I wish just I'd been honest...

[busy45bee]

Context: I'm a vegetarian. I offer to bring a dish to dinner if I'm invited.

On Sunday we were invited to SIL's house. They are big on their meat dishes and I did my usual of offering to bring something veggie. They said 'no all good!' so we took that as food would be provided.

We arrive and BIL's mum (SIL's MIL) has come along and done some of the cooking. She's made me a salad...with bacon lardons. She said 'I hope that's ok, it's just on top' and instead of saying anything I nodded and thought how the heck am I going to get out of this one.

I had salad wrapped in a napkin in my handbag. I stealthily dropped it in there as I reached to scratch my ankle. I flicked bacon on the floor in the hope that the dog would eat it when no one was looking but that was hard as there were 9 people around the table.

I told my DH that it was amazing and he must try some. He gobbled it up. My MIL realised what was happening and decided to be part of the bacon smuggling. She made a big fuss about how delicious it looked and practically swiped it off my plate which was just too theatrical.

Now we look like weirdos who go crazy for bacon salad. I'm worried it's going to become a staple at family gatherings and I don't know how to get out of a perpetual bacon cycle.

You sound more vegan than vegetarian if you don't eat parmesan?

There's nobody out their these days who doesnt understand "vegetarian" so im assuming they thought your offer to bring a dish would be for them to have a meat free version & giving you a bacon salad instead was there way of being passive aggressive ?

Anyway they would have been laughing at you behind your back & have known you got rid of the bacon if you weren't going to eat it so why not just be honest now....it was offensive to provide inedible food after being informed & offered to bring a dish

Parmesan isn’t vegetarian.

My Nan once served us chicken "because you are vegetarian". Some older folk really struggle to get their heads around the whole vegetarian thing!

This all reads like some dated Ealing comedy where someone is locked under the stairs and the vicar’s trousers fall down. Goodness me! Not eating meat! What a to do!

🤣🤣🤣

Salad in handbag?😂

The things we do to fit in yet we're being forced into someone else's ideology...

Your SIl is an AH and she knows it.

Take your own food next time.

She put salad in her handbag during the meal.

not trying to be bitchy, i usually find these "oh shit" moments hilarious but this one sounds quite made up... do you fancy that you're in an episode of Mr Bean or something?

at a table with 9 guests it's a bit hard to believe they missed you repeatedly chucking bacon into your handbag...

but more bafflingly, how would anyone be ok with their guests flicking bacon and bacon juice all over the floor??? and if it was just 1 or 2 bits you flicked why not just set those aside like a normal person?

i would genuinely be more pissed off by a mad bacon flicker dirtying my house than if she just told me she couldn't eat the salad?! it just sounds self absorbed and crazy from a guest, not oh so hilarious...

I can't get over a grown adult coming out with :

She's made me a salad...with bacon lardons. She said 'I hope that's ok, it's just on top'

she must be very very hard of understanding aka thick as mince to come out with that winner.

as a veggie, I'd find that really offensive and I don't easily take offence!

and it's the epitome of people pleasing to feel you couldn't say anything for fear of offending the MIL even though what she did to you was hugely offensive and socially inept. You need to learn how to stick up for yourself (if this scenario is real, as a pp said, it sounds made up it's so farcical)

I'm veggie and would've be able to eat the whole salad. Are people so thick these days that they don't realise that bacon is meat?

I’m not sure this is real. Being vegetarian isn’t unusual. If it is true I would feel pretty put out at your silly antics and wonder why you didn’t just say sorry I can’t eat this. You weren’t being kind by eating it, you were making a fool of your hosts.

I didn't think this would cause such a discussion! Just to clarify:

I put a small amount of salad in my bag once, it wasn't a repeated action

It was my dog who had 2 bits of bacon flicked towards them when they were near my feet, I didn't cover the host's floor in scraps of food

I didn't eat anything, I got some chips on the way home

If I wasn't seeing these people again I would laugh it off and forget about it but I've realised I've got myself in a hole. In the future I will bring some food regardless and I'll explain the saga to SIL and BIL at some point!

i want to round up all the people pleasers and coach them on how to point out a problem without worrying about mortally offending another person.

Yes!

@x2boys that scene is a classic from The Royale family!

op.. just say.. I’m a vegetarian

Well this is people pleasing to the extreme. It doesn’t really take much backbone to say you don’t eat meat. I don’t take milk in my tea or coffee and never have I had a problem saying to someone if they’ve put it in there (politely of course), but the point is I would never just drink it while hating it, or say it was ‘fine’.

A lot of meat eaters complain about this.

"Oh - I don't give them meat when they come to us, so why don't they give me meat when I go to them? After all, I serve them what THEY want, but they don't serve ME what I want."

Somehow they can't see that for many, if not most, vegetarians handling and cooking an animal corpse is as distressing as eating it, and that their home will smell of roasted flesh long after the visitors have gone.

I am pre-programmed to be polite & appeasing in this situation too, op, especially when put on the spot with an audience. I don’t believe we are the only ones, either, whatever the many other posts on this thread would suggest.

Anyway, it’s not the end of the world. I would talk to Sil about it and explain where your politeness tripped you up and then move on.

My dog would love you, btw and I now fancy bacon salad at 7 in the morning 😂 Have a lovely day.

Lol this made me chuckle

And why he didn’t help you while you were speechless?

Oh you poor thing what an annoyance.

This will probably out me IRL but DH has been vegetarian for years. We were asked to dinner by a newish friend of his and we were asked if we had any dietary issues. I said ; 'DH is vegetarian'. he was served - like everyone else- steak en croute. When he looked askance his friend replied with surprise; 'Oh! I thought you were taking the piss!'.

I can understand being so gobsmacked and wanting to be polite that you did not speak up. I'm the same - trying to people please and be polite to my own detriment.

Is that all they prepared for you? A salad? Sounds like they forgot about your meal, cobbled something together then looked at the plate and thought Christ, how can I make these leaves look a bit better and your MIL has come up with her bacon garnish.

It's hard to believe this happened tbh as even if you were astounded and too polite to say anything your SIL knows damn well that you are veggie so why on earth would she let her MIL do that? Similarly, it's your DH family so why wouldn't he step up and say something instead of gobbling up all your salad in dramatic fashion. The whole thing just sounds really fucking weird. What is wrong with you all?

There's no way people wouldn't have noticed you were feeding your dog btw

I eat meat. It's just a dopey argument based on the false premise that people who eat meat eat only meat, or never eat dishes that don't contain meat.

Really the problem with the argument isn't a failure to understand the feelings of some vegetarians. It's just a bad faith argument.

Parmesan is always made with animal rennet. There are other Italian hard cheeses that can be used as a substitute, that are vegetarian.