To get DH to tell MIL the truth?

[Wellysocksbox]

This is awkward. And I apologise to any non-meateaters out there who might be offended at this thread, it's honestly not intended but is a genuine situation.

MIL and BIL came to our house for lunch on the day after Boxing Day (27th Dec). I was under strict instruction to give them "leftovers" from Christmas lunch and not to make a fuss over lunch. Technically, this would have been easy but MIL is a vegetarian who doesn't eat cheese nor "foreign food" ie stir frys or pasta. I know. it's her. She lives off Quorn sausages and chips and vitamin pills.

My own Dmother was staying with us over the Christmas period and on Boxing Day morning at 8.30 am she received a call telling her to move all her furniture upstairs as there was going to be a significant flood risk. By the time we'd all argued about whether to drive her back or not it was too late and the roads were closed due to the flood water. In the end, I took her home by train on 27th Dec, the same day as MIL and BIL came to lunch.

OK, here's the AIBU. I was planning on making a puff pastry tomato tart for lunch, with bits of feta cheese on one half for BIL and plain on the other half for MIL, together with a green salad. However, the York floods put me off my stride and I left the house without preparing anything, leaving DH in charge.

So, I come home later that night and DH tells me that he'd made his mum a salad sandwich and she'd polished off the sprouts and roast potatoes. I went bat shit BECAUSE I'D ALREADY TOLD HIM NOT TO GIVE HER THOSE TO EAT - the potatoes were cooked in duck fat and the sprouts were full of chestnuts and bacon. Apparently she wolfed them down.

And here's the really bad part. DH phoned MIL for their weekly chat and apparently she's now got this craving for meat and she doesn't know where it's come from - she's been veggie for 19 years and this is the first time she's ever been desperate for a bacon sandwich.

I don't know what to do - I feel guilty as it's our fault (up to a point, though) and it's definitely DH's fault for not listening to me - so should we tell her the truth or leave it as our secret and hope she gets over it? I do feel bad though, it wasn't done on purpose, but now 19 years of good work on her part is about to be unravelled.

This situation has come up before on MN, you did not deliberately feed a vegetarian meat. Consensus from last thread was that most vegetarians would rather not know.

(1) a salad sandwich?!

(2) more fool her if she couldnt see the bacon in the sprouts

If I were in your situation I would stay out of it.
You didn't prepare the food, you weren't there when she ate it & you weren't on the phone to her.

I wouldn't tell her.
I'm surprised she couldn't taste it though, I ate a roast potato that had been cooked in lard, and it tasted really strongly of meat.

as it's our fault
Fuck that - it's your DH fault for not listening to you.
If he wants to tell then that's his call.
YOU didn't do anything wrong so stay well out of it.

You know what vegetarians are like though! They're all secretly desperate for meat, hence her "wolfing it down"
I'm the same, I love the smell of bacon but deliberately don't eat it so I can feel smug and superior (not really, I can't stand it)

DH's mum. DH's decision. Plus DH was the one who fed her! Not your problem.

She will either choose to eat meat or not.
Most veggie's get cravings now and again.

Odd that she phones your dh to tell himabout her cravings though.
So either:

• she ate it, realised what she ate and liked it anyway and is now looking for an excuse to go back to the ways of bacon
• she ate it, suspects it was meat, and is trying to guilt dh into fessing up by making up bacon cravings to make him feel guilty.

If it's the latter doez sge have a sense of humour or of histrionics?

Tell your DH it's entirely up to him how he deals with it as it's happened because of him. Don't see why you should feel guilty!

How can you eat sprouts with bacon and not notice the bacon? Especially as a vegetarian - what did she think it was?

I think silence is golden (except that I found out recently that veggie dSiL has been under the impression for years that we unknowingly fed her son non-veggie sweets but didn't want to upset me by saying anything. We have never done this (I always check) - so better if she had raised it).

WhatdoIget - a lot of long term vegetarians might struggle to taste the flavour of meat, simply because they aren't accustomed to it & therefore don't recognise it. I had a similar scenario at university - we had a group meal, several of my friends (in halls in the first year) were veggie since infancy or babyhood. We also had 2 lovely Chinese girls who had come over to learn English. They didn't understand the concept of vegetarianism, & I realised that they had made a meat dish (it wasn't obvious to look at it). I never told my veggie friends as I knew they'd be upset.

I am surprised she ate the bacon though - unless it was cut really tiny, surely it would have been visible.

Good god op if my dh had done that we would be so busy pissing ourselves laughing it would have gone down in family annuals as 'that day'

Of course she must have tasted the bacon. She probably eats meat in private like my militant vegetarian sister. Seen her wolf down a bacon sandwich through the door crack.

Seriously she's a bloody adult and wasn't force fed.

Hope your mum is ok?

Say nothing, because it can't be undone.

Her cravings are very unlikely to be just because of some sprouts with what must have been tiny pieces of bacon in them.

Just leave it now, it's obviously a big thing for her so just leave it.

OP,I would let sleeping dogs lie...forever!!!

You know what vegetarians are like though! They're all secretly desperate for meat"

What a daft thing to say.

Don't ask, don't tell, OP. I've a friend who's a vegan but, on very very rare occasions, he's been in a position of having to just eat what's available. On those occasions he just doesn't want to know if something's been cooked in animal fat or contains milk protein.

I am also wondering, though, how she couldn't tell the sprouts came with bacon.

I'm a bit surprised she wouldn't have realised what the extra tastiness might be?

DH didn't remember or take in what you said beforehand so it isn't your fault. I would keep quiet and if he wants to confess that's up to him.

I wouldn't tell - I think this is one situation where its better to say nothing!

Odd that as a vegetarian she didn't:

a) notice the bits of bacon in the sprouts

b) check what the roast potatoes had been cooked in

So personally, I'd keep quiet.

Thank you everyone, I'll keep quiet. Yes, I was surprised about the sprouts too - I'd used pre-packaged lardons so the pieces were quite big.

smalllegsorsmalleggs Good point, yes she is a bit of drama queen control freak. She made a big issue about being allergic to mayonnaise whilst simultaneously eating egg (eggs) and chips (oil and vinegar).

PS, yes, I namechanged for this thread.

I'd leave it well alone. And it's certainly not your fault.

No, don't be so daft. It's best forgotten. It's nothing to do with you anyway as your DH was the person who didn't think before he served up the food. And tbh your MIL should have thought about it and checked before she ate the potatoes and of course she could taste the bacon. Loads of roast potatoes are cooked in duck fat or beef dripping. If she was really bothered then she would have checked. I suspect she has been eating stuff like that for years if she didn't even check how they were prepared. Don't worry about it at all.

ignorance is bliss!

I can understand her not noticing the duck fat potatoes. You'd definitely taste the bacon in the sprouts though. Whenever I have vegeterian phases, I find meat tastes really strong when I eat it.

Just leave it. What can you do now? She's not going to turn into a cannibal werewolf because of a couple of bacon fried sprouts.