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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU - vegan dinner party guest EATING FISH

709 replies

isitginoclock · 13/05/2016 20:06

We're throwing a dinner party. I've just excused myself to the loo to write this because I'm FUMING!! One of our guests has recently become a vegan. I spent bloody ages making her a mushroom pate for starter which she happily tucked into whilst we ate our salmon tartare. She then asked if she could try some salmon.

Wtf?!?!

I've bought loads of different stuff for her to eat and spent all frigging day cooking it. Why do I bother?!

OP posts:
HowBadIsThisPlease · 14/05/2016 12:01

"And, generally speaking, expecting vegans/vegetarians to fill up on the accompanying vegetables/salad with no attempt to provide them with a balanced meal is rude."

Well you can make a grainy / nutty salad which serves everyone. Or, a pulse / vegetable hot dish that can act as a side dish or as a main. Or both.

And cook the fish, as you would have anyway, and serve other vegetables, as you would have anyway.

And if you are desperate to have a separate vegan protein, fry some marinated tofu, if you must - no trouble. but it wouldn't matter if you didn't

EmmaWoodlouse · 14/05/2016 12:01

Oh and one last thought - isn't saying "I've become a vegan" and then trying a bit of fish kind of the same as saying "I've given up smoking" and then being tempted to smoke when your friends are doing it? I mean it has more effect in terms of someone having to go to some effort to make vegan food but what's going on in the vegan/non-smoker's head is probably quite similar.

SuburbanRhonda · 14/05/2016 12:06

Preparing a totally separate dish to the range of dishes when you are catering for a group is extra effort.

My comment was to the person who said the effort was wasted. It is not wasted if the person eats the food.

Lweji · 14/05/2016 12:06

HowBadIsThisPlease

Exactly.
It can be fairly easy to accommodate everyone without adding a lot of work to a meal.

Lweji · 14/05/2016 12:07

It is not wasted if the person eats the food.

It is wasted, if you realise the person could have eaten the other food and you had all that extra work especially for her. Surely that's obvious?

HowBadIsThisPlease · 14/05/2016 12:07

Personally I think English people in general are really weird about food. "plating up" for instance - is often talked about on mn - I can't imagine putting a plate of food that I have selected for them in front of adult, or any child but a very small one. (I would lean on my dcs to take vegetables, if they don't look like they are going to! but I don't put their food on their plates for them.)

the idea of having a dinner party where you have decided in advance what each guest is going to eat and are annoyed when they mess with the boundaries is just odd to me. I come from a culture (Irish) where there is always too much food (even if money is tight you always find a way to put several kilos of spuds at least on the table), always put in the middle of the table, everyone eats what they want and the only way to offend your host would be to eat nothing. I went to China and found them the same - people were unbelievably hospitable with food, and nothing was ever served in "portions"

paxillin · 14/05/2016 12:10

My gripe with "vegetarians" who turn out to wolf down the chicken is, I haven't planned for it. I do not over-buy meat, I don't want to waste it. So the "vegetarian" who eats chicken legs at my barbecue is eating mine. As the hostess I will of course let the guests go first so I end up eating grilled veg and tofu instead. Whilst watching the "vegetarian" eating my dinner.

SuburbanRhonda · 14/05/2016 12:10

No it's not obvious because at no point has the OP said that the "vegan" guest would have been happy to eat all the food the other guest ate.

If she left her starter and main untouched and asked to have some of the (presumably meat-based) main instead, I agree it would have been a waste of effort.

BarbarianMum · 14/05/2016 12:11

Yes of course I could HowBad and I do - half dh's family is veggie and we manage to cater fine. But it does mean I choose to prepare different/more interesting side vegetables then when it is just the meat-eating inlaws round and the food interest is all in the casserole.

By the time you've served up a meal to a group of people you've (ime) already had to make a number of adjustments to accommodate the real allergies, strong likes and dislikes and the ethical choices of a number of people. To have extra conditions placed on what you serve unnecessarily is a total pain in the arse.

paxillin · 14/05/2016 12:16

It is a bit like the "teetotal" who will glug a bottle of wine they didn't bring and I hadn't planned for leaving everyone else with a choice of headache-in-the-bottle from the corner shop or water after 1 glass of wine.

BarbarianMum · 14/05/2016 12:18

paxillin I'm gluten free (for clarity given this thread that means I don't ever eat gluten, not even a little bit, not even if it looks really good). A few years ago I went to dinner with friends. Our host knew I was gluten-free so she'd catered for me. On sitting down to eat another guest declared that she was also gluten-free. A bit stressful for our host - she'd only catered for one of us - but no problem - I shared the starter and the 'main' bit of the main course with her, we both ate extra veggies. Then when dessert was served my new GF mate ate half my the GF cheesecake then had a slice of the regular one 'cause it looked so good and because she was still hungry' Angry. Not only did I bitch behind her back I am still bitching today.

HowBadIsThisPlease · 14/05/2016 12:19

paxillin, in both cases you should know by now that that is what people will do! That is what I am getting at with my "fuzzy definitions" argument. I am 44 and have known for a good 20 years now that there are always things you need more of than you think when you invite people over, and far more than you think you would need if you were to ask them and cater on that basis. Wine, anything a bit fatty and crispy and meaty, - you've got to massively over cater

DinosaursRoar · 14/05/2016 12:19

HowBadIsThis - the bulk of the food being 'plated up' is normal in pretty much every restaurant you go to though, some vegs and side dishes are served communally, but it's not an English thing, go to restaurants in France, Germany, Italy etc and you'll order your meal and be handed that meal. When hosting a dinner party, most people do serve the main part of each dish 'plated up' rather than just do a Sunday lunch style putting all the dishes on the table and give guests empty plates.

Of course if you are hosting a dinner party you think in advance what everyone is going to eat, and then you cook it - the OP was making salmon tartar, she did need to make a completely extra dish then for the vegan and wouldn't have had to if they had said they eat fish. You do have to make sure guests with dietary requirements have enough food they can eat for a full meal, not just pick at the sides for each course and not have a 'proper' starter/main/pudding - it's annoying if you've made twice as many dishes to allow for 1 person's dietary requirements just to find they could have eaten the same as everyone else.

SuburbanRhonda · 14/05/2016 12:21

It is a bit like the "teetotal" who will glug a bottle of wine they didn't bring

This is an interesting slant on the usual "vegans who eat rare steak" claims Grin

Baboooshka · 14/05/2016 12:21

the idea of having a dinner party where you have decided in advance what each guest is going to eat and are annoyed when they mess with the boundaries is just odd to me.

Are you kidding? She 'decided in advance' that the guest would eat vegan food, because the guest said she was vegan. As a million people have said, making a separate vegan entree was a complete waste of her time, since the vegan was happy to try the fish. It's rude to require people to prepare food that fits your dietary requirements and then publicly show those dietary requirements don't really matter. What's so complicated about this?

JessieMcJessie · 14/05/2016 12:25

Suburban the food was not wasted, the EFFORT was wasted. If the fake vegan had only been given salmon to eat she would have been quite happy.

Abyway I'm glad to see you have dropped the nonsense about claiming the guest didn't specify that she must have vegan food.

As for the discussion behind the fake vegan's back, we just disagree about the morals of this, it's entirely subjective. I view it as perfectly fine since fake vegan would not be any the wiser. I am clearly less orally upright than many on this site.

DinosaursRoar · 14/05/2016 12:26

oh and inspired by this thread - I have texted my "not really a vegatarian" friend who's coming over this evening, she's fine with gelatine in pudding form! Phew, I can spend this afternoon making my filthy house look a bit more presentable, not rushing to the shops to aquire additional puddingy options.

ExConstance · 14/05/2016 12:28

Bill Clinton is presently described by his daughter as "The most famous vegan on earth" but admits to eating omlettes and salmon. There is a lot of it about.

pisangku · 14/05/2016 12:30

howbad I very much agree.

Also in reference to my last post - it was in reply to the following:
*Veganism has just one very clear necessary and sufficient condition
Non consumption of animal products
If you don't meet that one criteria they you don't qualify as vegan

Its not a hard to define category like art or sport where criteria are various*

New at this ! haha

Lweji · 14/05/2016 12:31

I suppose it depends on the definition of "animal".

For some people it means "mammal or bird". Sigh.

HowBadIsThisPlease · 14/05/2016 12:34

yes, but restaurants are different. I am talking about home cooking

The last time I had people over who were omni, pesce and veggie, we had a roast salmon, a ton of vegetables and salad, and a (vegan by chance) vegetable shepherd's pie. (We also had cheese and pudding.) There was far more pie than enough for two vegetarians but an awful lot of it disappeared, it was being treated as a side dish by fish eaters. Had the vegetarians decided that they were actually going to eat fish today as well (they never will - they are both completely consistent - but for the sake of argument) then it would have made effectively no difference to anything, because the pie was an important part of the meal, rather than just some weird thing I made for two people that I could then work myself into a resentful lather about.

Isn't it obvious that this is how you cook for mixed groups? - you provide some food that is suitable for everyone, but work on the basis that food that excludes ingredients that some guests won't eat, should be prepared in quantities that everyone might eat it? And then you have nothing to be resentful about

SuburbanRhonda · 14/05/2016 12:34

Abyway I'm glad to see you have dropped the nonsense about claiming the guest didn't specify that she must have vegan food.

Until the OP comes back and states that the guest said, "I MUST have vegan food", as was claimed by another poster, no-one can say that's what she said. My viewpoint remains the same - I'm just not as interested in pursuing it as you are.

HowBadIsThisPlease · 14/05/2016 12:35

"If the fake vegan had only been given salmon to eat she would have been quite happy. " - no she wouldn't. there is a difference between tasting a food and basing your meal on it. She wanted to base her meal on plants, you gave her a plant based meal. not wasted effort.

Lweji · 14/05/2016 12:38

It was actually fungal based. Not plant.
Just for the record.
Biologist here. I don't let this stuff go.

HowBadIsThisPlease · 14/05/2016 12:41

""the idea of having a dinner party where you have decided in advance what each guest is going to eat and are annoyed when they mess with the boundaries is just odd to me."

Are you kidding?"

Not remotely. I mean obviously I have to decide what the group is eating, as I have to buy it and cook it. but policing individual servings is fucking weird. to me. I understand, as I am being told, that to some it is normal. to me it is weird.

I do love left overs and I do quite intentionally over cater though (or I try to - sometimes it doesn't work)