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?

'I don't think I could trust myself to cook meat after decades of not doing so. And I'd be surprised if anyone would want to eat meat cooked by someone who doesn't remember the rules'

Ah.
Yes.
That would be me. I'm a fairly good, creative cook who often tastes and adapts recipes to my family's delight. Except with meat, I stick to the recipe and don't taste.
They are going to remember the underdone leg of lamb for a while. The incinerated pork. The goose. Perhaps better not to mention that one.
Meat recipes ought to be better written. DD learnt to cook meat in self-defence, DS has the stomach of a camel and amazing recovery powers.

solitary

There's some meat I can't even stand the smell of when it's cooking - bacon for one

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.

A sandwich shop near my old work had multiple sandwich platter options for eg meetings, one of which was basically an "easily identifiable" selection. If it looks like egg mayo / ham salad / tuna and sweetcorn etc, then it is. Slightly more boring flavours but far less left over.

I was about to link to it but they've drastically changed their menu. There's an option to add kale slaw FFS and a "superfoods platter".

This has been a fascinating read and wonderful distraction from work!

I'm vegan, the most irritating and difficult to cater for it seems!
If a friend was having a buffet type meal I would offer to bring a few things and make enough for everyone to have some. I want more people to realise vegan food is delicious, and animal products aren't necessary! Best way to do that is introduce them to more options, as I recently did at a buffet type lunch at my mums. I did dive in first as well though! Plus I can always load up on crisps and wine, I won't care about lack of food if I have those

I must say I haven't been in enough catered meeting situations to have an opinion on those, I would probably assume I wouldn't get anything and take a sandwich/crisps with me. I was pleasantly surprised at our AGM last year how much there was for me to eat without even being asked though, so that was nice.

On cooking meat for meat eaters, sorry I wouldn't. I tend to be the party giver and if someone wanted to offer to bring a meat/dairy dish that would be fine but I'm not doing it myself. I've forewarned dinner guests it will all be vegan in the past and encouraged them to load up on meat beforehand if that's a problem, but no-ones ever complained and the food's always all gone (Mexican is a good option, everyone loves spicy potatoes, rice, bean chilli, avocados etc)
As many above have said, being a meat eater doesn't mean eating only meat, and there are fairly few left in the 'it's not a meal if it's not got meat in it' crowd these days. If I wanted to have a meal with someone like that, an older family member perhaps, Id suggest going to a restaurant instead. Most people like most food and are happy to try different things, especially if it's suitably 'weird' like vegan food!

I think clearly the most sensible rules for buffets no matter what your dietary requirement is;

1. When going to one, plan to eat what you can and possibly not be able to eat enough/what you want.

And;

1. When planning a buffet, try and cater to the guests so that everyone can eat the majority of the food within reason.

Then surely there is no conflict and no stress if everyone is reasonable!

And for me that means making a majority of food every time that is veggie as I know loads of veggies.

If I knew just one was coming I would organise a majority of veggie food still because meat eaters (like me) can eat veggie food but the veggies can't eat meat.

That's just the most sensible thing to do IMO - make sure everyone has something they can eat, if some just don't like the taste of certain types of food that's tough titty IMO.

I always eat things I'm not keen on and am genuinely grateful if someone else has cooked for me but I'd never leave a vegetarian, vegan, coeliac etc without a food option.

And tbh when I've had coeliac/gluten free/FODMAP/nut allergy people for food I have kept their food separate because that's often a matter of certain a foods making them sick and you need to consider cross contamination as a real priority.

I'm pretty sure that in the UK most cheese is vegetarian. It's the minority that isn't.

newyear

That might be true if you count all the different brands of the same cheese (cheddar, for example).

But if you're looking at cheese sold in the UK, most French cheeses aren't suitable for vegetarians and classic cheeses such as Parmesan, Grana Padano, Gorgonzola and Roquefort have their recipe protected by law so would never be suitable for vegetarians. Brie and Camembert from France is usually unsuitable, whereas Cornish Brie is fine.

It can be a minefield when shopping online. Ocado includes a "V" on their thumbnail pictures but Tesco doesn't. And I recently found a Tesco Finest cheese that lists "lard" as one of its ingredients

On the subject of brie, Aldi Roi de Trefle French Brie is marked 'suitable for vegetarians' in very tiny writing.

Reading this thread has been eye opening.

What I've taken from it is that it is the hosts / caterers that are at fault. A buffet by its very nature is a free for all. You go up and pick the foods you like. I rarely eat meat but I do eat fish. A few people have said about offering tangines. I'd never eat that option as I hate fruit with savoury food, it's an abomination as far as I am concerned

Very few people will pick only meat to eat from a buffet. Most add at least some salad items or rice / potatoes to their plate as an addition. My view is that a buffet should always be one fifth meat / fish and the rest vegetarian and there should be plenty of it. I always over cater as I'd hate anyone to go hungry at my home, vegetarian or not.

I must be lucky as I have not found in recent years any formal buffets running out of meat free options, the only thing they run out of is pudding!

If there is a lot of choice as a vegetarian I am usually pleasantly surprised. I agree that some things it isn't clear if they are or not. It shouldn't be the case that vegetarian things are "reserved" - but thought about with how much of each item there is . The only times it has really been a problem is generally at work where someone has not ordered anything vegetarian at all (yes surprising!)

Hot How selfish of the person organising. Surely they should think of everyone and add in salad, potatoes, etc just as standard?