Dinner parties with contentious food

This post possibly describes the rudest behaviour I've ever heard of.

I'm now at the age where I have enough confidence that I'd have said "I'm sorry, but this menu has made me very nauseous and I have to leave."

And I'd go no contact with the "hosts" from then on in.

Seems very inconsiderate. Personally I would refuse further invitations from people like that.
I have always tried to serve food that everyone would like with a decent alternative just in case.

Happily I've never encountered such weird or unaccommodating people in my life. If offered anything questionable I would simply say no thanks.

I didn't think people gave dinner parties like that any more; the menu sounds very old-fashioned.
That said,hostesses are usually looking to cook something different and/or unusual, not deliberately presenting food they know will not be enjoyed.
With the liver an alternative was offered so I do not understand the problem.
I ate rabbit, which I can't bear, in a french house where I was a guest, despite having to listen to how the rabbit, 'you call him Peter Rabbit, no?' was caught in the netting to keep the birds away from the lettuces, and met his end. They thought it was a great treat for me.

I’ve not heard of a dinner party taking place in years not in my neck of the woods anyway. ?

I agree Dinner parties are outdated. Mostly people keep it simple as it is about the friends/family you are sharing it with. I do remember in the 1970's/80's there was a lot of competition about who could outdo someone at the next dinner. Thank goodness those days are gone and we can be more relaxed about what we serve.

Well, I gagged at your descriptions. I'd have gotten up and left in both situations, frankly. I was invited for dinner, not therapy fodder.

My understanding, when it comes to inviting guests for dinner, is to prepare a meal that is pleasing to all. Ambushing your guests with whatever edgy cuisine you happened to dream up to provoke a reaction seems more like performance art than a dinner.

Perhaps performance is the point. Did anyone check for hidden cameras?

Goodness I've been served things I didn't like but never intentionally and I've always done my best to eat as much as I could. My Mil often served pheasant, she would hang it until it was quite gamey but as soon as she realised I didn't like it, she made sure there was an alternative. The rest of the family loved it like that.

i was once given a few leaves that looked like dandelions, and had to beg/ask if there might be any cheese perhaps, while everyone else tucked into great helpings of lasagne.
i do not eat meat.
when i realised what was going to be served, i should have made my excuses and left.
i was brought as the plus one of the birthday girl. had never met any of the others; was most unpleasant. never again.

OP, your experiences sound like something out of fanny craddock.

I haven’t been to a dinner party for as long as I can remember
Never walked in those sort of circles
Dinner parties sounds very ‘poe sh’ I m a working class gal
So I wouldn’t be going unless they offered a nice vegetarian option

I couldn't eat that menu if you paid me.
It would be a polite refusal from me.

My dad used to jug hares quite often so I don't consider it 'edgy'. DH was served it when he came for a meal once. A bit like a Bush tucker trial. He passed!!

He would also go back for any pheasants he might have hit on the road. He plucked, hung, dressed and cooked them.

I am uncomfortable with eating hare at all to be honest and that most probably makes me sound like a massive hypocrite as I eat meat

A nice bit of chicken breast is about my limit.
Sage and onion if I want to be edgy.

Well said, MercuryQueen

I’m assuming that the OP was reminiscing from years ago.
We often have people over for Supper, but will say “we are having Chilli/Spag Bol if you want to come over” sometimes they will say “oh we haven’t had so and so for a long time” so I’ll do that instead.
Gone are the days of the 3 or 4 course formal dinner parties, for us anyway, I’d rather take people out for a meal than slog in the kitchen all day, or get a takeaway.

We went to dinner with neighbours years ago, and were served what I thought was a beef casserole. It was actually large pieces of thick ox liver. I was polite and just cut off and ate tiny pieces. Thinking back, it would have been nice of them to ask if we liked liver when they invited us.
Still don’t eat liver.

Yes, twice. Friends who cooked horse, and then teased. They are still friends as we have been so since we were kids- but it took me a while to get over the fact they thought it was 'funny ahaha'.

And another time when we were served kidneys, which everyone knows is a very special and acquired taste. I could not eat anything, not even the gratin and veg served on same plate.

I always ask guests well in advance if there is anything they can't or won't eat- I invite them so they can enjoy their evening, not to test or torture them. I won't cook halal meat, so if we have Muslim friends, I'll cook vegetarian or fish.

We have cooked and eaten road kill.
I’ve cooked horse once without knowing.
I was asked to be cook/ crew to deliver a a yacht to Oostende.
I bought what I thought was a very good buy for a beef casserole.
The crew thought I’d broken the budget until someone asked how much it was. I didn’t know ?

I didn't know kidneys were an acquired taste. I thought kate and sidney pie was a British basic.

I've made devilled kidneys on toast a few times (just for husb and me) though not for a long while. And I've eaten sheep's heart a few times in Yorkshire. It's good food.

Now off to look up jugged hare which I've heard of but know nothing about.

I cooked all manner of game during the seventies. It was free for a start!

Nobody complained and I was a very considerate hostess because whenever I served pike I provided eyebrow tweezers to pick out the Y bones.

In A Taste of History by Maggie Black (English Heritage 1993) meat cooked in a jug. She says this: “…poultry, game or small quantities of meat could be placed in an earthenware vessel with butter, herbs and spices, a lid sealed in place with a strip of pastry, and the vessel immersed in the cauldron for a few hours. In this way, richly flavoured and tender dishes were produced, including jugged hare, in which the jointed animal was cooked in a jug.”

Sounds fine to me.

Elisabeth Ayrton in The Cookery of England (Penguin Books 1974) a recipe for jugged hare is given which, as well as hare meat includes bacon, onions, carrots, herbs and spices, port, red wine and redcurrant jelly. Looks delicious! All I need is a cauldron and some hare meat.

If you got served hare vertebrae, yammy, you were short changed and you host(ess) did not know how to do jugged hare properly. The 'inferior joints' are supposed to be used to make stock and soup.

By the way, meat is always "in its own blood". Who or what else's blood would it be in? Blood is good food too.

We can only be so picky (and 'precious') about food because we have access to an over abundance of choice. When people ate whatever they could get enough of they weren't so fussy.

Actually that does sound delicious Baggs.
And I like liver.
Lamb’s though. Pig liver has tubes in it.