In-laws still serve me food they know I don't like

[spotlightq]

Husband and I have been married for 7 years, together 9. I have been a vegetarian the entire time.

Every time we come here to eat, I'll be offered/given something containing meat. I have to then feel rude and say no thank you.

For example yesterday the peas were ready prepared with mint and bloody pancetta. My plate was dished up for me, so I ended up having to leave a load of food on my plate. It looks rude from my side, but I think it's rude of them.

How hard is it!

I read the title and was ready to give you little sympathy for being a fussy eater. But it is absolutely wrong to serve a vegetarian meat , particularly if they are actually putting it on your plate, and I would stop going there for dinner.

People with special needs diets are inconvenient at best and usually just plain annoying to cook for

It really isn't that difficult to cook for different dietary requirements these days. If you really can't think of something to cook just buy a ready meal. All the supermarkets have loads of choice in the Free From and vegetarian/vegan sections.

I’m so confused by so many of the comments on here. Personally, being a vegetarian, to my mind, is not ‘deliberately restricting’ your diet. It wouldn’t cause huge disruption- all you need to do is make sure the vegetables are actually just that. In my house I would not expect a vegetarian guest to be stuck with no main course just the sides but surely that’s the very least one could do and it makes absolutely no extra work.

People with special needs diets are inconvenient at best and usually just plain annoying to cook for, however nice they are as people.

Cooking without meat isn't "special need" unless you (general you) are all or any of very thick, very lazy, very narrow minded and very petty.

Maybe it is inconvenient for some, but for most of us with a lick of common sense and consideration it is not.

Do you add meat to fruit, smoothies, desserts, and every dish that you have vegetables with?

Are you cooking all the sides of a Sunday roast in meat drippings?

My SIL is vegetarian and MIL has no issue when making a Sunday roast. SIL eats the veggies and brings a mushroom wellington that she makes herself to share that I look forward to over any meat that is placed on the table. There is the option for veggie gravy which is now a staple (more flavourful than meat gravy imo) even when she isn’t joining us because others in the family like it.

Im saying its a generational thing. There was a time if you wanted something different YOU brought it. I wouldn’t dream of asking anyone to make a special meal for me because I choose not to eat meat. Why should they? Now as you say, you ask people if they have an allergy etc and would accommodate. Fair enough. But I why doesnt OP take a dish.

So many simple options available for you as an adult. Eat a filling vegetarian meal before your visit or eat a filling vegetarian meal after your visit or bring a lovely vegetarian meal with you to eat during your visit or eat the meal they prepared or bring a meal that accommodates your food preferences or suggest eating out a a place that serves foods that accommodate your food preferences. I was a vegetarian for many, many years and have done all of the above to accommodate my personal chosen food preferences during those years. I did not believe I was owed a special vegetarian meal by any host and did not believe that my choice to not eat meat should be inflicted upon anyone else at that meal or in general (not morally superior as another poster mentioned). Not one time did I demand that as a guest the meal or any portion of it be made to accommodate my personal food preferences. And that is all that vegetarian food choices are - personal food preferences. It's just rude to refuse to bring something to your own liking AND at the same time demand that a vegetarian meal be prepared for you in someone else's home. Just bring a food you choose to eat or eat what they serve without complaining about it. You are making this an ongoing big deal when it doesn't have to be that at all. You control the solution to your own happiness, not them or the food they serve.

People saying it's generational - how old are we talking here?

I have friends in their 60s and 70s who are vegetarian.
When SIL decided to stop eating meat even my late MIL made an effort to find interesting vegetarian recipes. She would have been 94 this year.

It isn't generational, it is people who are lazy, inhospitable, hard of thinking, bigoted or just plain thick.

I really don't understand why people would suggest that vegetarians are fussy eaters or that it's difficult to cater for them separately. Surely you would cook something that a close member of your family can eat? I've seen comments on this thread about the way roast potatoes are cooked as though it's a problem to cook them in an oil that is suitable for a vegetarian or with a mix of butter. If it's such an issue, why not serve buttery mashed potato instead? If you really can't be bothered to put yourself out for a guest by not putting pancetta in your peas, then there are so many vegetarian ready meals that you could buy.

I've had period where my daughter was a vegan and a vegetarian and she is now a Muslim, and it's really not been particularly onerous to accommodate her dietary requirements. We had one Christmas where I bought her a tofurkey which was cooked separately with her own roast potatoes, vegetarian pigs in blankets, and vegetarian gravy - it really wasn't very difficult. She and her husband are currently living with us so I need to accommodate a halal diet. Again, it's not a problem. I accept that we eat differently and respect her choices - I don't for a second consider thst she's fussy!

I do agree it's generational. My 80 year old Mum rolls her eyes a bit at DH and I being vegetarian, but she respects our choice and if we visit is very considerate and accommodating. I always ask if ahe wants us to bring our own food, but she usually buys in a veggie Quiche, salad and potatoes or something similar. It's hardly stressful or putting her out to omit meat. I'm unsure why people find it overly complicated tbh 🤣

You should head back over to X, it’s more suited to people who like to argue for the sake of arguing

I'm so not vegetarian my favourite cookbook is Normal Tebbit's game cookery (seriously it's brilliant). I not only know how to cook meat and game I know how to pluck game birds and clean out their entrails. I could at a push even wring a free range hen's neck.

If posters seriously think cooking without meat is "limiting" it's they who are missing out on many, many fabulous foods and meals.

It isn't generational. I'm 64. I'm so fed up of idiocy being attributed to being "old"

@spospotlightq You have to look at your part in this. Your ILs are bang out of order.

You can't change them. You can only change how you react to this. You simply take your own food or refuse to go.

It doesn't matter they are oversensitive. You tell them in an assertive way. It will feel uncomfortable. However, if you don't tell them nothing with change. You will need to keep consistently tell them.

You need to tell your husband what you're going to do too.

It sounds to me as if you're also sensitive and don't want conflict. Your ILs play on you, not challenging them.

There's nothing wrong with being sensitive. However, you have to change consistently what you're doing.

Our ex DiL was/is vegetarian. It's not hard to cater for.

Thank goodness you haven't got coeliac or any allergy. It wouldn't be safe to eat there

I always do roast potatoes in olive oil and they’re lovely. OP - you are too passive. I would definitely point it out and given how many times it’s happened I’d bring my own food. In fact, I wouldn’t go at all if I were treated like this.

Can’t you just remind them you’re a veggie?

Not a vegetarian but never liked the food at my in-laws. They used to put sugar in their pepper-sauce 🥹 After much trying to "just try a bit of it" I just stopped eating whatever I didn't like because I knew in advance it would sit in my stomach for the next 24 hours. They're gone now but I swear that it was not my "fussy eating" that caused their demise!

Being a vegetarian or vegan is NOT being fussy
my dd is vegetarian and her h can’t eat anything with milk in , so whenever they come for dinner i make sure that they can eat most of what I cook with adaptions for us and them it’s what families do for each other

This!
@ChedderGorgeous
"If you are a vegetarian due to health benefits/ personal taste, having a dash of beef broth or something every 8 weeks for family harmony doesn't seem like such a big deal."

You are either being disingenuous or have never cooked for a vegetarian. Every vegetarian I've ever met (and I am one) does it for a mixture of moral and health benefits.

And no. I don't know any vegetarians who would accept eating a dash of beef broth every 8 weeks. 😂 As if the fact that it was "broth" rather than a big ol steak would make any difference!!! 😂

Yes you can.

Do you say anything when the food is served up?

Bring your own food every time now. Don't even let them try to persuade you. That way you'll always have something to eat.

I feel your pain , I've been veggie for nearly 10 years. About 2 years ago my MIL served up spaghetti in carbonara sauce when I visited for lunch. I could see bits of pork in the sauce. I told MIL who insisted it was mushroom. I looked at the label, it was in fact pork. She then said . Can you not eat round it 😆 then she asked me to box it up and take it home for my partner instead!
My SIL is a stricter vegetarian than me and MIL cooked the roast potatoes with goose fat when we all visited for Christmas dinner. She asked me and SIL 'You're ok with goose fat potatoes , aren't you?'
In summary, some people are just beyond help and just thick.
Don't expect them to change.
Either take your own food or don't go in future.

Strange. A lot of vegetarians I know, are mainly so because of nutritional reasons and sometimes will lapse - chicken nuggets after a night out or similar, so aren't so puritanical. In this scenario a dash of beef gravy or sprinkling of pancetta isn't a massive issue if only 6 times a year.

They are determined to grind you down and exploit your natural courtesy to force you to eat "sensibly" according to their lights. Give them a chance each time, and when they fail, tell them not to worry, ask DH to get you a clean plate if necessary, and produce your lunch box, as others have said. A hard boiled egg, a bit of cheese and cut-up salad bits with a crispbread will be enough given how tense you will be. Avoid crisps and fruit if you don't want children saying, 'I want what Mummy's having.'
My MiL's idea of vegetarian was to miss the meat off the plate and just give me the potatoes, carrots and cabbage.
When she came to visit us, I asked her if there were foods she didn't like. "Oh no, I eat everything." So I described our usual rissotto, curry, pasta, rice'n peas with fried plantains, couscous, ratatouille, massive salads. She was appalled. "I meant I eat normal food." I actually like designing meals that accommodate everyone's preferences, so we came to an understanding.
But I always had nuts and sultanas in my handbag, and reminded myself that a day's fasting was a good idea occassionally.