Have you ever just had the equivalent of a 'fruit salad' as a meal because the caterers forgot to ask about dietery requirements?

[chomalungma]

Watching the Apprentice last night.

Ooops.

A fruit salad - on the bright side, she got a bottle of wine.
Has that happened to you?

My husband once got a bowl of beetroot at a friends wedding. The starter was fruit salad, main beetroot, desert fruit salad. He was starving.

My friend and I went to France and she had a rough time with food, she’s been veggie all her life. She ordered the veggie pizza in once place it had potatoes on it as the topping I mean a country praised for great food and that’s the best they could come up with in another place the veggie stew thing she was served had lardons in it.

I eat meat myself but if going out with veggie friends I always try and make sure the restaurant caters for it. We went to a new posh type place that opened, they don’t have a menu available to view online so I called and checked they had vegetarian choices For my friend. They said they did, we arrived and every veggie choice was fish and the only side she could have was the buttery veg as the potatoes/chips etc were cooked in animal fat. So this £££ restaurant served her a plate of buttered veg,...

1.Long haul flight and they forgot my vegetarian meal. I was offered the chicken curry and rice so I could just eat the rice

1. Long haul flight and they forgot my vegetarian meal. I was offered 10 bread rolls

My Xmas meal this year is at a bit of a wanky hipster pub, there’s chestnuts with almost every main and every desert. So stupid and boring as well, if you’re going to have nuts in every meal at least vary them a bit!

I once went through an entire desert menu looking for a but free option, ice cream and sauce was the only option, they served it to me sprinkled with almonds!

Yes, I took a long haul Swiss air flight many years ago. Vegetarian breakfast was literally fruit salad with a side of, you guessed it, fruit salad!

I've never flown them again and I'm not even vegetarian anymore (though was for 20 years at that point).

I once got a plate of tomatoes when I had a dairy allergy.

They weren't even cut up.

In Spain one year, the veggie 'offer' was a plate of foamed potatoes, with two cooked sticks of asparagus and a raw egg plonked on top. I wiped the egg off the two sticks of asparagus, left the vile mess remaining on the plate and since then we have always got an apartment where I can cook food.

I was admitted to hospital as an emergency and wasn't offered a sandwich for dinner. I said I was vegetarian 'hmmm oh we've got tomato and ham?' said in a hopeful cheery way. No thanks that's not really vegetarian cos of, you know, the ham.

I once ordered a vegan meal on a long haul flight (I'm not vegan but hate aeroplane meat and cheese. They didn't know I wasn't actually vegan though). They'd clearly not loaded vegan meals. They apologised and tried to whip something's together. I got an apple, bread roll and a chocolate cake bar. The chocolate cake bar wasn't even vegan so it's a good job I wasn't! Mind you it still beat the meat alternative!

I went for afternoon tea with a friend with an egg allergy. We'd rung ahead several times, and been assured it would be fine. We reminded the waiter before the cakes came out, and when he brought them out he said it was all fine. My friend looked at them suspiciously and said 'how have you made meringue without egg?' To which he replied, oh yes, that's got egg in it, you can't have that.' Then she said, but I'm allergic to egg, is everything else alright? And he said yes. So she said 'what about the scones, is that egg wash'? And he said oh yes, the scones have egg too. This was about a year ago, shortly after some of the high profile scandals about people dying from allergies!

If they can’t cater I wish they’d just say so, instead of lying then presenting you with a plate of veg!

I once had a very severe reaction at a work Christmas party because the venue served me vegetable soup and told me I couldn’t have the bread because it contained gluten, but totally forgot to mention the pearl barley in the soup. It ruined everyone’s evening when I projectile vomited across the table onto everyone else’s plates. And it cost them a fortune because the company requested a refund for the entire event on the basis that nobody enjoyed their dinner while I was puking and nobody was in the mood for a party. Imo they got off lightly - that sort of mistake could have resulted in a manslaughter charge.

Ouch, tice!

I am maybe a bit paranoid, but I do sometimes think the general public see allergies as some sort of fad, and think it is trivial. However, being charged large sums of money by professional caterers for something which could cause illness or even death.....that is so wrong!

I am maybe a bit paranoid, but I do sometimes think the general public see allergies as some sort of fad, and think it is trivial

I think it’s because so many people sign up to the gluten/carb/dairy/fat/wheat free dietary fads, so genuine allergies aren’t taken as seriously.

I’ve lost count of the people I’ve been out with who have some sort of “dietary requirement” only to decide the cake and ice cream looks really good and demolish a serving with no ill effects.

Unless you have a diagnosed issue there are no health benefits to cutting out gluten/sugar/whatever, and it does trivialise the needs of those with real issues.

On a catered ski holiday, veggie option was pea risotto, served with two sides: rice and peas. (And the peas had ham in).

TiceCream I was once at an extremely (eye-wateringly) expensive "do" where the catering manager insisted that the Yorkshire pudding he had put in front of DH (after carefully checking his dietary requirements) was egg and milk free. Yorkshire pudding has only got three ingredients, and two of them are egg and milk!

I pointed out that even if they had a very clever chef who could achieve the miracle of making a Yorkshire pudding without eggs or milk, it wouldn't look EXACTLY the same as all the normal ones. The guy got really arsey with me. The awful thing was that DH knows bugger all about cooking and if I had been in the loo or something when the food came, he'd have taken the guy at his word, tucked in and been promptly carted away in an ambulance.

We ended up phoning to complain the following day (even though we said they couldn't just take it off the plate, DH needed a plate of food that hadn't had a YP on it at all, he is that allergic, he still had an allergic reaction so I expect they didn't bother). I opined that if the manager didn't know what was in a Yorkshire pudding that he was probably not ready for a career in catering.

Sorry that was to TuckmyWin not Ticecream

And ha ha it's got four ingredients! But at least you know why I don't make them!

Yes-we went to an afternoon tea in London for MiLs 80th. Web site claimed they catered for allergies and we told them when we booked and also called the day before about DDs milk allergy.

They presented us with plates of sandwiches, cakes and scones. When we asked them which were the dairy free ones they looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights. There was no doubt that they then rushed across the road the local Tesco's as the stuff she was given amounted to some tofu, dry and tasteless free from flap jacks, some tinned fruit salad and the sandwiches were tasteless and made without any butter. All for the princely sum of £35...

It's not hard to bake without using dairy. We make cakes, scones, brownies and biscuits all the time with sunflower marg and oat milk- it's really not difficult make a few in bulk and put them in the freezer.

Fine if you can't cater for allergies- just don't lie and say you do.

I had an issue with an event I organised, Vice President of my company was attending and had some dietary requirements. The admin took the details and informed the caterers, I saw the email, and they confirmed.

On the night they "forgot to cater for him" and we ended up doing a four course meal on a boat, with absolutely no food for the VP. It was excruciating. He couldn't get off the boat, we couldn't get other food, and he had to sit there and watch every one eat. Hungry as fuck. He was very nice about it, but god it was really uncomfortable.

I was gluten and lactose intolerant in the early 90s (not any more thank goodness).
So yes, lots.

I used to work somewhere with an islamic (so no alcohol or pork) colleafue and a hindoe colleague (no beef). I'll never forget the work dinner where they couldn't eat anything except potatoes so went to the mcdonalds down the road for food. One colleague said that they were antisocial, I told him that it was pretty antisocial that the catering wasn't adequate. I was really proud of them that they just thought fuck it and left to eat instead of making do with a plain potato. It also never happened again because after that the secretary showed them the menu's beforehand and asked them what was ok to eat.

I'm allergic to egg - hospital offered me an omlette, when i explained they offeredcme a sandwich and the only option was egg and cress

Surely they could have offered veggie meals??

One positive story: about 30 years ago on a work trip to a small newly opened hotel and the staff hadn't been told there was a vegetarian coming. They still managed to come up with interesting and different meals for him every evening.

(That was about the Hindu and Muslim colleagues)

drspouse - it wasnt a normal meal time from what i remember. I was sat waiting for hours then admitted after the dinner rounds.