How to cater halal buffet food at a children's party?

[Feedingmybaby]

It’s DDs birthday party soon and just starting to think about catering. We are holding the party in a hall and will do typical buffet food for both adults and kids.

We’ce invited the whole class, and lots of children are Muslim and will only eat halal - I’ve never catered for this dietary requirement before.

Can anyone give any suggestions? There will be some cheese and jam sandwiches for the kids, but I was also planning on doing ham. Would the products containing pork need to be kept separately to everything else if the Muslim children are to eat them? I just don’t want the parents to not eat the food if I’m to do it ‘wrong’!

Aw that's thoughtful.
id keep separate. Maybe ask the parents?

Separate table for food with pork.

We chose not to serve any pork. Made most sense for me.

Ham sandwiches can go on a separate plate. You may need to check ingredients on things like sweets though. You’ll find halal Haribo in the world foods section of your local supermarket for example.

Is a separate plate on the same buffet table ok?

In theory yes but so easily mixed up at the same table if the children help themselves. I would do seperate tables.

It's quite simple, isn't it? Of course the pork needs to be separate. Might be simplest just not to use it.

Only other requirements might be to check that any meat used doesn't violate religious requirements (though I understnad most Muslims don't require non-stun slaughtering).

Oh, and of course no booze. It's really not complicated!

If it's like that I'd just not do ham. People will survive 😆😆

You can serve booze. People don't have to drink it for a variety of reasons

I’d just avoid pork - pretty easy to do - then it’s a non issue.

I’d just stay vegetarian for everyone — skip the ham, have cheese and jam sandwiches, and check sweets, cakes etc for pork gelatin. As a pp said, Haribo are available without, and some M and S jelly sweets (Colin the Caterpillar etc) are vegetarian.

... one of which is being a child. The 'no booze' bit was a joke.

Why not just do a vegetarian buffet? Pizza, cheese and onion rolls, vegetarian sausage rolls etc. No worries about children eating forbidden food then.

If you insist on having meat there then I’d use halal turkey ham.

Aaah! lol

Are they definitely coming to the party? I ask as Muslims don’t tend to celebrate birthdays.

You should also pay attention to sweets, cakes, yogurt and bread.
And whether the meat used is halal slaughtered.

Yeah any meat just ideally to be halal! Apart from that you can just serve vegetarian things. Like vegan Sausage rolls and cheese pizzas. But if you don't want or can't find halal meat just put that away from other stuff and mark rest as halal.
Fruit, home made cakes, cookies etc are halal (just use vegan gelatine if it's in a recipe).

All Muslim children here are happily joining.

I’ll accept my experience is limited but the Muslim families I know definitely celebrate birthdays - one family from Libya and one from Egypt. And if they’re invited to a party it would be rather rude to just not show up - which is again out of character for the Muslim families I know.

From having Muslim friends and clients as well as the DC's friends I have found that cross contamination is a concern so I avoid meat altogther when muslims are invited
There is plenty of food you can serve to kids (and adults) that is vegetarian and it stops any issues around who eats what. Watch out for gelatine as well
My DD has been a veggie for years though so its pretty usual for me to not serve meat at all
Non veggies can eat veggie food while veggies/muslims etc can't eat a lot of non veggie food so its just easier for all concerned to do it that way
Ham sarnies are really NOT essential (cue some parent claiming thats all their ND child can eat)

Just use turkey or chicken ham, and make sure sweets are pork gelatin free.

Happy birthday to your DC!

IME its just the concern about food thats stops some families joining in
Once I spoke to parents and explained what would be served my DC's Muslim friends were regulars at our house

Just don't do ham, it's carcinogenic and terrible for children anyway. Do chicken sandwiches instead.

I’d bypass the need to make special arrangements, altogether.

Loads of places do frozen vegan sausage rolls and if you have those with tomato ketchup and crisps, peanut butter sandwiches, vegan nugget dippers, cucumber sandwiches, jam sandwiches, more crisps, that sort of thing.

You’re being very thoughtful, but, personally, I wouldn’t go to that trouble because II just wouldn’t want those problems. They can all eat the same food

Just do vegetarian and make sure anything with gelatine (ie jam, sweets) is halal.

Don’t serve ham or keep it separate from cheese/jam. It’d be the same for Jews too.
I mean I’m Jewish and always catered for parties w no meat products at all!