Catering for vegetarians at a house-warming party, do I need to provide separate food?

[IslandCanary]

Everyone is bringing a dish, so far most of these contain meat/fish (apart from the salad) as we're doing tapas-style.

One couple have just told me they are vegetarian.

Do I need to ask everyone to bring vegetarian dishes instead? Or is it ok to just provide some salad/rice and let them bring a dish they can eat? I don't want them to feel excluded.

I find most vegetarian food bland and unpleasant and would rather have meat/fish dishes to cater for the majority (I'm planning to make spicy chicken wings, someone else is bringing meatballs, another is bringing battered tempura prawns, crispy squid, vegetable risotto etc.

If I need to provide more veggie options does anyone have any ideas?

Abe - thank you

But as I said it pretty much blew my budget so had to get pretty damn creative on all the other things - like worktops etc to "fund" the difference!

You realise OP disappeared after three posts and is now probably rocking in a corner somewhere desperately questioning all the decisions they have ever made.

It is heartening to read on this thread all these fabulous cooks who actively enjoying making lovely veggie food - bless you all.

Like all veggies, I have suffered 'nothing to eat because the meat eaters have scoffed it' syndrome, but I am not that food oriented so it doesn't enrage me. I am fairly teeny, so don't need that much food & find it easy to skip meals if the cook is unable to produce a reasonable quantity of tasty veggie stuff. But some of the menu suggestions on this thread sound amazing. Hats off to the talented cooks, I am sure I'd leave your Yorkshire parties stuffed

Worktops are extraneous anyway aren't they Yellow? The floor works just as well.

My dh is drooling over your cooked

I've been vegetarian since I was little - 26 years and have never been at a buffet where there was nothing I could eat and tbh I wouldn't starve to death for missing one nourishing meal.

Ha ha hounds :-)

I didn't need to go quite that far!

I can guarantee that even with the monster cooker extravagance (I swear 2 years after the refurb my DH still looks at it and winces whilst I treat it as my baby) we still managed to get minor items like tables, chairs worktops etc

Whoa! I had no idea there are so many grumpy hungry vegetarians out there! I thought vegeterians would want to encourage other people to eat veg too, not the other way around. If there isn't enough veg for everyone, is it really meat-eaters fault?

As an organizer, you can keep some of the vegetarian food in the back room. But if the food is on the table in front of everyone, is it any wonder that people eat it??? You only need something like 70g of meat a day for a healthy balanced diet. That's like a sausage and a half! The rest of the food that meat eaters eat is vegetables and carbs!

I would definitely be considerate of vegetarians in a small group where it's a bit more obvious that there is a limited supply of certain types of food but at large parties it's harder to see if there is a problem, and if there is, I'd consider it organiser's problem, not mine.

stuffeverywhere. I'm not grumpy, it is no biggie for me to skip a meal - we all eat too much in the West anyway. But, yeah, it is a thing.

Who are these vegetarians who feel duty bound to get more people eating vegetarian food? I couldn't care less what meat eaters eat. What I eat isn't a political statement. As I said upthread I did all that decades ago as a student.

I guess the bit I don't understand here is that when I invite people round it's because I like them and want them to have a good time.

The idea of any guest going home hungry really makes me shiver with angst.

I appreciate I probably take this too far - DH says I am the John Lewis of food "never knowingly under catered" - but still....if you go to the effort of having invited people it's not that big a stretch to make sure the food is suitable and in appropriate quantities.

Maybe though it's just that I like food and cooking (and like DM and DGM wouldn't dream of seeing anyone go home unfed and more often than not with a stash of leftovers) and other people just aren't that fussed - food = fuel and no more.

never knowingly under-catered

Blimey YellowTulips we really do need a Northern supper club, if only because I need to gain inspiration shamelessly copy to replace the shite, badly laid out "kitchen" in my new gaff. I designed my last kitchen round my Rangemaster Toledo, so I totally understand your pov, but I have much less space to play with this time...

Border of E Lancs/W Yorks by the way.

yellowtulips you sound like lovely host -there are lots of lovely hosts in this thread and though I am not a big foodie, I would happily stuff my face with your over catered veggie feast

One thing I would say as a veggie that has been to many buffets let the veggies go to the buffet first. There has been many times at weddings/conferences etc where the meat eaters have had meat food and veggie and there has been none left for the veggies.

Sorry I think that has already been said

I've yet to meet a vegetarian or vegan who was hellbent on getting me to give up meat, my friends and I tend to respect each-other's choices.

Mind you, MN is full of strident folks who I suspect are much less forthright in RL.

MN is full of strident folks who I suspect are much less forthright in RL

Surely not?

Thank you WhatThe

Who are these vegetarians who feel duty bound to get more people eating vegetarian food?

The considerate ones - ? Those who like seeing people eating healthy, balanced food? As opposed to just meat.

Absolutely yellow, my ethos behind entertaining entirely, I want to make people welcome, make them happy when an invitation from me crops up, knowing they'll get an excellent feed and have a great time (and no doubt fall out the door), not riven with angst.

I love planning menus with my guests in mind and spending all day pottering round the kitchen (and ooohs and aahs are never unappreciated).

Bloody love it (I also love putting food on the table every day, seeing it spread out and looking just so flippin' edible, ), basically I just love food, and people, and happy times.

Northern Supper Club massive, I'm in The Peak District, but willing to travel for good nosh.

Apparently so Suburban, who'd've thunk it?

Although I'm talking about people eating more vegetables, I suppose (or at least as many veg as they wish!), not about more people becoming vegetarians.

I don't know Stuff, if people want to eat an exclusively meat diet, that's entirely between them and their colon, I wouldn't be shoving avocados in their gob for the sake of their health.

Arborea - happy to send you some more snaps and details of where I sourced stuff if that helps you

Just PM me