Guest who is fasting coming for dinner

[learieonthewildmoor]

My brother-in-law’s mother is coming for Easter dinner tomorrow night. She is fasting for Orthodox Christian Easter; so won’t eat meat, dairy or olive oil.

Every year I make vegetarian dishes made with vegetable oil for her, which she recoils from in horror and doesn’t eat. She then eats the lamb and the halloumi salad and the pumpkin roasted in olive oil, and makes comments about how bad she feels about breaking her fast, and what a shame it is there was no food for her.

If I skip making the vegetarian dishes this year, am I being a bad host?

Well I would go to extremes...she says she's fasting. So fasting means not eating. A glass of water for her. Served in her armchair preferably in another room so that she doesn't have to watch others eating.

I have kept this fast in the past. Make sure there are some tasty vegetables, a nice bottle of oil on the table, some decent bread, and fruit for dessert. Olives are good if she likes them. She can pick and choose as she wishes. She is being a PITA, it is better to break your fast than make the hosts feel bad, according to the Orthodox tradition.

Tell BIL you're sorry but since you don't want his Mother in a position where she feels she HAS to eat something that will break her fast it's best he organises/picks up her meal.

Loudly ask when they arrive if he wants to hand over the food to be heated up.

Leave it to him.

@watermelonlove

It's hardly 'suffering', is it? It will still be food. [Insert obligatory stupid emoji to show disdain at someone's comment]

The cheese sauce was pretty (cow’s) milky mrwalkensir

ah ok , but maybe lactose free milk?

Totally missing the point of the thread - while marvelling at @motheroftinydragons complete lack of reading comprehension skills - but how is olive oil not a vegetable oil, why does it have to be skipped when 'fasting', and how has the word 'fasting' become so misappropriated? It means not eating at all, surely?

I haven’t heard of not having olive oil during Orthodox lent.

Also, OP, the go-to dishes in this fast are made from beans, chickpeas or brown lentils, usually with olive oil, fresh herbs etc. Easy enough to open a can, drain and dress it up a bit. Don’t cook vegetarian mains for her, that is not the point of the fast. It is up to her to renounce certain foods, that’s all.

Skipping olive oil, that’s a new level of fundamentalism. Let her add her own oil then, or not, as she likes.

@Yemen, no, the Orthodox fast, like all ancient Christian fasts, refers mostly to a restricted diet, although many people ho without food and water on Easter Saturday until midnight.

Is your mother Emma Thompson by any chance?

So sorry! Guest. Not mother

Comparable to fish on Fridays in the western tradition.

She’s right to invite her she knows what to expect
I would still provide her with her usual if you don’t you can be sure it will back fire.

Personally, I would very pleasantly, confront her. I'd ask her what I could cook that she would actually eat as I had previously tried hard to accommodate her by providing suitably prepared vegetarian dishes but as they had clearly not been to her taste it would be better for both of us if she could suggest something she would actually eat.

Why, after the first time, did you invite her again?

Just don’t give anything. I think Jesus didn’t eat at all but my knowledge is poor regarding Christianity

Surely if she's not having olive oil, she wouldn't eat olives?

I'd do a nice vegan meal. Maybe stuffed vegetables - peppers or beef tomatoes - perhaps something like this, and use a cooking oil approved by her. Nice with lemon potatoes - literally just new or chunky chopped potatoes & a little lemon juice, roasted around the other veg, in the same dish. The juices mix & go all yummy & slightly caramelised.

If she refuses your delicious offering, whatev you decide to make, she'll obviously look like a massive twat.

Tell her to bring her own meal to meat her requirements- she's being vvvu!

AwdBovril, I am actually salivating looking at that link

According to this
www.abbamoses.com/fasting.html
she shouldn't be eating at all.

I'm Orthodox and though I am not fasting many of my family in Greece are. On Saturdays and Sundays Olive oil is allowed. If she is really strict you could make her Tahini soup and a nice plate of spinach with olive oil and lemon! You might want to say that you heard it's a sin to make a fuss about fasting!

thegreekvegan.com/tahinosoupa-tahini-soup/

orthochristian.com/60132.html

Every year I make vegetarian dishes made with vegetable oil for her, which she recoils from in horror and doesn’t eat....and makes comments about how bad she feels about breaking her fast, and what a shame it is there was no food for her

How has this gone on for years

The first time she recoiled in horror what did she actually say and what did you say to her?

There must be some form of communication.... before the event, during the meal and afterwards when you speak to BIL and ask what that was all about!

I wouldn't invite her gain, what a bloody pain.
There's only room for family