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?!

My husband once spent an entire children's party talking to someone claiming to be a hardcore vegan, and quite self-righteous about it too. The next time I saw her, she was tucking into a hotdog! I asked her about it, and she said from time to time, she had to have bacon or a hotdog, they were just too tempting!

I don't see why the meat eaters should all have vegan food just because one vegan is at the meal, when they would like to eat meat

Oh FFS not this again. Just because most people choose to eat meat, it does not mean that they have to have meat at every single meal or else it is not a meal.

There are plenty of vegan/vegetarian options that are simply just food that everyone could quite happily eat.

For example, if you were doing a tapas style meal, you could serve 5 dishes, 3 of which are vegan - eg. patatas bravas, vegetable paella eg using the Casa Moro recipe with artichokes, green beans and sun dried tomatoes and garlic mushrooms or a chick pea or bean stew. Maybe add in something cheesy or an omelette that is vegetarian but not vegan and maybe one thing containing meat or fish such as chicken skewers or meatballs.

Indian would be easy - a vegetable curry, a chick pea curry, a vegetable rice dish and maybe a meat curry and naan bread with starters and something like onion bhajis that most people like.

Or middle eastern - falafels, carrot salad, pittas, hummus, yogurt dressing, maybe a meaty kebab style thing and a stew containing vegetables and beans and maybe fried halloumi or similar. Maybe ask any vegans what they would like as a vegan yogurt alternative if you are not familiar with what is available.

So plenty of choice for everyone, not obviously vegetarian/vegan food, even though it is suitable and no-one feels like they are missing out unless they are ridiculously fussy, have severe allergies that they would mention and even some meat for the people Who Must Have Meat.

But that's not what you posted feckoffcup.

You asked why everyone should have to eat a vegan meal, not why the OP should have to eat a vegan meal.

Of course the OP should cook meat if she wants it but she's the one who was complaining about how long it took her to make the vegan food.

Seems to me she should have just made vegan food for everyone and saved herself the effort of all that extra cooking.

I think that the OP has taken a drubbing on this thread and it is undeserved: MN is for moaning on so we don't have to do it in real life.
Further: as a person who entertains regularly I think that the accommodation for a vegan is considerable, certainly far more than for a vegetarian: I regularly host 2 or 3 families for Sunday lunch and would offer the following: choice of two starters (one a home made soup which would contain stock and one a fruit or salad option; main course of two or three meats depending on numbers plus a choice of vegetables: roasties cooked in goose or duck fat, veggies pureed with butter and spices or just dressed with butter.
Switching to vegetarian is a simple thing: switch the fat in the roast vegetables and provide a veggie main bit and a vegetarian gravy.
Switching to vegan is more complex: the dishes I would hoik from the freezer (previously braised red cabbage, spiced carrot puree etc) have butter in and are unsuitable. Things I would normally dress with dairy need tweaking...and that is completely acceptable to accommodate a guest...Of course thsat is what being a good host is.
If that guest then turns out to be not only non-vegan but not even vegetarian I think that I'd be within my rights, having changed 80% of my planned menu, to be a little peeved.

I think the tide turned on the OP when she posted that she waited till the "vegan" guest had gone, then read out comments from this thread and had a good old laugh and bitch about her with the remaining guests.

The reason why I am so intent on pointing this out is that it is meanness masquerading as ethics.

No. The guest had food preferences masquerading as food restrictions.

Saying you're a vegan states that you don't eat meat. It's not comparable to Catholics and contraception. Not eating animal products is the beginning and end of what 'vegan' means.

As someone (Jessie?) said umpteen pages ago, when you eat at someone's house, you tell them what you can't eat. You don't act like it's an opportunity to shape the menu to whatever you currently fancy: 'I'd like a grain-based starter, then some chicken with complex carbs, and something chocolatey for dessert'.

Saying you're vegan, requiring someone to prepare you a vegan dish, and then showing with no embarrassment that you're not actually restricted; you'd prefer vegan, but you'll taste meat/fish if you feel like it, is inconsiderate and rude, and no different from asking them to cook you a little something different because you don't really fancy what they've planned.

SuburbanRhonda the 'tide' never really turned. It's been predominantly you and Toobad rubbishing the OP all along, coming up with increasingly convoluted explanations as to why self-professed vegans cannot be held to their own self-defined eating choices. Even for one meal. A meal for which they've told the hostess 'I'm vegan', and been catered for.

I did wonder how long it would take before the useful suggestion 'why didn't the OP just make all vegan food?' came up. Right. Everyone can eat vegan food, because of one vegan guest... who's not even vegan.

So, according to some posters, I can call myself a vegan who happens to eat the occasional steak, sashimi, and cheese and be expected to be taken seriously. After all, the majority of my diet (well, over 50%) would be vegan approved.

I don't think so. Why do people need labels? How about vegivore - a person who primarily eats a plant based diet? Less offensive and more reasonable for those who are not strict vegetarian/vegan?

I think Offred's stance is pretty understandable. If a child or teen goes to a friend's house for dinner and says 'I do not like to eat X and Y', whether that is meat and fish or peas or whatever, a lot of people would put a bit on their plate and maybe encourage them to try it. I see this attitude all the time, I have seen school dinner ladies doing it even. Whereas being vegetarian is a recognised position which people are obliged to take seriously and respect, even if it is not strictly true from a purist perspective. I also think, based on my own experience, that if you said you don't eat meat or fish then most of the general public would reply "...so, you're a vegetarian then?".

Most importantly, it sounds like the child considers being vegetarian as part of her identity which she is proud of and I suspect that being told "no, you're not a vegetarian, you ate a piece of Haribo at a party last week" is going to be really disheartening and possibly put her off vegetarianism when really making ethical choices is something a 9 yo should be commended for. I'm not saying she couldn't be encouraged to think about moving away from meat traces, just that the "NO YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO IDENTIFY AS VEGETARIAN" approach is harsh and unnecessary on a 9 year old.

Spot on Baboooshka & StormyBlue.

Barbara - no of course people don't have to eat meat at every single meal but if they want to why shouldn't they?
Instead they should all eat a vegan meal on behalf of one vegan guest, who isn't actually vegan? Maybe they didn't want to.

You don't have to outline examples of normal vegetarian meals for me as I am a vegetarian, but thanks anyway^^

I don't see why the meat eaters should all have vegan food just because one vegan is at the meal, when they would like to eat meat

You can eat vegetarian or vegan food and be perfectly happy. In fact, you probably do and don't even notice it. That's why I'd have done with it and invited everyone to my favourite Lebanese restaurant, eaten my grilled chicken and got quietly pissed.

I am a vegetarian, limited

Just because I am a vegetarian doesn't mean I think everyone around me should eat meat free just because I'm there for dinner. If they want meat then that's up to them.

I'm a vegetarian too then. Apart from the meat and fish and cheese. Since we can use whatever labels we like and it doesn't matter, I'm also teetotal, apart from the large amounts of wine and beer. But I aim to be one day, so that counts, right?

I don't see why the meat eaters should all have vegan food just because one vegan is at the meal, when they would like to eat meat

"Vegan food", LOL. Because ya know, spinach is VEGAN FOOD!!!! Rice is VEGAN FOOD!!!!! Clutch those pearls, baby.

If I served a vegan-friendly curry, I doubt my guests would see it as 'vegan food'. It's just food. Lovely food. And lovely food is lovely food regardless of whom it's suitable for.

But they did all eat meat feckoffcu, including the alleged vegan. So what's the whingeing about?

Last time we ate at a local Italian. There was nothing on the children's menu that was vegetarian and there was one choice for the adult veggies.

If you have never been to my town and don't know where I live I am not sure how you know?

You want to pronounce my DD who has had to make many modifications to her day to day diet in order to maintain a healthy vegetarian diet due to an ethical choice as 'picky'? If she was 'picky' I would not have supported her being vegetarian for so long. Many places we go she can only have garlic bread and olives, or a cheese board nothing else.

I am glad if other places have better vegetarian meals but I have lived here all my life, my two sisters and brother have been veggie since teenagers, I am more than capable of using Google and I'm not sure what your point is anyway?

ThumbWitches no typo I'm afraid. I was about to leap into my favourite dessert when I saw the ingredients list included Beef gelatine.

The 'Now Even More Tasty!' sticker on the pack was in reference to the addition.

According to everyone else, Beef Cheesecake lives up to its claim.

Last time we ate at a local Italian. There was nothing on the children's menu that was vegetarian and there was one choice for the adult veggies

You didn't ask them to make you a pasta bianco, or a spaghetti aglio e olio, or a plain tomato sauce?
This Italian restaurant didn't have a pizza margarita? Or cannaloni, with spinach and ricotta? Or a mushroom risotto?

I simply don't believe you. Unless you travel to your town in a time machine. There isn't an Italian restaurant in England that doesn't do a pizza margarita.

Everyone can eat vegan food, because of one vegan guest

I completely agree, babooshka .

I've said all along I didn't understand why someone who said they were vegan would want to eat fish. I disagreed that the OP said the guest said she MUST eat vegan food. I said I thought the OP's behaviour after the guest had left was inexcusable. And I disagree that there's any need for offred's DD to describe herself as vegetarian when she isn't. That's a slightly more accurate summary than yours IMO.

HTH

Pork gelatine also frequently makes an appearance in individual mousse pots. And some low-fat yogurts.

"NO YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO IDENTIFY AS VEGETARIAN"

Which poster said that? Must have missed that one.

Next time I'm invited to dinner, I'm going to tell the host I'm vegan to make them sweat over preparing separate food for me, just so that I can eat all of that AND the food that they've prepared for the other guests. Ha! That'll learn them.

I also agree with Penguin. Italian is probably one of the better choices for vegetarians because there would be several starters, Pizzas, pastas, salads or other things that are suitable for vegetarians or can be very easily adapted, eg by omission or substitution of parmesan.

These days it's economic madness for a restaurant not to cater for vegetarians.