To Expect a Vegetarian Option at Christmas Lunch?

[HedgePony]

I am a vegetarian but for the last two Christmasses at my MiL's house, there has been nothing for me to eat at Christmas lunch! Literally all I can have is the peas! (I can't eat the potatoes as they are cooked in the goose fat and I can't eat the stuffing as it is cooked inside the goose.)

Then, for supper, there is only scraps - i.e. whatever is leftover from lunch and whatever else might be in the fridge. For everyone else this means cold goose or turkey, cold ham, cold pigs in blankets, etc. For me, this means wilted old salad and a wedge of cheese if I am lucky.

The first year, I thought it must have been an oversight (although I was upset about it as I had only had DD a few weeks before and was breastfeeding so I needed to eat). But when it happened again the next year, I was actually really upset.

I don't get on with MiL very well and she is quite a passive-aggressive person. So I sort of think maybe she is doing it on purpose. (Money is absolutely no object for her and I don't think it's that she doesn't have time either - she pretty much does the minimum for Christmas lunch/buys ready made stuff.)

I have on occasions when staying there taken veggie tarts, etc with me, but I am not sure if I should do this (as a host, I would be embarrassed if a guest felt they had to bring their own food!).

I should probs help more in the kitchen tbh but then I am busy looking after DD and I do help a bit.

Am I being unreasonable?!

Op, do you eat eggs? Because most people have eggs in their fridge, and cheese, so unless you're vegan why on earth wouldn't she have at least rustled you up a bloody omelette or a cheese sarnie ffs! That's if it was a genuine mistake of course which it clearly wasn't.

They are not going to change.

Either take some of your own food or don't go.

If you just keep going along with it, she will know she owns you as well.

Have RTFT and I have to say I am a bit that anyone, not just the OP's DH, would sit at a Christmas meal and not be bothered by a breastfeeding mum eating a plate of peas and carrots.

I don't know, it just seems a bit unlikely.

My parents are pretty obnoxious and I no longer see them. We went to theirs for New Year when my daughter - their first grandchild - was two months old. They made a point of deliberately serving food just when I had gone off to feed her (and I had one hell of a let-down, so could be back in less than ten minutes). I was then supposed to wait until everyone had finished until a convenient break to get mine. I think it was an intention to humiliate and show disapproval for the disgusting breastfeeding business.

They tried to serve my husband too, but he refused to take food while I wasn't there. So it backfired rather, because then they felt deeply uncomfortable with two of us sat there, plateless. And they did feel some burden of hospitality towards him.

I mention this only because my husband wouldn't sit there and let me be bullied. Even when it was my own parents...

Yanbu it is terribly rude op. As a host it is a duty to ensure all guests are fed. It really wouldn't be hard to cook the potatoes in vegetable oil and the stuffing outside the goose. What about Yorkshire puds? (Wonders how its possible to make these not veggie).

I would refuse to go again.

I woudk take a veggie option with me if I were you that can just be bunged in the oven or micrcwave

Rude rude rude. Her, not you!

I would have got myself some bread and cheese, or toast and jam tho rather than just eat peas.

I think your husband is also pretty rude not to be looking out for you and making sure there is something you can eat.

At Christmas my DP does take the view of what he doesn't know doesn't hurt him... So he had but roast cooked by my dad, but with the roasties which were most likely done in goose fat but nothing was said about that. I know that's not ideal though!

I certainly couldn't be bothered catering for vegetarians if I was making Christmas lunch. There's quite enough work involved in the lunch never mind catering for special diets. I just wouldn't do it. Take your own main course and help yourself to vegetables.

That's fine Vivienne but it makes you a rude host. Why not just not invite people if its too much effort?

I can't disagree with that fluffymouse. But the reality is I probably would do a veg option and spend the next 12 months moaning about fussy guests to everyone who would listen.

Odd thread.

But Dirk = arse

Money/posh does not = class

You've got at least one child you are now a matriarch in your own right, start Christmas traditions of your own.

Ma & Pa could never get their head around being veggie, bare in mind growing up at least 3 of our main meals a week were veggie, but that's because we were, not poor but careful so to them no meat = poverty. To make that choice, either too rich or too poor. And we were neither.

When someone in my family is breastfeeding. They just feed the baby at the table (unless the baby is one of those easily distracted ones).

And everyone else makes sure they can eat one handed, have everything they need and as soon as baby is done they are handed to someone so Mum can have 2 hands free.

I am so happy we have the families we do, we might be a bit feral and bogan but hell would freeze over before someone went hungry or felt excluded.

Speaking as a vegetarian meself, I think there's a good chance OP has Viviennemary as a MIL - it seems like a massive, alien faff if you find cooking Xmas dinner challenging anyway, & no-one else in the family has ever objected to the lovely spuds roasted in dripping etc etc.

If you are the 'huh, vegetarians, bastards, coming over here & messing with our hallowed traditions of bacon in the sprouts' type - just buy an easy to heat supermarket veggie option (they've all got one) & do one tray of roasties in veg oil rather than animal fat. Sorted.

You can even contact the rogue veggie, or whoever in your family is bringing them, & ask them to bring their own main. That's a bit rude, but not 'plate of peas' rude.

If you ARE the rogue veggie guest, & no-one has been in touch with you to say 'is nut roast OK?' it's probably safest to assume that they've either forgotten about you or decided that your food fads are not to be taken seriously, & turn up with a supermarket veggie thing to save embarrassment all round, not to mention going without dinner.

However. Once you are 'married in', wtf is your dh doing not speaking to his mother by now & explaining that you'll be need to bring something veggie?

I'd be doing Xmas at home, I think. Certainly you won't be sitting down to a plate of peas. I'd start by informing dh that that isn't an option & take it from there.

I am going to my inlaws for Xmas for the first time this year and I am veggie. I offered to bring frozen nut roasts for myself, and was quickly assured that something would be prepared for me, homemade of course as it is christmas!

THAT is how a host behaves. You invite people to dinner because you want to feed them and for them to enjoy themselves.

Any cook who claims catering for a veggie is too much hassle isn't much of a cook. Is it so much work to buy a pre-made pie or veggie roast and stick it in the oven at the right time? And (shock!!) potatoes don't need to be cooked in goose fat!

I have a friend who once catered for two veggies, one girl with a cows milk issue and another poor girl who had all sorts of intolerances, along with some meat eaters. Everything was delicious and served with no complaint from the host about the various dietary needs. Not Xmas dinner, but an excellent example of a good host.

Sorry, but your dh sounds wet. If I am ever served wrongly in a restaurant or am not catered for, my dh is quicker than me to complain/find out what I can eat or if there's an option for me. I actually can't comprehend the idea of him eating a full roast while I ate veg, he wouldn't let it happen!

And to the pp who mentioned they didn't cater for "faddy diets" at Xmas dinner, I have been a veggie for my whole life. It is not a fad. Plenty of people are vegetarian for various reasons, are none acceptable? What if its a religious thing, would you cater then? If you don't want to cater for a veggie, don't invite them. Don't just serve everything up and then just tell them they'll have to cope with what they can have, that makes you an utter dick and a very shit host who people would bitch about afterwards

If I were you I just wouldn't go. Talk to your dh. Explain the situation, and if he still can't understand/isn't pissed off with his dm then I think it's time to sit down and have a good think about how good a husband he actually is...

Vivienne if it is the case that it is really too much effort for you then tell your guest. As a vegetarian I would rather not go somewhere where I would be an inconvenience. Cooking potatoes in vegetable oil is surely not that difficult though? Vegetarian roasts can be bought frozen too.

yabu. You've vegetarian by choice I'm presuming? So it's not that you can't eat anything offered, but that you won't.
That's up to you.
Dps family are vegetarian and I do accommodate them (they have all been round this evening and we have provided food for them, I'm
Not anti veggies,) but they don't feed me meat at their houses (I don't expect them too) and I won't eat meat substitutes. I make do for the sake of one meal.
You know what to expect now, so either stay at home or go and take something you're willing to eat.

She does not want you there.

Do not go there for Christmas again

You, DH and your DC can have a lovely family Christmas together, and start to build your own traditions. I think it's desperately sad that so many children grow up always having Christmas away from their own home, at grandparents houses.

Your DH is an utter twat for not standing up for you the first time. That you went the second time without taking a backup meal is a bit silly of you. If you go a third time you are sending the message that you are all perfectly fine with her treating you like dirt, and this will continue.

Well they sound very typically upper-class to me. This is one of the wonderful ways they employ to make it very clear to you that you are not one of them.

Anyway, it should be fairly easily avoided by simply calling up your MIL and asking if she'd like you to provide the vegetable options for Christmas this year so that there will be things there that you can eat without inconveniencing her.

Read Snobs by Julian Fellowes.

YANBU. She's being a shit.

If she's clearly not going to cater for you make up your own meal and take it with you and heat it up there if necessary,

I am a vegan and my MIL goes out of her way to cater for me. I was humbled at this at first but DP told me she liked it and would be mortified if I felt I had to take my own food.

My OWN parents however! I went there for my birthday dinner once and they cooked for everyone apart from me!

Oh and I once went for xmas dinner at my parent's and they told me I could have the stuffing as it wasn't cooked inside the bird . I ate it then they told me I'd eaten the 'wrong' stuffing, it was a separate part that wasn't cooked inside the bird!
Also, they added giblets to allll of the gravy . When I asked was there not any left for me, they said no I could have salad cream if I wanted.
SALAD CREAM?!With XMAS DINNER?!?
Some people are just, what's the word....

Nope. I can't think of it.

This happened to my sister her first Christmas home from university. She'd gone vegetarian in the summer holidays and my mother seemed determined to treat it as a calculated affront to her and her cooking. DM had told Dsis that she'd have to bring her own main as 'she didn't know what vegetarians had'. So Dsis brought a nut roast, which duly went in the oven with the bird and was roasted until it was as dry as fuck.

Mum then served up roast potatoes done in lard and gravy made with meat juices alongside (bone dry) tinned carrots and peas, 1 spoonful each. She could not understand why my sister burst into tears at the dinner table. I ended up going into the kitchen and making her some veggie bisto gravy so at least there was some moisture on her plate, and we got the evils from my mother for the rest of the day for 'ruining' Christmas lunch by making the others wait for their food (which they didn't, btw, father and brothers all tucked in). All my sister's fault for being 'faddy' and me for 'indulging' her.

To be fair, she (mum) is a lot better these days (this was 20+ years ago) and Dsis is now catered for very well if she goes home. Your MIL doesn't sound like she's moved on at all, OP.

OP what happens when you go to MIL's house on other days? What does she feed you?

I'm a veggie because I don't like meat, not for ethical reasons and am happy to just eat the non meat elements of Christmas dinner. DS's GF is a very strict veggie so we take great pains to make sure everything we give her is acceptable and this certainly includes a veggie 'special' for her at Christmas.
We do we love her a lot but would do the same if we didn't.