned never to visit without access to a car. I also will buy groceries and cook meals for everyone when SIL has disappeared for hours. The poor kids in that family - omg they get so happy when we provide food because they're freaking STARVING.

Starving in Suffolk Indian checking in, I'd be ecstatic with 3 day old biryani or haleem. You have not known true discomfort yet my friend, trust me that it could be much, much worse lol. I know that by south Asian standards your SIL may not be the best host but at least you have access and are free to make your food without hovering and comments.

I'm actually not starving anymore as we went shopping but liked the moniker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom is like this. She has been my whole life. One of my recurrent memories of childhood is of leaving the dinner table hungry, not because I didn't like what was served, but because the portions were so tiny, and she doesn't believe in seconds. It's not a money issue, we'd have tiny amounts of expensive food. Dinner might be one tiny lamb chop, maybe a 1/4 cup of defrosted frozen veggies, and one new potato. Then she'd announce that the kitchen was "closed", until breakfast which might be 1/2 an orange cut like a grapefruit. Luckily, by 9 or 10 I was babysitting and could supplement with my own income, but had to eat it all away from home.

One of the biggest power struggles I've had with my mother was about drinks at dinner. My mom feels very strongly that people need to eat what's put in front of them. Once she felt we kids were old enough, the only drink she'd put out for "nice" dinners was wine. I've never chosen to drink alcohol, and so I'd sit at the table with an empty wine glass. One day, I just got up and filled my glass with tap water. You'd think I'd have stolen something from her reaction. How dare I just help myself to something from her kitchen! Didn't I know how rude that was? Guests should only drink and eat what's offered! I should note that this was when I was home for vacation from college. I did win that battle, and water is now allowed at the table.

Is your mom anorexicly thin? She might be trying to pass that down to you which is terrible.

She is close to that, and all her adult kids are overweight which horrifies her. She also drinks a lot of wine, which has calories.

That doesn't explain the water thing though. Tap water has less calories than wine! So, a part of it is just control. This year, she decided I was "allowed" to cook the vegetables (this is as far as we've gotten after me asking for years to be allowed to cook something). She provided the recipes she wanted, and I bought the ingredients plus some salad stuff. She mentioned many times that salad is not "Christmassy", but allowed it. So, we're making progress.

I am laughing a little at the suggestion to just help oneself from the fridge. She has always planned all snacks and meals for the week and bought exactly those things. So, the apple in the fruit drawer is earmarked to be served at lunch on Tuesday. The broccoli in the veggie drawer already has been assigned Wednesday dinner. There aren't any "unassigned" foods, laying about, unless you want to eat curry powder or dijon mustard or something like that.

There are, however, unlimited quantities of diet soda and wine. They take up most of the fridge, so please don't leave something in there! That would be most distressing.

Luckily she lives close, so we grab something to eat, then go to house and listen to her explain how she hasn't eaten since yesterday because she was saving up for the big meal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Italian mother in me is horrified to hear that people are hungry.

Are all these people not feeding you nordic Europeans? Irish?

I can't imagine having guests in your house, and not offering them a staggering amount of food.

If you don't have a ton of leftovers after Christmas that means you didn't do it right.

Italians are the best hosts! Out of all the European cultures here in America Italians are the only ones who actually feed people and are hospitable to guests. It is definitely a quality that other white folks lack. There have been numerous threads on DCUM about white people in the northeast not feeding guests. Why do people invite people over their homes and refuse to feed them? In my culture its considered rude to not provide meals for house guests. It will hurt me to know that a person is starving at my house.

Have you ever been to the South? You're not going hungry at a Southern home.

Agree with this! It’s unthinkable for a Southern host not to have plenty of good and drink out for guests IME. We always tell guests to help themselves and offer food and drinks regularly. We don’t each much ourselves - in case y’all think we’re huge - it’s just good manners to make sure people have what they need and don’t have to ask! I was raised that you have to be thinking about the comfort of your guests regularly. By the same token, making sure the parents to their liking, they’re warm or cool enough, have the linens, other things they need, etc. If I was at home didn’t extend me the same courtesy, I’d respect the houses rules of course, but you better believe I’d be out getting food if my family was hungry!

Weddings in the south are the worst. Never good or enough food.

+1

[Anonymous]

My MIL may have an eating disorder. It seems that way to me. At least 50% of her "conversation" is devoted to how she will be skipping future meals to make up for eating, everyone else's size and eating habits, and the size and eating habits of far flung relatives who are not even present.

If we are out in public, the size and eating habits of those around us are fodder for comment. She's 5'1", 85 pounds. (She lets us know).

I am 5'8", 145 pounds, work out all the time, eat a lot. I love being tall and strong, however my self esteem takes a hit when we visit due to the scrutiny of what I take (when there is food) and the other unrelated comments about who she knows who is a "big woman".

MIL also serves food sporadically. There is usually no evening meal at all. Either nothing is served because, "we just ate that huge lunch", or a cut up pear and cheese and crackers is served. She usually has wine for dinner.

We have always snuck away for food when visiting. We just say we have to run by the drugstore, than drive our whole family somewhere to eat.

Bizarrely, when there is a meal served, she watches me like a hawk, yet pushes food on me repeatedly. "Is that all you're going to eat? Don't you want more? There's more, have some more!!". Meanwhile, she herself will take a tiny, tiny portion of food, then cut it up and push it around for one hour, taking just a few bites. FIL and DH comment on this pushing around of food like it's just a cute idiosyncrasy, but I think it is super weird.

[Anonymous]

These posts crack me up. When I visit my parents, they have tons of food. But for some reason when they visit us, they make comments about “all the food”. As in it is weird we offer them three meals. My dad even said something like he had no idea that we would have lunch. Why would we not have lunch? He does not have to eat. But the rest of us want to.

Then my mom goes on and on and on about we should not go through so much trouble. One, they are not the only guests. Two, we do not do anything fancy. Three, the one thing that causes me stress is her following me around telling me how we went to too much trouble.

[Anonymous]

Just go out to dinner!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just go out to dinner!

This thread was started Christmas Eve. Pretty sure OP figured out how to get dinner two days ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My Pakistani ILs are neither cheap nor have eating disorders. SIL is just extremely lazy and BIL is completely clueless. Breakfast is at noon (eggs, toast, tea). Lunch is at 5pm/6pm. Dinner at 10pm. She'll cook a huge batch of one item (usually haleem/stew or biryani) and we'll eat that for days on end.

I come from a family (a different kind of South Asian) that is over the top with food. When guests are visiting, we have 5 meals, and each meal has 3-5 dishes minimum. When I first got married, I would starve and beg my husband to take me out to get food. After 5 years (and now having a kid to feed), I've learned never to visit without access to a car. I also will buy groceries and cook meals for everyone when SIL has disappeared for hours. The poor kids in that family - omg they get so happy when we provide food because they're freaking STARVING.

Who the hell is cooking all that food? I bet you never see the people who are cooking. Sounds like a really fun time unless you are the one cooking 24/7.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry but are your in laws and/or parents fat? The way most of you sound, it’s as if they all have eating disorders.

Just because people eat regular meals each day, doesn't mean that they have "eating disorders". That is what normal people do. Commenting on other people's "having enough food for an army", on the regular, is beyond weird. It's fine if you don't eat, or eat next to nothing, but do not starve your guests. That is just wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My Pakistani ILs are neither cheap nor have eating disorders. SIL is just extremely lazy and BIL is completely clueless. Breakfast is at noon (eggs, toast, tea). Lunch is at 5pm/6pm. Dinner at 10pm. She'll cook a huge batch of one item (usually haleem/stew or biryani) and we'll eat that for days on end.

I come from a family (a different kind of South Asian) that is over the top with food. When guests are visiting, we have 5 meals, and each meal has 3-5 dishes minimum. When I first got married, I would starve and beg my husband to take me out to get food. After 5 years (and now having a kid to feed), I've learned never to visit without access to a car. I also will buy groceries and cook meals for everyone when SIL has disappeared for hours. The poor kids in that family - omg they get so happy when we provide food because they're freaking STARVING.

That schedule would annoy me too, but it's NOTHING like what other posters are facing. She IS feeding you, and you ARE allowed to eat/cook, even if she's not providing meals. Nothing prevents you from having a bowl of cereal when you wake up, and then eating the eggs/toast at noon as if they were your lunch, and then eating something you've made (or warming up some of her biryani) for dinner at 6 pm. As for batch cooking, lots of desis do that with guests nowadays and while annoying, you do end up eating the same thing for 3 dinners in a row, but you won't starve -- unlike the PP here talking about her mom having 1 apple in the fridge earmarked for Thursday's lunch, so you dare not eat it but you also aren't allowed to go out and buy food you want. Your family overdoes it (like most Indian/Pakistani families), but your SIL isn't starving you either.