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?

Cross-posted with MaidOfStars I think the 'gorging' and 'feeding your face' were a giveaway. I only wish I could gorge and feed my face atm. Bastard gallstones and low fat diet. I could still steal the vegetarian lettuce though .

I think lettuce is a pretty safe bet - you would be going some to gorge or feed your face on that. Unless you are a secret Guinea pig.

Not 'fill up on' - 'eat a little bit of', which is what one is generally meant to do at buffets. That's why there are lots of dishes. But enjoy your visions of me piling my heaving plate with normal food specifically veggie delicacies while ignoring the meat dishes meant for me. And certainly don't think of blaming the caterers.

I feel like a bloody guinea pig atm. Although I am fortunately allowed sugar and booze, which are probably not good for guinea pigs.

Where you may have misunderstood is that vegetarians get annoyed when a buffet is a free-for-all, and omnivores take so much of the non-meat dishes that there's little or nothing left for vegetarians.

The thing is that a buffet is a free-for-all, and sometimes even the non-vegetarians miss out. My friend who is allergic to fish missed out one day because people snaffled all the beef and left the other fish dishes. A muslim person might miss out because some people get all the chicken and leave them with just the pork. Someone might be allergic to mushrooms and found that the spinach and feta pie is already taken, leaving them with beef and mushroom. It's the nature of a buffet that people will take what they want to eat, and leave what they do not. It's not a situation that is exclusive to vegetarians.

I volunteer in my hobby, which generally comes with a buffet lunch (some better than others!). I accept that I'll eat what I can, and if there's not enough there that I want to eat, then I can always stop at Maccas on the way home. I generally hate buffets anyway, the all you can eat places are the worst, people tend to pile up their plates with masses of food, much larger than they would normally eat. I want to scream at them that they can go back 20 times if they want. But if you eat in that situation, you have to expect people will have little care about what others are eating, and only consider their own plate (I'm looking at you arsehole that took all the pork crackling and left none for anyone else).

I always eat before a buffet

That maybe because i am very greedy though

If I was at a buffet, I would like some vegetarian dishes as well as the meat dishes!

Really SuburbanRhonda ?

Adding my voice to the masses who have said the same: wouldn't it be absolutely grand if more non-vegetarians thought about what they actually liked to eat beforehand and filled in the forms accordingly?

Seems to me that some are more in love with the idea of eating meat than anything, so they resolutely put themselves down for non-vegetarian food. (NAMEALT!) Come the day, they think the meat options look dodgy and go for the tiny plate of cheese sandwiches. Just like they did last time.

In the absence of pre-planning from the guests at the event, caterers need to hold their hands up and recognise their cheap meat dishes look unappetising and provide more cheese sandwiches. That's the fair solution.

The more conniving solution is to ensure the vegetarian stuff is marked accordingly; some people will leave it due to their own sense of good form, and so will the usual contingent of event-goers who like to raise a hue-and-cry over the repulsiveness of "vegetarian food" if it's offered (who chow down quite happily if it's just offered as X and Y vegetable pie, and come back for seconds).

Adding my voice to the masses who have said the same: wouldn't it be absolutely grand if more non-vegetarians thought about what they actually liked to eat beforehand and filled in the forms accordingly?

There's not always some 'form' that you can fill out. The buffets we get when I work at my hobby can range from a professional caterer (awesome lady, more food than anyone could ever eat, everyone goes home with a doggy bag) to old Dot who rations out the pieces of chicken and probably doesn't know what the word vegetarian means. We don't get any say in what is served, and quite frankly, if someone started demanding a specific menu each weekend, they probably wouldn't get asked to work very often.

When Dot "cooks" it is cold chicken and salad. I can't stand any form of salad, so I resign myself to just eating my piece of cold chicken and breadstick, and don't make a big fuss if anyone else decides they want breadstick when they are perfectly able to eat the salad. It's just food, and I'm perfectly capable of providing for myself when I get home if I don't like the offerings.

I was talking about the catering at conferences and similar events, midnite.

Apologies, I thought that was obvious from my post.

It's their choice to be vegetarian, therefore their problem imho. I simply refuse to tolerate or cater for such fuckwittery.

I guess you don't have any vegetarian friends then Simon!

If people are not vegetarian, coeliac, have religious requirements etc, they are not likely to specify dietary requirements when asked though, possibly due to not wanting to make a fuss. They will just eat what is there, even if it is something they wouldn't normally eat.

I'd rather not have a cold sandwiches, crisps and cake style lunch because I don't usually eat that kind of food and it sends me to sleep in the afternoon which isn't great for conferences, but I wouldn't start asking for something else. But it would be awful for a low carber as there would be nothing they could eat unless they started picking out sandwich fillings. And a lot of buffets do look like that sort of food, which I think is a little restricted and behind the times.

I guess you don't have any vegetarian friends then Simon!

Or any friends at all, perhaps?

more cheese sandwiches
I'm making a banner as we speak

We don't get any say in what is served, and quite frankly, if someone started demanding a specific menu each weekend, they probably wouldn't get asked to work very often.

I'm not talking about demanding a specific menu, though or even Dot's catering. I'm speaking about all those times the vegetarians in the room know that the attendees were all supposed to return a sheet(s) of paper confirming their attendance, which specifically included a tickbox section on what you'd be eating: "vegetarian", "vegan", gluten-free", "no specific requirements".

In fact, some people gaily return the whole section blank, or tick "no specific requirements" every time and then go straight for the cheese sandwich plate because they don't like the mystery meat options. Perfectly reasonable preference, to be honest, but good grief, have a bit of self-insight, and start ticking 'vegetarian' on the sheet before you return it!

tara- but most cheese isn't vegetarian, so surely vegetarians wouldn't be eating it anyway.

Any catering I've ever organised (at work), the cheese is vegetarian. Otherwise, it's not suitable for vegetarians the intended target

maid- I doubt that is universal though.

Pearlylum Yes, I'm certain the caterers make sure to buy Parmesan Reggiano or a similar cheese made with authentic rennet for those 5 sets of cheese sandwiches. [/sarcastic] Totally not cheap cheddar.

Rennet is needed for cheese, but it doesn't have to be calf-derived rennet. Microbial rennet is adequate and is used for lots of cheeses. I suspect it's cheaper in the first place as a production cost and it means the finished product can be sold to a greater number of people. Have a gander in the cheese aisle of your local supermarket and see how much cheese is marked vegetarian.

*Rennet is used for some cheese

I think it would be helpful at buffets if the mystery meat sandwiches were labelled so that people knew what was meant to be in them. Actually, label all of them. It's not pleasant biting into what looks like a plain ham sandwich to discover Pease pudding or red hot mustard hiding in there.

Buffet sandwiches are a bit like Russian roulette sometimes.

And FWIW, speaking as someone with no particular dietary requirements, I wouldn't tick the vegetarian box for a buffet at a conference etc without a clear idea of what the vegetarian option would consist of.
I have a strong aversion (not an allergy) to eggs, and I've been at too many buffets where the vegetarian option looks to be almost entirely based around egg sandwiches and vegetarian quiche to want to inadvertently select that. The sort of cheese sandwiches which are filled with grated cheese mixed with mayonnaise are equally vile. But I'd take a cheese sandwich made with plain cheese over mystery meat any day.

BTW, I'd assume cheese provided at a buffet to be vegetarian cheese unless told otherwise.