S/O on cooking from scratch thread: if homemade is better...

[Janna]

I am making myself completely vulnerable by asking this, so be gentle! ;)

 

So many of you mentioned, in the thread about making food by scratch, that homemade food is just better. Have you ever had people NOT prefer your homemade food because they weren't used to that?

 

I make almost everything by scratch, including the marshmallows we put in our hot chocolate. But I have noticed that when I am in group gatherings where there is a potluck, what I bring is almost never eaten completely, while the processed stuff that others bring is always gone and people beg for the recipes. It's stuff like bacon-wrapped hot dogs, or chili con queso made with Velveeta.:ack2: For our last get together with people, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I served the Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Spicy Caramel Sauce and Vanilla Bean Creme Anglaise that Bobbly Flay made on his Throwdown with Ree. I even made the whipped cream. It was an absolutely fabulous dessert and do you know that only one person in a group of 12 liked it? The others thought it was too fancy and only like Cool Whip. I get this kind of reaction all the time. Even on Sunday, we had a children's program at church and several families had to bring a couple dozen cookies. I was the only one to make homemade cookies (some brought "homemade" cookies that were the packaged, precut cookies found in the refrigerated section of the store that just needed to be baked), while others brought packaged cookies - Oreos, Great Value brand choc. chip cookies etc. and I noticed that mine were the ones mostly left over.:confused:

 

I don't think it's my cooking because I love the food I make enough to not enjoy going out to eat unless it's at a restaurant that makes food I don't (like sushi or a good seafood place). My family, including extended family, like my food too, so I'm pretty comfortable saying it's not my food. But...it does leave one to wonder sometimes.

 

I wonder if people who are used to eating overly processed food find homemade food too strong for their palette the way the OP of the other thread found eating processed food to taste like chemicals...?

 

Have others found their homemade food to be not as well received as packaged/processed food? (please say yes. PLEASE say yes!)

[The Girls' Mom]

Well, I would totally go for the homemade stuff. :)

 

We always joke that when we end up with stuff left over, it just means more yumminess for us!

[Jen in PA]

My sister actually brought cranberry sauce in a can to my house one Thanksgiving because "it doesn't feel like Thanksgiving with that homemade stuff." Ugh. My own kids won't touch the canned stuff, only the homemade.:D

[yarrow]

This happens with me as well. Some people who also cook from scratch like my cooking but friends who eat more processed food preferred what's familiar.

 

I have a friend who runs a catering business. Whenever they have a client that requests more healthy food (ww rolls for the lobster rolls instead of white), the guests don't want the ww rolls and complain about the lack of white. Really.

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

I stopped baking for those potluck things. People want to know exactly what they're getting. (well most people, not everyone of course). An Oreo cookie is exactly just that, regardless of who brought it. So there's no surprise there. You know you'll like it (or not).

 

It's been a few years that I noticed that. At a potluck, there were many many homemade cookies. I had been sick the week before, and didn't have the energy to bake anything. I brought some commercial cookies. The kids ran to those and were fighting over those!

 

I don't think it's got anything to do with taste, but rather with habits, and comfort zones.

[elise1mds]

I've had people turn away from my pizza and macaroni and cheese because they didn't come out of boxes. They're usually kids, though there are a few adults in the mix.

[justamouse]

I think it depends on where you live? I DO know that happens-I go the the Blue and Gold and zoiks. But they also eat my stuff and it's all from scratch.

[Matryoshka]

I wonder if people who are used to eating overly processed food find homemade food too strong for their palette the way the OP of the other thread found eating processed food to taste like chemicals...?

 

Yes, 100%, absolutely. Our palettes become accustomed to what we eat regularly. When I eat low-carb, "normal" desserts taste cloyingly sweet. Since I switched to all whole-grain, the whole grains that used to taste "gritty" now taste normal and yummy, and anything made with white flour tastes like wallpaper paste. Really. I don't add a lot of salt, and I'm sure those who eat potato chips by the bag would find it "bland".

 

And this is exactly why I would never feed my kids "normal" American kids' fare. Because it's crap, and it trains the palette. People say "oh, my kids only eat macaroni and cheese/hot dogs/noodles with butter and no sauce" Well, how did they even know that stuff existed? The kids in India all eat spicy food from the cradle and would gag on that stuff. No kid in another country ever died of starvation for lack of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Oops, I may have started to rant... :tongue_smilie:

 

But, yes, people accustomed to eating highly processed foods have become are imprinted on those flavors, and the unfamiliar flavors in homemade foods would turn them off.

 

This kind of thing is not at all fixed - I find my palette changes within a few weeks when I do low-carb. I need to do it again - I can get sugar-addicted. :glare:

[DarlaS]

I think you may need some new friends. My tastebuds still work--bring some of that leftover dessert this way! :D

[Sun]

Yes, I've noticed this too. Luckily I now live in an area (or maybe it's just my group of friends and acquaintances) where quality food is appreciated more than it was in the area where I used to live. Where I live now, I can take pretty much anything I make to a potluck, and it will get eaten. Where I used to live, spam casserole and any potato casserole featuring canned soup and frozen potatoes were the ones that would get eaten!

[OrganicAnn]

I think you are right about the reasons. People have gotten used to the packaged stuff. I do think that some people are worse than others.

 

I would not waste my delicious cooking on them. Or do very simple, easily recognizable homemade - like a simple chocolate chip cookie or green bean casserole without the soup.

 

I also notice weird eating habits. If we didn't bring vegetables to one family holiday dinner there wouldn't be any vegetables except mashed potatoes. And they only take a token spoonful whereas at home our holiday dinner we clean up two or three veggies dishes.

[IsabelC]

I think your cooking sounds beautiful and your friends are philistines who are completely lacking in taste. :tongue_smilie: (I only wish you lived near me!)

 

Seriously, I have read that eating loads of processed sh!t full of corn syrup, salt, artificial flavors etc can mess with the brain / tastebuds so that the person has to make an effort to appreciate real food again.

[Harriet Vane]

The response to my food is all or nothing. I have had dinner guests tearful over the quality of our food, impressed that it's from scratch and begging for more.

 

Then there are my relatives, who live on boxed food and salami--they say my food is weird. They don't like my food. They eat polite bits of only some of what is served and make snarky comments to my face about it. Their taste buds are adapted to a high salt, high fat, high fake-stuff diet, and that's all they can really enjoy. I find it frustrating.

[holdoll]

A certain person in my family will only eat my cooking. So if we are in a situation with a group of people and there's a potluck, he'll eat something out of a bag like cookies, or he won't eat at all. When I've asked him about it, he says, "Have you SEEN some people's kitchens?" :001_huh:

[Hannah C.]

This is an interesting thread! I'd never really heard these theories about the palette being trained, and people not liking foods they aren't used to, though it certainly makes sense!

 

Personally, your food sounds amazing. However, I have to admit I don't always like people's homemade food - but not by virtue of it being homemade. Usually it has something to do with the recipe or the consistency of the food, and if I had the same or a similar homemade dish somewhere else I would probably like it.

[Cinder]

I don't think it's got anything to do with taste, but rather with habits, and comfort zones.

 

It wasn't even homemade food. My pbj sandwiches were rejected by the neighbor kids. Why? Because I use whole wheat bread, natural peanut butter, and blackberry or black raspberry jelly. Not white bread, sweetened peanut butter, and grape jelly.

 

Cinder

[bluemongoose]

I prefer homemade food, but I find potlucks difficult and often will gravitate to prepackaged meals. This is only because I (and my kids) have food allergies, and I know which store bought items are ok for me and which are not. I cannot go around and ask all the lovely ladies who made the homemade food what the ingredients are in their dishes. When I eat in someone else's home (not potluck style), I am grateful for a host who serves yummy homemade food, but is also not offended if I need to know what is in the food before I can partake of it.

 

:grouphug: sorry that your food is not being appreciated!

[UnsinkableKristen]

I don't think it means they don't appreciate it - sometimes you just don't feel like a thumbprint cookie with homemade jam, you just want an Oreo.

[justamouse]

It wasn't even homemade food. My pbj sandwiches were rejected by the neighbor kids. Why? Because I use whole wheat bread, natural peanut butter, and blackberry or black raspberry jelly. Not white bread, sweetened peanut butter, and grape jelly.

 

Cinder

 

Ha! I've had that happen. You can't win, can you? And ugh, I hate grape jelly. the only one I ever loved was the one I made with wild grapes that grew abundantly around our old house. AMAZING.

 

I never had white bread growing up and I never had 'skippy' pb. My kids are the same.

[IsabelC]

white bread, sweetened peanut butter, and grape jelly

Eeewwwww! That's only one step better than those PBJ sandwiches in a can.

 

(I think I'm a bit of a food snob, because I won't eat peanut butter unless it's freshly ground with nothing but peanuts in it, and I won't eat jam/jelly unless it's home made. We'll occasionally have white bread as long as it was baked that day and doesn't contain preservatives, but not if there's any grainy/wholemeal/rye etc to be had.)

[mrsrevmeg]

We get that, too. People think I cook fancy foods and use "exotic" ingredients, just because my food is not from cans and full of salt. Some people just don't know what's good. :tongue_smilie:

[Audrey]

I am making myself completely vulnerable by asking this, so be gentle! ;)

 

So many of you mentioned, in the thread about making food by scratch, that homemade food is just better. Have you ever had people NOT prefer your homemade food because they weren't used to that?

 

I make almost everything by scratch, including the marshmallows we put in our hot chocolate. But I have noticed that when I am in group gatherings where there is a potluck, what I bring is almost never eaten completely, while the processed stuff that others bring is always gone and people beg for the recipes. It's stuff like bacon-wrapped hot dogs, or chili con queso made with Velveeta.:ack2: For our last get together with people, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I served the Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Spicy Caramel Sauce and Vanilla Bean Creme Anglaise that Bobbly Flay made on his Throwdown with Ree. I even made the whipped cream. It was an absolutely fabulous dessert and do you know that only one person in a group of 12 liked it? The others thought it was too fancy and only like Cool Whip. I get this kind of reaction all the time. Even on Sunday, we had a children's program at church and several families had to bring a couple dozen cookies. I was the only one to make homemade cookies (some brought "homemade" cookies that were the packaged, precut cookies found in the refrigerated section of the store that just needed to be baked), while others brought packaged cookies - Oreos, Great Value brand choc. chip cookies etc. and I noticed that mine were the ones mostly left over.:confused:

 

I don't think it's my cooking because I love the food I make enough to not enjoy going out to eat unless it's at a restaurant that makes food I don't (like sushi or a good seafood place). My family, including extended family, like my food too, so I'm pretty comfortable saying it's not my food. But...it does leave one to wonder sometimes.

 

I wonder if people who are used to eating overly processed food find homemade food too strong for their palette the way the OP of the other thread found eating processed food to taste like chemicals...?

 

Have others found their homemade food to be not as well received as packaged/processed food? (please say yes. PLEASE say yes!)

 

 

Okay. Now that I've finished gagging over the mere thought of Cool Whip (which tastes like the oil product it is), I will admit that I know a few people who won't eat real food because they are used to ... whatever the heck that cr*p is. Most of those, though, are kids, and mostly they won't eat real mac-n-cheese. They just eat the stuff from a box. I did once encounter an adult who would only eat instant mashed potatoes because "real potatoes are grown in dirt." :001_huh: I tried really, really, really hard not to make that puking gesture when she said that. I swear I tried. ;)

[*lifeoftheparty*]

.

[Guest mrsjamiesouth]

I cook from scratch and dh hates it. He would rather have white bread, chips, lunch meat, and oreos than homemade food.

I got sick this Friday, so dh went to the grocery store and brought home processed junk food. He doesn't know how to cook and so had to buy stuff he could handle. We ate it over the weekend. It tasted so nasty to me. Stauffer's Family size Escalloped Noodles. :ack2: Yesterday I tried a Ham sandwhich with Lays Chips. It all tasted so bad. I used to LOVE chips, but they tasted like salted cardboard now.

 

My dd turned up her nose at the breakfast cereal and asked for a carrot. :001_smile: Proof that they can learn what tastes good.

[Catwoman]

I make almost everything by scratch, including the marshmallows we put in our hot chocolate.

 

Personally, I am in awe of you because you make your own marshmallows.

 

That is just so cool. :coolgleamA:

 

Cat

[Catwoman]

I did once encounter an adult who would only eat instant mashed potatoes because "real potatoes are grown in dirt."

 

:eek: :eek: :eek:

 

THEY ARE?????????????????????

 

:ack2: :ack2:

 

Cat

 

PS. ;)

[Audrey]

:eek: :eek: :eek:

 

THEY ARE?????????????????????

 

:ack2: :ack2:

 

Cat

 

PS. ;)

 

 

Yes. You would think that a farmer like me would have known that, too, eh? ;)

[Celia]

Yes! And if it makes you feel any better, my own husband is the biggest culprit! He'd choose hamburger helper over my fanciest made from scratch most days of the week. And don't even get me started on home-made bread....

[Margo out of lurking]

My niece stays with us for the summer and is used to eating junk and getting her way. NOT here ;) I made her taste applesauce, and she threw up.

 

:lol::lol::lol:

Her throwing up -- hilarious (as long as you didn't have to clean it up)!!!

 

That's a great trick, barf at will, one I strived for as a teen. I also desperately wished to pee in my pants when my mom wouldn't stop for a bathroom, but I could never actually do it either.

 

I think she's lucky you didn't serve escargot. Or liver. Or, or, or . . . the possibilities are endless!

[Hannah C.]

On the homemade mac n cheese vs the boxed mac n cheese thing: I have to admit, I am guilty of only liking storebought mac n cheese...however, they are two quite different things in my experience. Boxed mac n cheese is elbow macaroni in a cheese sauce. Homemade mac n cheese that I've had was elbow macaroni, with milk somehow in/around it, with cheese on top, baked in an oven, and I greatly disliked it (as an admittedly picky child). I've never had homemade mac n cheese which actually had a *cheese sauce* or that was in any way similar to boxed mac n cheese.

[fairytalemama]

I don't think it's got anything to do with taste, but rather with habits, and comfort zones.

 

I completely agree. It took forever to get my husband on the homemade train after we were married because pretty much everything his mom ever made was out of a can or box. If it doesn't look familiar, some people just won't eat it. Don't feel bad---feel good that you're instilling good habits about food in your family. Maybe the one person who tries your dish and likes it will be more inspired to make more food homemade themselves.

 

One other comment --- most processed foods are full of sodium and/or sugar. I think the average American palate is just used to food being super salty and sugary, and most homemade food isn't.

[Janna]

People want to know exactly what they're getting. (well most people, not everyone of course). An Oreo cookie is exactly just that, regardless of who brought it. So there's no surprise there. You know you'll like it (or not).

 

I don't think it's got anything to do with taste, but rather with habits, and comfort zones.

 

I think your thought on habits and comfort zones is very true, too.

[IsabelC]

How do you make marshmallows? I don't eat them, but my dh loves 'em so I'd like to try it.

[Janna]

I also notice weird eating habits. If we didn't bring vegetables to one family holiday dinner there wouldn't be any vegetables except mashed potatoes. And they only take a token spoonful whereas at home our holiday dinner we clean up two or three veggies dishes.

 

And I'm betting the veggie dishes you make don't include corn.:lol:

 

There is a family that we are close friends with; they do not eat *any* veggies. They are as frugal as frugal gets and that means nothing fresh. And, since their palette is so used to refined/processes foods, they don't even like *canned* veggies. I've never met another family like it. And they're all overweight - even the kids (except the youngest - who is very thin and unhealthy looking). It makes me sad for them (they are the ones who bring the bacon-wrapped hot dogs drizzled with a margarine/brown sugar sauce that so many people rave about. *gag*, *shudder* *shiver*)

[Janna]

I think your cooking sounds beautiful and your friends are philistines who are completely lacking in taste. :tongue_smilie: (I only wish you lived near me!)

 

 

 

Aww, thank you! I wish I lived near you, too! I could use more encouragement like that, and people to share my food with! ;)

[Janna]

It wasn't even homemade food. My pbj sandwiches were rejected by the neighbor kids. Why? Because I use whole wheat bread, natural peanut butter, and blackberry or black raspberry jelly. Not white bread, sweetened peanut butter, and grape jelly.

 

Cinder

 

YES!! Here too! Grrrr...it is SO frustrating!

[Janna]

I prefer homemade food, but I find potlucks difficult and often will gravitate to prepackaged meals. This is only because I (and my kids) have food allergies, and I know which store bought items are ok for me and which are not. I cannot go around and ask all the lovely ladies who made the homemade food what the ingredients are in their dishes. When I eat in someone else's home (not potluck style), I am grateful for a host who serves yummy homemade food, but is also not offended if I need to know what is in the food before I can partake of it.

 

:grouphug: sorry that your food is not being appreciated!

 

You know, this is a good point. I don't have allergy issues to deal with, thankfully, but I am picky about what I eat. This means that if I don't *know* what's in it (was it made with margarine? Was it made with Crisco? Does it have meat?) then I (most of the time) won't eat it. I guess that I just know that my stuff is good, LOL, so I don't know why it's not selected! ;)

[Soror]

I had to train dh away from packaged food as that is what his mom cooked, he now generally prefers homemade as well. When we got married though he preferred spud flakes! I don't usually waste time making homemade food for most people. However, in my set of friends everyone makes everything(most) homemade- it is just what you do. We just had a big girls get together tonight and we had-delicious Italian soup, lovely mixed green salad w/ dressing, hummus and crackers, lacto-fermented pickles, apple crisp, truffles, cider and punch- all homemade from scratch and entirely scrumptious.

[Crissy]

bacon-wrapped hot dogs drizzled with a margarine/brown sugar sauce that so many people rave about.

 

 

:ack2:

 

Oh my gosh. That sounds absolutely disgusting!

[Janna]

 

This is the recipe I use. It's a sticky mess that I curse while I'm cutting them, but I'm always so glad I have them on hand. The way these melt into hot chocolate is to die for.

[silliness7]

I am making myself completely vulnerable by asking this, so be gentle! ;)

 

So many of you mentioned, in the thread about making food by scratch, that homemade food is just better. Have you ever had people NOT prefer your homemade food because they weren't used to that?

 

I make almost everything by scratch, including the marshmallows we put in our hot chocolate. But I have noticed that when I am in group gatherings where there is a potluck, what I bring is almost never eaten completely, while the processed stuff that others bring is always gone and people beg for the recipes. It's stuff like bacon-wrapped hot dogs, or chili con queso made with Velveeta.:ack2: For our last get together with people, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I served the Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Spicy Caramel Sauce and Vanilla Bean Creme Anglaise that Bobbly Flay made on his Throwdown with Ree. I even made the whipped cream. It was an absolutely fabulous dessert and do you know that only one person in a group of 12 liked it? The others thought it was too fancy and only like Cool Whip. I get this kind of reaction all the time. Even on Sunday, we had a children's program at church and several families had to bring a couple dozen cookies. I was the only one to make homemade cookies (some brought "homemade" cookies that were the packaged, precut cookies found in the refrigerated section of the store that just needed to be baked), while others brought packaged cookies - Oreos, Great Value brand choc. chip cookies etc. and I noticed that mine were the ones mostly left over.:confused:

 

I don't think it's my cooking because I love the food I make enough to not enjoy going out to eat unless it's at a restaurant that makes food I don't (like sushi or a good seafood place). My family, including extended family, like my food too, so I'm pretty comfortable saying it's not my food. But...it does leave one to wonder sometimes.

 

I wonder if people who are used to eating overly processed food find homemade food too strong for their palette the way the OP of the other thread found eating processed food to taste like chemicals...?

 

Have others found their homemade food to be not as well received as packaged/processed food? (please say yes. PLEASE say yes!)

 

Yes, my hubby prefers many packaged foods to homemade. He was raised on fast food and packaged food. It caused me much grief as a young wife but I'm over it. :001_smile:

I personally like boxed mashed potatoes to the real thing. I know I'm weird.

[silliness7]

My sister actually brought cranberry sauce in a can to my house one Thanksgiving because "it doesn't feel like Thanksgiving with that homemade stuff." Ugh. My own kids won't touch the canned stuff, only the homemade.:D

 

I'm with your sister. :001_smile:

[lighthouseacademy]

Reminds me of when I was a kid and my grandma offered chocolate chip cookies to my froends little brother. He was all excited and when he saw it wasn't chips ahoy he sai, "Oh, I just remembered I don't like chovolate chip cookies.":lol:

[Belacqua]

I'm with your sister. :001_smile:

 

My grandmother was in your cranberry sauce camp. Moreover, it had to retain the shape of the can or it just wasn't right. And I know she wasn't alone. One brand, apparently, even includes instructions on the label about how to remove the sauce so it keeps its cylindrical shape.

[cindergretta]

We eat lots of veggies and bake our own bread and my dh makes fabulous soups and casseroles, homemade, from scratch.

 

That said, at potlucks, we do gravitate to the "pre-packaged" foods because we know what is in them. With dc with allergies, it is a lot less complicated than trying to figure out what is in everything, kwim? Plus, the allergies are sensitive enough that there can't be cross-contamination. So we have to steer clear of homemade since I have been burned (or rather my dc have been) when we were told it didn't contain dairy (a lot of people have no idea how many different ways dairy can be hidden) or eggs or whatever the allergy is.

 

For me, I *hate* mushrooms and will totally gag if I take a bite of something and run into a mushroom. Since I don't want to offend or hurt feelings, I tend to not eat things that *might* contain them.

 

I've been married to dh for *years* and his mother (Okinawan) makes the most awesome (from scratch ;) ) spring rolls. This year, I happily bit into one and <blech!> there were ****ake mushrooms in there!!! She has never put mushrooms in them!! I gagged and felt *so* stupid. God bless her, she wasn't in the least offended.

 

(Incidentally, when we do buy bread, we used to buy ww, but we found a white bread that had more protein and more fiber per slice than the ww and didn't have HFCS in it. A lot of the packaged wws have CS and/or HFCS. That really stumps me. :-/ )

 

Many moons ago I dated a man whose family ate only two veggies - corn and potatoes. Hunh??? I don't even consider those veggies!!! (And wrt veggies, I love raw, fresh, garden, frozen, and so forth. EXCEPT - green beans. ::blush:: For whatever odd - and embarassing - reason, I only like canned...)

 

Uuuuhhh, the censor won't let me type sh*take mushrooms!!! :lol:

[keptwoman]

I did once encounter an adult who would only eat instant mashed potatoes because "real potatoes are grown in dirt." :001_huh: I tried really, really, really hard not to make that puking gesture when she said that. I swear I tried. ;)

Oh. Kay. What did she think the potatoes they use to make the instant stuff was grown in? Vats? :001_huh:

Admittedly, I do rather like instant mash, but I also love real mash, and real mash with butter and cheese, and real mash with sauteed onions, and real mash on crackers with butter (a wee trick my Dad taught me, don't knock it till you try it) and roast potatoes and potato salad and boiled potatoes with lashings of butter and well, just potatoes, I LOVE EM. Instant mash was our holiday food so it has fond memories :D

 

We eat lots of veggies and bake our own bread and my dh makes fabulous soups and casseroles, homemade, from scratch.

 

That said, at potlucks, we do gravitate to the "pre-packaged" foods because we know what is in them. With dc with allergies, it is a lot less complicated than trying to figure out what is in everything, kwim? Plus, the allergies are sensitive enough that there can't be cross-contamination. So we have to steer clear of homemade since I have been burned (or rather my dc have been) when we were told it didn't contain dairy (a lot of people have no idea how many different ways dairy can be hidden) or eggs or whatever the allergy is.

 

 

Uuuuhhh, the censor won't let me type sh*take mushrooms!!! :lol:

Yes, with allergies, it is sometimes easier to know what is in it. However I abhor packaged stuff so I will find who cooked something and quiz them to see if I can eat their yummy food!

And I totally LOLed about the ****ake mushroom censor. :lol:

 

OP that dessert sounded DELICIOUS!! I would have scoffed it if I could, and the people who turn their noses up are food heathens. Don't waste your talents on them, I wouldn't buy packaged crap but I wouldn't go to much effort either.

[Mom in High Heels]

It wasn't even homemade food. My pbj sandwiches were rejected by the neighbor kids. Why? Because I use whole wheat bread, natural peanut butter, and blackberry or black raspberry jelly. Not white bread, sweetened peanut butter, and grape jelly.

 

Cinder

 

LOL! Indy won't even eat pb&j because it's "weird." He'll eat peanut butter sandwiches on multi-grain bread, but the thought of adding jelly grosses him out. My mom thinks there's something wrong with him because what kid doesn't eat pb&j? Well, mine for one. :D

[Mom in High Heels]

 

I also notice weird eating habits. If we didn't bring vegetables to one family holiday dinner there wouldn't be any vegetables except mashed potatoes. And they only take a token spoonful whereas at home our holiday dinner we clean up two or three veggies dishes.

 

At T-giving, we hosted a bunch of friends and no one brought a veg. I had corn (because it's tradition, I suppose) and cooked a head of broccoli and made a big salad. Indy, dh and I were the only ones who touched the broccoli or salad. Everyone else ate just mashed potatoes.

[Lucy in Australia]

Yes, I know exactly what you mean and it got to the point where I was so sick of hearing myself complaining about this that I decided to choose my "crowd" carefully. I only cook when I know it will be eaten and enjoyed. The rest of the time I bring the packaged stuff.

 

Fortunately our church is full of home-cooks, and what's more we have about 15 different nationalities represented so pot-lucks are a foodie's dream :D

[asta]

Yes, my hubby prefers many packaged foods to homemade. He was raised on fast food and packaged food. It caused me much grief as a young wife but I'm over it. :001_smile:

I personally like boxed mashed potatoes to the real thing. I know I'm weird.

 

They are the real thing. They are simply dehydrated and flaked. Unless you buy the "mixes" they are just potatoes. The boxed ones taste differently because they are a dehydrated food (and just like all dehydrated food, they have stabilizers. They usually have milk or soy etc. because people truly want "instant" - they don't want to have to add anything they would normally add to their boiled potatoes to make them creamy.)

 

(I lived in Idaho by the JR Simplot plant for a while...)

 

 

asta

Edited December 8, 2010 by asta