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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What I’m getting from this is

If:

1) Your friends don’t warn you in advance of serious pickiness and

2) You make a meal that includes lots of things that almost everyone likes (at LEAST one or two of the things) and

3) You don’t keep certain other foods at the house “just in case”

Then

4) You are a bad host[/quote]

No. You are a bad host if you don’t care about the comfort and preference of your guests, who are presumably known to you.

If these are total strangers who just drop in with no warning, what can you do? Certainly a good host doesn’t mean you need to have all foods for all tastes all the time.

But if you have good friends over for dinner and you are aware of certain food needs, a good host would try to accommodate.

A good host cares about the comfort of ALL the guests, not just some of the guests.[/quote]

Of course, but then we're in agreement. I mean, I think we mostly are. Where I may quibble is that I don't believe that being friends with someone-- even good friends!-- means you are automatically aware of all "certain food needs" for every member of their family. And even if you ask, they may be sort of clueless or obtuse about it. Lots of parents seem to think however their kid does things is within the fat part of the bell curve, even when it's not.

Like I said upthread, I have a friend (very close friend of my husband's) whose kids we knew were "picky," so we did ask what they'd eat, were told no more than that they weren't too adventurous, so we got rotisserie chicken with fries and rice and they wouldn't eat [i]any of it at all[/i]. And the next time we invited them over, asked VERY SPECIFICALLY what they'd eat, were told "oh, you know-- rotisserie chicken or something simple like that is fine."

I just don't see it as this black and white thing, where Friends = Know Every Single Dietary Predilection of Every Family Member and the only case in which you wouldn't have a complete inventory of their needs and preferences would be when your guests were strangers off the street who barged in with no warning.

Again, I make all kinds of concessions, and I ask everyone for dietary restrictions before feeding them, every time! I often let them know the approximate menu in advance, to get their yea or nay (for example, friends with kids who have something like acid reflux-- I don't always remember what is okay and what is not). But sometimes even when you ask people, they say, "No, no dietary restrictions." And in some of [i]those[/i] cases it's because they think eating a grand total of 20 or 30 foods is normal and that should go without saying, or whatever. And like... I can be sure to serve things that even most kids would like, but I can't read minds.

I care a lot about what others think of me, and bend over backwards, but if someone wants to call me a bad host after all of [i]that[/i], I have to accept it just can't be helped.[/quote]

Sure if people aren't going to tell you what their kid will reliably eat... it's not being a bad host to fail to feed the child.

This has not been my experience with severe picky eaters.  I have hosted a few and their parents are usually able to tell me exactly what brand or style of (usually packaged) food their child will eat.  For me it is no problem to have that food on hand if I know the child will be at our house for a meal.

The rotisserie chicken story -- I am familiar with that level of pickiness.  I have a severe picky eater for many years, and he would eat rotisserie chicken and rice and beans, but just from ONE restaurant (not a chain -- from one specific restaurant)-- and not rotisserie chicken from Giant, not rotisserie chicken from Costco, not rice and beans from a taco place.  ONE restaurant.  I would NEVER have expected our friends to provide that particular menu item for him, though.
 [/quote]

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