To be upset by PILS choice of celebration meal.

[Shardlake63]

My PILs have just celebrated a significant wedding anniversary.
As part of that celebration, they hosted dinner in a private room at a local (to them) restaurant for their extended family - about 20 of us in total.
I am definitely not a picky eater. I eat pretty much everything, except salmon (which I am allergic to - it brings me out in a very itchy rash) and lamb (which I have always hated, and even the smell makes me want to throw up). My PILs are fully aware of this.
We travelled the best part of 200 miles to attend this dinner, not to mention the cost of an overnight stay in a local hotel as relatives with spare rooms were already full with their own sons/daughters and families staying overnight.
The meal was a set dinner - no choice or alternative was offered.
First course was smoked salmon, which I could not eat due to my allergy. Fair enough, I thought I would just fill up on the main course. However, the main course turned out to be a roast lamb dinner.
Apart from the smell of it knocking me sick, I couldn't even just eat the veg as it came to the table already smothered in a lamb based gravy.😥
I ended up just eating the dessert - a slice of lemon cheesecake - which was lovely, but hardly a satisfying substitution for what should have been a 3 course dinner.
AIBU to be upset at the lack of thought and consideration here? I was quite happy to forego the starter, but most restaurants do at least offer a vegetarian alternative for the main, which I would have been more than happy with. I also eat beef, chicken, pork, turkey, duck etc. and other fish (including shellfish) - I am not a fussy eater by any stretch of the imagination, so it would not have been difficult for my in-laws to ask the restaurant to provide me with an alternative to the lamb.
As it was, I had barely any dinner and by the time the meal was finished it was too late for me to eat anywhere else.
Am I being unreasonable to think they could at least have ordered me a vegetarian alternative in the full knowledge that I wouldn't be able to eat/didn't like their choice of set meal?

This is what I don't get... if you'd said I've an allergy would they seriously have said "tough!"
The repercussions for the restaurant if OP was served an allergen after declaring it would be huge!

No, I have this problem. I have had meals in pubs where the gravy is poured over everything. I think if they are reheating, which a lot of places are , it helps with it. I don’t eat mammals but I eat poultry but a lot of gravy has other animal fats in it. I always ask for no gravy and on more than one occasion have sent it back when they poured gravy over it.

To you, yes. To me, it smells like cooked sheep.

I think OPs OH was being a bit of a wet fish. Since it was his parents do, he should have asked his parents if another meal could be brought in. He could have taken in from downstairs and brought it up.

@Flossflower Ewww, I'd be sending it back too even though I don't mind gravy. Like most people, I like to serve the amount that I want.

No, it is not a good look is it? A plate swimming in gravy!

Well that was my point!
You didn't say "I think the smell of it is revolting" or "the smell of it is revolting to me"
You said "the smell of it is revolting" - and as you said yourself just now.... To you, yes. To me it smells delicious.

No, I’m not a dustbin. Plenty of foods I don’t like, but I could eat enough of any meal served by my hosts, because I’ve no allergies and no sensory issues, and probably also because I was raised in the 70s & 80s by parents in straitened circumstances and anxious about malnutrition.

I don’t judge restricted/selective eaters: I don’t think they can help it, and if severe it makes life really hard. My point is, not liking a food to the extent you can’t eat it at all, ever, is ‘fussy’ in the context the OP uses the term, just less so than someone with eg ARFID. The OP isn’t ‘better’ than someone who can’t eat a dozen foods, just because she only hates lamb: none of them can help it. Any 20 people will all have something they dislike, so a set menu will never delight everyone, but I did think the OP’s hosts were thoughtless. Any host in my family would have debated the menu options in our WhatsApp group for days before one was chosen!

OP says she didn't know it was a set menu until she got there.

Yes. People can choose not to eat anything but I think it's rude to the complain. Fussy eaters can be less fussy or sort their own arrangements. What's the issue?

Did you even read the post? Lamb
makes her gag. This doesn't mean she's entitled.

Before about 1980 we all usually ate a very plain diet. It was not common to eat seafood, nuts etc. That may be why there were fewer people with allergies
My grandparents always said they would eat anything. Well yes they would eat anything from the very small selection of food they had.

Sounds like they completely forgot about your salmon allergy and well dislike of lamb, I suspect if they are farmers they simply don’t understand that (nor me, if you eat meat, you eat meat, and lamb is the nicest of all, sorry)

@Flossflower. Where were you living where people did not eat seafood or nuts?

I suspect that the 'separate dining room kitchen' only had a microwave and therefore couldn't cook anything that hadn't already been prepared and cooked downstairs. Why, however, someone couldn't have just.... carried a plate upstairs from the other kitchen baffles me.

I suspect none of it happened

Fewer travel opportunities, too.

Haven’t read all 14 pages so sorry if this has been covered. What did your partner say about it? My husband wouldn’t have just sat there enjoying a 3 course meal if I was struggling to find something I could eat. I too would have gone and asked staff if there was anything they could rustle up for me. It’s pretty inconsiderate of your in-laws to assume 20 people all want to eat the same thing as they do. Especially if you have paid a lot of money just to get there and stay over.

I totally get that!

My in-laws include a pescatarian, a vegetarian, someone with dairy and gluten intolerance, one who's not a veggie but will only eat poultry or fish, no other meat, one who is allergic to all fish, one who won't eat anything vaguely spicy or "foreign", one who won't have anything with a creamy or white sauce*, one who doesn't eat any vegetables but potatoes...

That's why lunch at MIL's is always roast chicken and a cheese pasty for the two that won't eat meat, and why they only get invited here one household at a time: it reduces the complications.

*funnily enough, this hatred of creamy things doesn't extend to ice cream...

SE England. Yes they ate these foods but they were not part of an everyday diet.
I remember in 1983 being served orange juice as a starter by a relative.

They served you food with your allergen. They were rude.

the lamb is a bit more complicated, but serving you salmon is inexcusable.

If I had a serious allergy and a huge dislike for something fairly standard then I would have called the venue myself to check on the menu. Yes your in-laws were thoughtless but they probably forgot and I'm wondering if you actually reminded them maybe a couple of times when they were organising the event?
It was one meal out your life so I'd just chalk it up and make sure you sort things out in advance next time!

Is it? I couldn’t tell you if any of my family has allergies. I know who’s veggie and vegan and who’s gluten intolerant, not a clue about allergies.

Good grief. Do you think they did it on purpose?

In a group of 20 people there was not one vegetarian?
Or the option to have the vegetables without the lamb gravy?

I'm vegan and can always rely on "just the vegetables please" at the most traditional of restaurants.

Maybe that's what they thought you'd do.

Such a weird set up at the restaurant that if you ordered a meal from the main kitchen that you'd have to eat it in a different area!