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I try not too because I've seen too many jam-packed fridges with questionable and scary items.

I'm with @AnnieNT, though I find an empty fridge to be just as or even more sad than a scary jam-packed one. A college-aged friend in the valley had nothing but one package of leftovers (the roommate's), liquor, beer, mixers, and nothing else in the fridge, with a bag of turkey patties and a thing of tilapia filets in the freezer (surprising for a beefy guy). His wood cuttingboards had NO marks of use, and the poor thing didn't even notice for the first three months in his house that the gas in the house wasn't hooked up. In college, I visited my brother once and found NOTHING edible in the kitchen but a sack of white rice in a cupboard, some pbr in the fridge, and salt on the counter.

I don't do it in a sneaky way. But at some point, I am likely to open my friends' refrigerators to get water or, more often, because we're cooking together. So I totally look. And judge, though I don't mean that as negatively as it sounds. I just draw certain amusing conclusions, about how they eat, how they cook, how they organize their stuff compared to how I organize mine and thus how they think of certain foods together. Stuff like that. I find it interesting.

Yes, though I don't go out of my way to do it. I'm always curious and fascinated by what I find in there, even if it turns out to be completely icky.

How exciting for you, Traveller! Congratulations!

Not on house hunts, but I have glanced in my friends fridges. I remember being shocked once when to find Hawaiian Punch in a friend's fridge.

My parent's fridge is another story. They never throw anything out! Sometimes when they go on vacation, I go to their house and clean out their fridge throwing out anything that's expired or that I remember questioning on the last clean out. I wipe down all the surfaces too. Then I like to put fresh milk and something nice in there for their return.

My nephew was visiting from the UK and took video of our house to show the folks back home. While visiting the UK a couple of years later, we were shown the video and imagine my amazement when I saw that he had video taped the entire contents of my refrigerator and freezer.

um, no. just like you dont check out their bathroom pharmacies. open pantries are like bookshelves and cd/dvd racks.... good quick reading. and the judging is more like "oh this is totally you" or "really? you have ___." as i see person in new light.

as for the checkout counter, i used to love guessing what the "12 items or less" people were making. larger grocery piles just become a blur or can become disgusting if you go there.

When I go to my parent's house its pretty much the first thing I do...my mom does it to me too though. I'm always interested what kind of awesome cheeses she might have. I keep my fridge very organized, but I don't have the ever changing variety that she does! I do look when I'm at other people's houses also..not in a sneaky way though. I always feel sad when I see crappy food/drinks or wasted produce. A few months ago we went to a friends house for dinner, and at the end of the meal she threw out all the leftover bagged salad because they wouldn't eat it again! That killed me!

I do enjoy spying on the grocery belt but I don't check other people's fridges. That is simply because I would NEVER want anyone to look in mine. For one, it's messy and jam packed with all kinds of weird stuff. In my freezer, I have a frozen pelican head and a frozen magnificent frigate bird. I am married to a science teacher who keeps telling me they will just be the BEST skulls ever. They have been in there for over 5 years!! Don't be too scared though because I don't cook on a regular basis I never freeze much of anything....except ice cream, popsicles and the like. My mom rarely eats at my house because of stories like these!!!

I don't care what's in someone's refrigerator, but I will sneak a look in their pantry closet. I am intrigued by their preferred junk food snacks, processed foods, cookies, sugar cereals, canned foods, etc., or lack thereof. This is more telling about someone's food fetishes than the perishable stuff in the fridge.

When given the opportunity to look in someone else's fridge (at a friends house or relatives) I do so willingly and with great haste. More times than not, I find myself horrified and asking myself, "how the hell do these people live like this?" Looking at the contents of someone else's fridge is kinda like going over to a friends house when you're a kid and asking yourself, "are all family's this weird or is my family that f@#$%! up?"

I guess we all have our little idiosyncrasies that make us...uh, special...

How perfectly timed! I got to be the snoopy MIL, and it was perfectly legal because I was invited! I've been away for a few days--a daughter-in-law went to her sister's to help with a new baby, and I got to babysit my 16-year-old grandaughter and six-year-old twin grandsons. I arrived armed to the teeth with "groceries" because that's what grandmas are for--watermelon, pineapple, fruit leathers, double-stuffed Oreos, M&Ms, Bugles, string cheese, chocolate milk and ingredients to make brownies and chocolate chip cookies. And couscous--all my grandkids think it's the bomb because it's so much fun to say.

This DIL goes to the grocery store two or three times a week because she's always out of bread or milk or juice boxes for school lunches, so she does a good job of keeping up with supplies like brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. She likes to cook, so there weren't a ton of frozen dinners, but tsk, tsk, she had four different sizes and shapes of breaded chicken products in the freezer--nuggets, strips, patties and wings. I was a smidge surprised to see boxes of macaroni and cheese and Rice-a-Roni in the pantry, but that was balanced by the bags of brown rice, lentils and yellow split peas and two kinds of olive oil. Her refrigerator had tons of plastic containers of old mystery food, but nothing was green or fuzzy. She was out of eggs, no butter (Country Crock), but had a nice chunk of parmesan, some beautiful lemons and limes, some nice romaine. I'd give her an A-.

Back home now, I had to toss a bag of cilantro. Aside from that, I don't think I'd be embarrassed to show my fridge to the world. Except for maybe the unlabeled big zipper bag that contains unlabeled little zipper bags of chicken livers in the freezer waiting for me to do something with them. The DIL I live with asks politely about them once in a while. . .now is probably a good time to make a batch of Julia's chicken liver pate.

My favorite thing to do at someone else's house is to read their refrigerators. If it's on the outside of the fridge, it's not snooping, is it?

Yes! I get a kick out of peoples fridges inside and out ... I don't care if anyone looks into mine either.They may need protection from whatever may come crashing out though. I live crazy close to the farmers market and sometimes I just can't help myself. Usually my stuffed fridge makes people laugh!

Excellent words of wisdom, @PoorOldMama. I hereby adopt that rule for my kitchen.

I remember looking into a friend's refrigerator years ago, and saw 15 or more different, strange, and unfamiliar types of mustard on the door. He explained to me that his older brother was "into mustard". This was intriguing, my having been raised on the bland, yellow stuff. This thread reminded me of that experience, which helped spark my interest in gourmet foods.
I now order from the Mustard Museum in Wisconsin, which sells 500 different mustards from around the world. Gotta love the internet.
www.mustardmuseum.com