To be upset by PILS choice of celebration meal.

Did your DH say anything to them?

Mine would have done a 'nice choice for the set menu, mum-you chose something X is allergic to for the starter and something you know she hates for the main course and didn't give her the choice to have something else!'

Do they not like you very much?

Who communicated with the PIL about the celebration meal? I'm assuming DH. Was he aware of the set meal and asked about allergies?

TBH either they 'forgot' as you don't eat those foods and they don't know you well

Or they don't like you.

If you didn't deal with it at the time you need to let it go. They chose what they like to eat which is fair enough as it was their anniversary. The fact that you dislike lamb should not stop them ordering their favoured roast dinner.

one who won't have anything with a creamy or white sauce*
funnily enough, this hatred of creamy things doesn't extend to ice cream... @LakieLady

Warm or hot creamy or white sauce is different to ice cream. For one, a sauce goes over something else and it's not that uncommon for people especially neurodivergent to not like "mixing" foods.

But I wonder if you realise how judgemental you sound about people who obviously don't eat like you, especially the comment about people who "won't eat meat", like wilful toddlers, whereas most people would say "don't eat meat" as a simple statement of fact.

OP didn’t say anything to them about it! She sat there while her DH and daughter ate the items she couldn’t eat. If someone can’t eat a food because it makes them gag, it doesn’t make them a fussy eater.

Not sure how someone being allergic to salmon and not liking one meat makes them fussy.

Sounds like they completely forgot about your salmon allergy and well dislike of lamb, I suspect if they are farmers they simply don’t understand that (nor me, if you eat meat, you eat meat, and lamb is the nicest of all, sorry).

Don’t understand or don’t care?

Honestly, with this type of attitude I’d never want to be hosted by some posters. I don’t have any allergies and eat what is put in front of me, but I’d be internally side-eying anyone who act as if they can’t accommodate something relatively small because they can’t understand it or don’t agree with it and wouldn’t be jumping to go to anything they host again.

Just because someone eats meat doesn’t mean they are willing to eat all meats or should have to. Plenty of people like only certain types of meat for a variety of reasons, doesn’t make them fussy.

In a group of 20 people there was not one vegetarian?
Or the option to have the vegetables without the lamb gravy?

I'm vegan and can always rely on "just the vegetables please" at the most traditional of restaurants.

Maybe that's what they thought you'd do.

Such a weird set up at the restaurant that if you ordered a meal from the main kitchen that you'd have to eat it in a different area!

Good grief. Do you think they did it on purpose?

Is it? I couldn’t tell you if any of my family has allergies. I know who’s veggie and vegan and who’s gluten intolerant, not a clue about allergies.

If I had a serious allergy and a huge dislike for something fairly standard then I would have called the venue myself to check on the menu. Yes your in-laws were thoughtless but they probably forgot and I'm wondering if you actually reminded them maybe a couple of times when they were organising the event?
It was one meal out your life so I'd just chalk it up and make sure you sort things out in advance next time!

They served you food with your allergen. They were rude.

the lamb is a bit more complicated, but serving you salmon is inexcusable.

SE England. Yes they ate these foods but they were not part of an everyday diet.
I remember in 1983 being served orange juice as a starter by a relative.

I totally get that!

My in-laws include a pescatarian, a vegetarian, someone with dairy and gluten intolerance, one who's not a veggie but will only eat poultry or fish, no other meat, one who is allergic to all fish, one who won't eat anything vaguely spicy or "foreign", one who won't have anything with a creamy or white sauce*, one who doesn't eat any vegetables but potatoes...

That's why lunch at MIL's is always roast chicken and a cheese pasty for the two that won't eat meat, and why they only get invited here one household at a time: it reduces the complications.

*funnily enough, this hatred of creamy things doesn't extend to ice cream...

Haven’t read all 14 pages so sorry if this has been covered. What did your partner say about it? My husband wouldn’t have just sat there enjoying a 3 course meal if I was struggling to find something I could eat. I too would have gone and asked staff if there was anything they could rustle up for me. It’s pretty inconsiderate of your in-laws to assume 20 people all want to eat the same thing as they do. Especially if you have paid a lot of money just to get there and stay over.

Fewer travel opportunities, too.

I suspect none of it happened

I suspect that the 'separate dining room kitchen' only had a microwave and therefore couldn't cook anything that hadn't already been prepared and cooked downstairs. Why, however, someone couldn't have just.... carried a plate upstairs from the other kitchen baffles me.

@Flossflower. Where were you living where people did not eat seafood or nuts?

Sounds like they completely forgot about your salmon allergy and well dislike of lamb, I suspect if they are farmers they simply don’t understand that (nor me, if you eat meat, you eat meat, and lamb is the nicest of all, sorry)

Before about 1980 we all usually ate a very plain diet. It was not common to eat seafood, nuts etc. That may be why there were fewer people with allergies
My grandparents always said they would eat anything. Well yes they would eat anything from the very small selection of food they had.

Did you even read the post? Lamb
makes her gag. This doesn't mean she's entitled.

Yes. People can choose not to eat anything but I think it's rude to the complain. Fussy eaters can be less fussy or sort their own arrangements. What's the issue?

OP says she didn't know it was a set menu until she got there.

No, I’m not a dustbin. Plenty of foods I don’t like, but I could eat enough of any meal served by my hosts, because I’ve no allergies and no sensory issues, and probably also because I was raised in the 70s & 80s by parents in straitened circumstances and anxious about malnutrition.

I don’t judge restricted/selective eaters: I don’t think they can help it, and if severe it makes life really hard. My point is, not liking a food to the extent you can’t eat it at all, ever, is ‘fussy’ in the context the OP uses the term, just less so than someone with eg ARFID. The OP isn’t ‘better’ than someone who can’t eat a dozen foods, just because she only hates lamb: none of them can help it. Any 20 people will all have something they dislike, so a set menu will never delight everyone, but I did think the OP’s hosts were thoughtless. Any host in my family would have debated the menu options in our WhatsApp group for days before one was chosen!

Well that was my point!
You didn't say "I think the smell of it is revolting" or "the smell of it is revolting to me"
You said "the smell of it is revolting" - and as you said yourself just now.... To you, yes. To me it smells delicious.