A viral Tweet taken from a Reddit post has recently caused conversation on guest etiquette, hosting, and culture has recently had some people surprised that not everyone feeds guests at their house. In the post from Reddit, someone asks what the weirdest thing someone had to do as a guest at someone’s house is due to their unique culture or religious beliefs. After visiting their Swedish friend’s house, one person wrote that he was told to wait upstairs while his friend ate dinner with his family. Immediately, the post caused conversation, as many could not imagine inviting someone over and leaving them out during dinner, or being a parent that does not feed their child’s friend.
Not here to judge but I don’t understand this. How’re you going to eat without inviting your friend? pic.twitter.com/bFEgoLiuDB
— Seeker (@SamQari) May 26, 2022
The post continued that when the person woke up, their friend was missing, and they found them eating breakfast downstairs and still were not invited. “That is messed up!! You feed your guests. Especially if they are there at mealtime and most certainly if they sleep at your house,” one person noted. The conversation turned into a cultural conversation and was interesting to see how different cultures responded to hosting guests. “In Indonesia, even the neighbors are not visiting, we give them food once in a while especially when we have plenty of food. If guests are visiting, we make sure they are eating and eating. Nobody is allowed to get starving,” one person commented.
This was the way we did it when I grew up. I thought it was super normal until I came to the UK and they were appalled! One of my friends didn't have a lot of money so if there were leftovers we let her have some AFTER we had finished🤦
— Cecilia Dahlsjö (@CDahlsjo) May 28, 2022
This was how my home was. We were blue collar Americans, Scandi/Slavic descent and my parents would never let friends eat. If they asked for a snack, we’d have to tell them to
leave. Meanwhile, all my friend’s parents fed me all the time.— Emily Burzynski (@LaJoieDeMe) May 29, 2022
Some Swedes joined in the conversation as well, but the consensus was still up for debate. “As a Swede, I wouldn’t say this is really a culture thing. It has more to do with when guests come unsuspected and there isn’t enough food for everyone. We only make enough food we think we will eat. Otherwise, they eat with the family,” one person commented. Another wrote “As a Swede, I can confirm this, I would say the second case with no breakfast is very weird but the first one is very normal and I would find it weird to feed someone else’s kid if they just over to play. Sleepover for sure they get food.”
Not even a pandemic has united the world as strongly as we are united against sweden’s lack of hospitality ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜
— quantumfluctuations🇵🇸 – BOOSTED (@M_of_starlight) May 29, 2022
— Daroks (@Darokison) May 29, 2022
Interestingly, someone posted a map pointing out which countries were most likely to give you food, and it is not just Sweden. Other cultures like Norway and some commented that the Netherlands also has this in their culture. Some theorize it comes from the country’s history of being poor. Many Swedes pointed out that they might not feed unexpected guests, but are happy to feed children who come to visit and that the post was an outlier to average Swedish culture.
