In-laws still serve me food they know I don't like

I always do roast potatoes in olive oil and they’re lovely. OP - you are too passive. I would definitely point it out and given how many times it’s happened I’d bring my own food. In fact, I wouldn’t go at all if I were treated like this.

@spospotlightq You have to look at your part in this. Your ILs are bang out of order.

You can't change them. You can only change how you react to this. You simply take your own food or refuse to go.

It doesn't matter they are oversensitive. You tell them in an assertive way. It will feel uncomfortable. However, if you don't tell them nothing with change. You will need to keep consistently tell them.

You need to tell your husband what you're going to do too.

It sounds to me as if you're also sensitive and don't want conflict. Your ILs play on you, not challenging them.

There's nothing wrong with being sensitive. However, you have to change consistently what you're doing.

Our ex DiL was/is vegetarian. It's not hard to cater for.

Thank goodness you haven't got coeliac or any allergy. It wouldn't be safe to eat there

It isn't generational. I'm 64. I'm so fed up of idiocy being attributed to being "old"

I'm so not vegetarian my favourite cookbook is Normal Tebbit's game cookery (seriously it's brilliant). I not only know how to cook meat and game I know how to pluck game birds and clean out their entrails. I could at a push even wring a free range hen's neck.

If posters seriously think cooking without meat is "limiting" it's they who are missing out on many, many fabulous foods and meals.

You should head back over to X, it’s more suited to people who like to argue for the sake of arguing

I do agree it's generational. My 80 year old Mum rolls her eyes a bit at DH and I being vegetarian, but she respects our choice and if we visit is very considerate and accommodating. I always ask if ahe wants us to bring our own food, but she usually buys in a veggie Quiche, salad and potatoes or something similar. It's hardly stressful or putting her out to omit meat. I'm unsure why people find it overly complicated tbh 🤣

I really don't understand why people would suggest that vegetarians are fussy eaters or that it's difficult to cater for them separately. Surely you would cook something that a close member of your family can eat? I've seen comments on this thread about the way roast potatoes are cooked as though it's a problem to cook them in an oil that is suitable for a vegetarian or with a mix of butter. If it's such an issue, why not serve buttery mashed potato instead? If you really can't be bothered to put yourself out for a guest by not putting pancetta in your peas, then there are so many vegetarian ready meals that you could buy.

I've had period where my daughter was a vegan and a vegetarian and she is now a Muslim, and it's really not been particularly onerous to accommodate her dietary requirements. We had one Christmas where I bought her a tofurkey which was cooked separately with her own roast potatoes, vegetarian pigs in blankets, and vegetarian gravy - it really wasn't very difficult. She and her husband are currently living with us so I need to accommodate a halal diet. Again, it's not a problem. I accept that we eat differently and respect her choices - I don't for a second consider thst she's fussy!

People saying it's generational - how old are we talking here?

I have friends in their 60s and 70s who are vegetarian.
When SIL decided to stop eating meat even my late MIL made an effort to find interesting vegetarian recipes. She would have been 94 this year.

It isn't generational, it is people who are lazy, inhospitable, hard of thinking, bigoted or just plain thick.

So many simple options available for you as an adult. Eat a filling vegetarian meal before your visit or eat a filling vegetarian meal after your visit or bring a lovely vegetarian meal with you to eat during your visit or eat the meal they prepared or bring a meal that accommodates your food preferences or suggest eating out a a place that serves foods that accommodate your food preferences. I was a vegetarian for many, many years and have done all of the above to accommodate my personal chosen food preferences during those years. I did not believe I was owed a special vegetarian meal by any host and did not believe that my choice to not eat meat should be inflicted upon anyone else at that meal or in general (not morally superior as another poster mentioned). Not one time did I demand that as a guest the meal or any portion of it be made to accommodate my personal food preferences. And that is all that vegetarian food choices are - personal food preferences. It's just rude to refuse to bring something to your own liking AND at the same time demand that a vegetarian meal be prepared for you in someone else's home. Just bring a food you choose to eat or eat what they serve without complaining about it. You are making this an ongoing big deal when it doesn't have to be that at all. You control the solution to your own happiness, not them or the food they serve.

Im saying its a generational thing. There was a time if you wanted something different YOU brought it. I wouldn’t dream of asking anyone to make a special meal for me because I choose not to eat meat. Why should they? Now as you say, you ask people if they have an allergy etc and would accommodate. Fair enough. But I why doesnt OP take a dish.

Maybe it is inconvenient for some, but for most of us with a lick of common sense and consideration it is not.

Do you add meat to fruit, smoothies, desserts, and every dish that you have vegetables with?

Are you cooking all the sides of a Sunday roast in meat drippings?

My SIL is vegetarian and MIL has no issue when making a Sunday roast. SIL eats the veggies and brings a mushroom wellington that she makes herself to share that I look forward to over any meat that is placed on the table. There is the option for veggie gravy which is now a staple (more flavourful than meat gravy imo) even when she isn’t joining us because others in the family like it.

People with special needs diets are inconvenient at best and usually just plain annoying to cook for, however nice they are as people.

Cooking without meat isn't "special need" unless you (general you) are all or any of very thick, very lazy, very narrow minded and very petty.

I’m so confused by so many of the comments on here. Personally, being a vegetarian, to my mind, is not ‘deliberately restricting’ your diet. It wouldn’t cause huge disruption- all you need to do is make sure the vegetables are actually just that. In my house I would not expect a vegetarian guest to be stuck with no main course just the sides but surely that’s the very least one could do and it makes absolutely no extra work.

People with special needs diets are inconvenient at best and usually just plain annoying to cook for

It really isn't that difficult to cook for different dietary requirements these days. If you really can't think of something to cook just buy a ready meal. All the supermarkets have loads of choice in the Free From and vegetarian/vegan sections.

I read the title and was ready to give you little sympathy for being a fussy eater. But it is absolutely wrong to serve a vegetarian meat , particularly if they are actually putting it on your plate, and I would stop going there for dinner.

Just bring your own food and avoid the drama. People with special needs diets are inconvenient at best and usually just plain annoying to cook for, however nice they are as people.
If they are not accommodating your diet they either hate you or find it too difficult to cook differently for you.
So bring along a vegetarian entre and maybe join in helping yourself to any suitable veg. And be good humoured about it.
You'll probably find if you're willing to bring the solution, MIL will become happy to assist and maybe meet you halfway?
But I bet if they all came to yours for lunch, you'd have a problem cooking juicy steaks for everyone else except you. You'd expect them to eat what you deem is suitable and/or appropriate food.

I don’t think you need to make too much of an issue, given that your in laws suffer from, and make you suffer from, their moods! Why don’t you take for instance a slice of nut loaf, and then go out into the kitchen just before lunch and say something like “ I bought a slice of nut loaf for me to save you bothering about my vegetarian food preferences. Can I have some of your lovely veggies to go with it? Can I have ????.” Then pick the ones you can eat. I don’t think anybody would be hurt or upset by this, peace reigns and you have something to eat.

You have got to be kidding!!! You are doing a ‘reverse’ or whatever it’s called aren’t you?! Being vegetarian is not being a fussy eater! Vegetarian is simple, vegan more complicated, but considering it’s been 9 years and the poor woman hasn’t managed a meal there yet it is it is a completely untenable/unfathomable situation. How hard is to do plain peas for a start???

@spotlightq stop being bullied by their moods. Take your own food.
You are an adult, take control of your life.
The first time will be the worst.

Why is she a Princess for choosing not to eat meat?

I'm also Vegetarian for various reasons, it's a preference. I'm no mither at all. If I'm going to someone's house, say for Sunday lunch, I'll just have everything except the meat and stick a veggie stock cube in my bag for my own gravy. It's really not all that difficult to serve a meal without meat is it?

If someone was coming to my house who had a nut allergy, I wouldn't make a satay sauce! It's called 'consideration'.

Refuse to go. Tell DH he needs to speak with his parents and remind them that you are a vegetarian.

Being vegetarian is being fussy
🙄 Meat makes me ill so I think I'll stay fussy so I stay healthy

Invite them to your house and serve a meal you know they'll absolutely hate! Let them see how it feels. Go ridiculous and do something insanely vegan.

Agree with others, take your own, at least then you know what your eating, they've known long enough your vegetarian and are not trying to accommodate you.
The amount of times ive been served fish as they know im veggie, they think you just dont eat meat.