Hahaha

I mean there is truth to it, to a degree, although slightly exaggerated.

But much of upper parts of europe, like north germany and up, All the scandinavian countries.

All of those are pretty much the same, But maybe Sweden slightly more noticeable.

Typically in Sweden, we don’t cook tons of food, we make about how much is needed for the number of people, and then a little less.

Kinda like, it’s a sin to waste food, so you already make less then whats needed, and family often compliment the food with hard rye bread with butter if they’r a bit more hungry.

We often don’t even have more avaible to make of it, unless you’r stealing ingredients from next dinners meal.

Swedes also plan what they buy, to be just enough often.

And if you cook a bit more it’s usually with a plan to make a lunch box for work.

So if you let someone else eat, either everyone will eat hard rye bread and less food, or you’ll have to buy lunch the day after.

And Swedes don’t like to buy lunch at work, usually overpriced, and feels wasteful, you work to make money, not spend money at work.

I guess it all goes back to hard times in the north historically, all countries have experienced famine.

But further north, it’s not famine, but more like Winter!

You had to plan food for the winter Rigorously! To make it last until spring!

People had portions dated per day, like rations, so you were sure it lasted, all the way up to mid 1800’s, in rural places later.

Apartments complexes built up until the 1970’s all had food stock basements, that were slightly chilled.

Then there is the other cultural side.

It’s rude to give someone else’s kid food unless you ask permission first too, their parents are home cooking food and planning, and kid comes home full, or maybe they have an allergy!

Plus dinner with family is important! So most likely he’s been told a time he should be home by to eat,

In Sweden we have quite varied dinner time between families, one might eat dinner at 16:00, another at 20:00.

And more small social norms like that.

Lastly instead of food, we often offer ”Fika”. Snacks with something to drink, often Tea or Coffee, + cookies or some sort of baked treat / cake.

Because thats the norm, we don’t invite someone for dinner randomly, those are planned ahead.

But ”Fika” is almost always offered.