To ask FIL and BIL not to bring meat to our BBQ...

[37jonsialex]

Ugh, i have a horrible feeling that i'm being ridiculously petty, but here we go...

We're having a family BBQ/ housewarming tomorrow. 8 of us in total (DP's parents, brothers, sisters and various partners) DP's family are all vegetarian, him and his sisters were brought up that way. By coincidence, i've been vegetarian since i was 9 and DS has been brought up as one too.

A few years ago BIL and FIL went over to the...ehem... dark side and started to eat meat again. I have no problem with this at all, their choice and none of us believe that everyone should be vegetarian.

Anyway, DP mentioned this morning that the B/FIL have insisted on bringing their own meat tomorrow. I was a bit shocked to be honest. I've been working really hard to work out a menu, so they weren't expected to provide anything. I'm always willing to except food based gifts, but i think that if you're taking food to someone's house, it should be something that everyone can eat, right? (for example, we're spending easter sunday with a friend that hates raisins, so i'm taking hot cross buns with other things in instead.)

Apart from that, our BBQ is brand new and we're the ones that will have to cook the meat and then clean off the BBQ and the plates...

Reading this back i can see that i sound like a bit of a nutter... but at the same time i think this is such an odd and disrespectful thing to do!

WIBU to ask them to leave the meat at home?

"I love pizza, i don't expect people to provide it for me at every meal!!"

you'd probably expect them not to serve you meat though.

Families fall into two camps, I reckon: Those who just get on with things and embrace it all, never thinking that everything anyone else does is to piss them off, these families are lovely, I know, DH's family is like this. The other camp just about tollerate each other. Life's too short. It's a BARBECUE !

I must mix in different circles, because a bbq is in no way comparable to a dinner invitation. They have always been relaxed atmospheres where guests usually turn up with some contribution or another. In fact, it would be considered more rude to turn up to a bbq empty handed.

I agree Marguerita

I think what's annoying people about this issue is the inflexibility of the host. She's behaving as though those who want to eat meat at her BBQ are disrespecting her all important moral stance. So important in fact, that she'd rather have a big performance digging her heels in, than just let it be and let everyone please themselves.
It's meant to be fun fgs.
Any veggie that is so into themselves as to ban others from eating meat at a BBQ (even at their own home), is not going to throw the sort of get together I'd be interested in attending. Far too rigid.

i am catering for my guests aren't i? I'm giving them food that i know they like, just because they'd prefer to eat something else, does that mean i should provide it? I love pizza, i don't expect people to provide it for me at every meal!!

Well, your BiL and FiL clearly don't think so, I suspect your BiL and FiL have been OK to put up with it a few times but are getting fed up with it now and are basically signalling that.

I think you are being a rude host as you are imposing your beliefs on your guests. I also think outside of the veggieban most people believe it's the host's job to make their guests comfortable.

I also think you are losing sight of respect for your DH's parents, IMO that trumps anything you may want.

What's annoying, pictish, is the inflexibility of the ILs, who apparently have little enough respect for the OP that they would turn up with meat without asking if it's okay. They should ask. That's polite.

The OP is catering for them, she is just not providing them with every food on earth that they like. The fact that it's meat at the centre of this is, in many ways, a red herring.

The OP is not losing sight of respect for her ILs, whatme, and she is not imposing her beliefs on her guests. She's not doing anything bad or rude, she's throwing a party and catering for all her guests. I'm sure she will also make them very comfortable. How terrible of her.

Let's face it - no matter what is said about the smell of the cooking meat or whatever other clutching-at-straws argument they may pedal out, the fact is, this issue is about control. Other people eating meat in her garden will affect her in actuality not one jot. There is no need for any of this carry on, other than to exert control and make a big point.
Up to her of course, but it does make her seem rather petty and self absorbed.

I still completely disagree with you, it's not about control at all. The smell of meat would absolutely not be a clutching at straws argument for me, and I suspect not for a large majority of vegetarians.

Of course its about control. If it was about hospitality and barbecues it wouldn't be an issue

It's a requirement for hospitality to provide meat? Or to provide everything that a guest could possibly want?

I've never thought either of those to be the case.

Exactly Whatmeworry.

It's a requirement for hospitality to provide meat? Or to provide everything that a guest could possibly want?

She's not being asked to provide meat. The guests are happily bringing their own.

JUST TO REPEAT

No-one has asked the OP to provide meat. The meat eaters are proposing to bring their own. The OP doesn't have to prepare it, cook it OR eat it. What the hell is the problem??

Okay, provide was perhaps a wrong choice of word. Serve maybe? Or include?

Clutching at straws?

When my next door neighbour has a barbecue, I go inside, because I can't stand the smell. I close the windows, et cetera. Do I complain to him, or anything? No! That would be stupendously unreasonable.

pictish, for me it would be the smell.

Luckily, I have ILs (etc) who respect DP and I, so this never comes up.

So you don't like the smell? So what?

I do not see why I, or anyone else, should have to put up with the smell, at their very own barbecue.

And on that note. Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.

Well I don't like vomiting at my own parties, tbh.

Quite, Jessie.

I think your problem is that you are calling it a BBQ. According to both the dictionaries that I have at home, it means cooking meat/fish/veg over coals. The further definitions all say meat, not veg.

Just let them bring their meat and cook it on a disposable BBQ. Also, those who say meat eaters don't have to eat meat at every meal. No, we don't, but at parties and the weekend, we usually do. We wouldn't have jacket potatoes at the weekend, for example, but we do eat them in the week. You are also having your BBQ at the weekend, so they probably do want meat. I can't really see your problem. If you go to a meat-eating house, you would expect them to provide veg food, so why can't you extend the same courtesy to meat-eaters?

I don't drink alcohol and have a moral objection to. Can't stand the smell either. Wouldn't buy it or serve it. Also wouldn't stop my inlaws bringing it for themselves when they come round here.

OP, I am vegetarian too, been one since I was 13. The thing is, my friends who turned from vegetarians to carnivores really went over the other side. They had to have meat all the time. Real hardcore stuff. As if they were making up for lost time!

So perhaps B/FIL do not mean to be disrespectful, maybe they just have a major meat craving. A disposable BBQ is a great suggestion.

That's, presumably, a choice that you have made out of generosity. You are not obliged to allow their glass bottles in your house, and your choice to do so does not confer any obligation on others to follow your example.