AIBU - vegan dinner party guest EATING FISH

[isitginoclock]

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?!

People's diets vary.

Very very rarely someone would 100% fit their diet into a term (vegan or vegetarian or pescatarian, etc.) That's normal.
I'm pretty sure not all omnivores would eat quinoa or buckwheat with broccoli - so what do we call them then?
No need to be judgey.

When my wife and I got married I invited a Muslim workmate and her family to the event and supplied vegetarian food (alongside the regular) and also alcohol free wine and they didn't even bother to turn up. I suppose bad manners is no respecter of race or creed. One other thing that I still can't get my head round is why do people shout so loud about being vegetarian and then eat vegetarian options made to look like meat (sausages, burgers et al)? I once met a vegetarian who would eat chicken and bacon ?????? I suppose that makes me a teetotaller except for the beer and whsiky

The dictionary definition of vegetarian is not eating flesh and sometimes othe animal products.

She has to communicate with other people who feed her what her dietary choice is. She gets to choose what to call herself not me and her diet is not inconsistent with the dictionary definition of vegetarian which is about not eating flesh.

It wouldn't bother me at all if someone told me they were vegan. What would bother me in the op's case is anyone telling me they couldn't have what I was cooking, me making something else for them specially and then them eating the thing they told me they couldn't have. That's rude whatever the actual food is.

Offred but this is the issue. Most people do actually understand that vegan, vegetarian are actually defined. So by someone telling you they are vegan they are essentially telling you what they can't eat.

Likewise if you accepted an invitation to Xmas dinner and informed host DD is vegetarian the implication would be that she won't eat the turkey or whatever. You can see why someone might be annoyed that they've gone to extra effort or expense for a veggie dish when she tucks into the meat. Of course the child can eat what she wants but shouldn't be described as vegetarian.

Vegetarian to me is not eating anything with a face.

Be it chicken, beef, pork, venison or has a face. You can still wear it if you want though.

Vegan is not having anything to do with anything with a face and their by products such as milk and eggs. You don't consume or wear anything that is an animal product.

If you say you are a vegetarian but you eat fish you are not veggie.

If you say you are vegan and then devour chocolate, you are not vegan.

Or fish* not have a face in the chicken part

And she says when she wants to 'not be vegetarian' which in the last 4 and a half years has been 5 pieces of turkey and a mouthful of a chicken drumstick.

So once again, offred, why does she not say, "I don't eat meat or fish"?

That is the accurate description of her diet.

Vegetarian to me is not eating anything with a face.

Where do you stand on moules mariniere need? And does all chocolate contain animal products?

*One other thing that I still can't get my head round is why do people shout so loud about being vegetarian and then eat vegetarian options made to look like meat (sausages, burgers et al)?

In what way does a sausage or a burger look like meat? Meat burgers and sausages are made into those shapes. As are vegetarian ones.

That's my point.

Telling me vegan and eating the fish is as annoying as telling me you don't eat anything else and then eating it.

It has nothing to do with who is a 'proper' anything. It is anyone asking to have special food made and then eating everyone else's food that they said they wouldn't/couldn't eat.

Where do you stand on moules mariniere need? And does all chocolate contain animal products?

Hmmm I had actually forgotten about things like clams. Looks like I will have to have another think about it.

And when I say chocolate I mean "normal" chocolate that contains milk not dairy free chocolate

Because she is a child and she is a vegetarian. Once a year she eats a non-vegetarian meal in the knowledge that she isn't a vegetarian that day. The rest of the time she is a vegetarian since eating rennet and gelatine, according to the dictionary definition of vegetarianism is subjective.

Someone thinking they are vegetarian whilst eating flesh is entirely different to eating over 99.99% vegetarian and then testing whether you want to continue every year by having one non vegetarian meal and understanding it is not vegetarian food.

Could we say being vegetarian means not eating anything with a heart beat which then covers things like shellfish?

She is not a vegetarian, offred. You're doing her no favours telling her that she is, when she's eating animal products that are unsuitable for vegetarians (not even going to go there on not being vegetarian for one day).

Why are you not answering my question as to why she can't say "I don't eat meat or fish"? Why are you encouraging her to label herself when she doesn't have to?

this is the hotel doesnt have soya milk thread all over again

I heard a chef complaining that he is fed up with the amount of times he gets a phone call asking for a vegetarian option, he spends extra time and effort preparing a nice veggie option and they turn up and order fish.
Ive also known people loudly proclaim to be veggie and tuck into the salmon quiche. They tend to be attention seekers, which really annoys me as people like my ds has serious allergies and need his food options to be taken seriously and they are not because every other person has a food fad.
Words like vegetarian dont change meaning, if you eat fish your are a piscatarian

this is the hotel doesnt have soya milk thread all over again

Maybe that's why they didn't stock the veggie options not that the OP on that thread knew because she never asked them

I'm not labelling her. She calls herself vegetarian.

Why can't she call herself vegetarian?

When she is an adult she won't need to try things out at Christmas because she won't need to test her feelings. She is nine. A healthy vegetarian diet is hard for a child. Sometimes she is only able to eat ice cream or bread at places outside home. It's important for her to test her feelings on it.

The labels often make it easy to explain in general, when you don't want to go into details. Unless you are discussing a menu for a particular event, nobody cares what you eat.

Why can't she call herself vegetarian?

Because technically she isn't.

She can easily say I don't eat meat or fish but since she eats gelatin and rennet which are animal by products she isn't a veggie

Why can't she call herself vegetarian?

Why can't she say she doesn't eat meat or fish?

Just how hard is it to answer this question?

Someone thinking they are vegetarian whilst eating flesh is entirely different to eating over 99.99% vegetarian and then testing whether you want to continue every year by having one non vegetarian meal and understanding it is not vegetarian food

Yes but you're leaving out all the cheese and jelly and sweets as well there, arent you? So its not vegetarian except once a year at all.

I'm not labelling her. She calls herself vegetarian

My kid calls himself spiderman, but he can't shoot webs. Kids call themselves all kinds, doesn't make them so!

NeedACleverNN sorry, I couldn't resist and thank you for taking it well . I think the thing about not eating anything with a face is a good way to describe vegetarianism or veganism but it doesn't cover everything.

I get why it's important for vegetarians and vegans to want to claim their description. But I don't understand anyone else's beef with it. As a meat eater, I don't mind what people describe themselves as, so long as they aren't putting me to great inconvenience.

I don't accept that the OP's guest put her to any inconvenience at all. If it had been me I'd have raised my brow and then considered it a compliment to my cooking that my salmon tartare had caused a vegan to stray from her path . I certainly wouldn't have wasted time on the bog MNing. If that really happened I'd give up throwing dinner parties because the OP's must be really dull if that's the best entertainment of the evening.