WIBTA if I refuse to cater for my ‘vegan’ MIL?

[Veganornotvegan]

My MIL recently announced that she is vegan. Great. Love that for her.

This obviously came with a request that whenever we cater for her (think Sunday lunch, dinner parties, events, etc.) we cater for her as a vegan. All good so far.

However, she says she’s vegan, but she’s not. Two recent examples when we’ve been out for dinner, she ordered a vegan chilli, but with a side of dairy sour cream (“to make it less spicy”), or a vegan roast dinner, with a side of normal Yorkshire puddings (because “there’s no vegan alternative”).

We are hosting a typical 3 / (4 with cheese course) course Christmas dinner for 14 adults and 4 children, no one else has any dietary restrictions or requirements, and my MIL wants me to make a separate vegan version of everything just for her (no duck fat potatoes, no honey roast parsnips, no meat dripping gravy, etc). WIBTA if I said no / she needs to bring her own?

Ready made nut roast
Sage and onion stuffing
Bisto veggie gravy
Divide off some roasties with veg oil and chuck the parsnips in too.

Ask her to source and bring her own cheese if she wants it.
It’s not that difficult, we do it every year.

Suggest to her that she may want to try ease into the lifestyle by trying out vegetarianism first as it seems she is struggling with the limitations of veganism.

Whilst I respect that many people can be true vegans as it takes a lot of organizing and imposed limitations, most people I know who embark on it, tend to fail and revert back to how things were before. You have to have a real strong conviction about it to keep at it. And a lot of people see it as fashionable or trendy and are likely to fail.

The berating others for not also being vegan would drive me wild!
As would accommodating for her “vegan” diet when already cooking for 13 others, only to watch her enjoy bites of this and that anyway, “seeing as it’s Christmas”
Perhaps your partner could take care of her meal, take something off your plate? Good luck to her with a vegan cheese board 😃

The OP isn't policing anyone's diet. She's just pointing out that her MIL is vegan until she fancies something that isn't vegan.

I'll bet that when faced with a vegan Christmas lunch she decides she can manage a bit of turkey and a couple of pigs in blankets.

It does sound irritating to chanet everything while she 'cheats' but I think you need to relax your standards a bit so that you are making extra of as few things as possible. The roasties dont have to be in duck fat, ours never are. You can probably get away with vegan butter substitutes in some cooking. Parsnips can be nice without honey. You sound a bit of a food snob. You can do her a little jug of bisto gravy for herself just by boiling a kettle. You can buy her a ready made dessert.

But as long as she can have a meat substitute, potato and a couple of veg, plus a dessert, I think it's fine to say there will be some sides she just can't have unless she cheats, eg cauli cheese. Not everyone has to eat everything.

I surprised by people saying you can't ask people to bring their own things though. Christmas is an occasion for everyone and the person hosting in their home is doing a massive favour to everyone else, so in our family it is perfectly normal to ask what you can bring or ask people to bring things! My mum brings starters and sometimes a sife that van be reheated. My mil brings pudding. Everyone should chip in. So why not ask her to bring what she's like for dessert or choose herself a nut roast or whatever as her contribution?

This set me off as my niece is ‘vegetarian.’ I have to host in laws twice a year, so every time I made a vegetarian alternative, to be practical I would make it 50:50 vege/ meat options for all. She would eat very little of what I provided ( eg just bread and crudités, not the main meal provided. Also every family bbq hosted by mil or SIL would have 50:50 meat annd vegetarian fake meat. Then men would eat all the real meat and there wild be hardly any meat left (always fake meat left over!)

After about 5 years of this, we were at a family event in a restaurant and she ordered carpaccio of beef! I asked her when she stopped being vegetarian, and she looked at me completely blankly. Her mother intervened looking embarrassed and breezily said ‘ oh she isn’t vegetarian, just limited in what she likes, so it’s easiest just to say she’s vegetarian.’ I was livid! Now I just cater to suit me. There’s always bread and raw carrots available!

I echo what others say about just getting a vegan nut roast. There are some good ones. The Clive brand is good. (I THINK it's vegan- DH is vegetarian of 8 years standing and loves it).

But anything honey-based you can swap out for maple syrup, as pps have said. Personally I like maple syrup more because you can use less of it and the taste is nicer to me at least. That would alleviate making multiples of the same dish.

TBH I would just give it a gentle thought for now and confirm with her closer to the day. She may have changed back to being an omnivore by then. I'm now vegetarian but it took several goes before it 'stuck'. she might be the same.

When I first saw the title of your post I was going to say you were BU but she’s not actually vegan!! I’d get her a vegan main thing from M&S or any supermarket and she can have the same trimmings as everyone else.

PS I’m vegan if that makes any difference

Personally I’d make a vegan friendly main for her as in a replacement for the turkey, like I do for my mum who is vegetarian (she just had never liked the taste of meat) she gets salmon. Then for your vegan mil I’d keep some of the veg a side and make her a small amount for her that’s vegan friendly of just get some microwave veg. I would accommodate but I wouldn’t go all out, she’s just one of many and when cooking for so many you can’t just put all your focus on one nor can you change everything thing for one person. But I certainly would offer an alternative just not going all out. She clearly has not problem having foods that aren’t vegan friendly when it suits and that’s fine no judgement here but then on the day if she chooses to have Yorkshire’s because there is no alternative then that’s her choice x

I get it though, I have a friend who reads the riot act to waiters about her dairy intolerance then orders ice cream…bet your MIL has a non vegan yorkie!

IIRC, the way that icecream is processed and produced does mean it’s possible for some people with lactose intolerance to eat it.

M&S is terrible for vegetarians, let alone vegans

She doesn't sound like a food snob. She sounds like an excellent cook who knows that her guests love what she usually puts on. Doing things differently for someone who might very well have eaten things the normal way would be extremely frustrating. I'd get the 'vegan' guest a more or less completely separate meal, which would be a pain but probably doable with careful planning, because I surmise that the OP has a big cooker and a freezer. I would also make quite a point of how everything put in front of her was vegan. I hope I would be the bigger person if I saw her take some bread sauce or cauliflower cheese, but I would certainly be very amused (at best) privately.

Thought the same!

And really, since she's evidently a flexitarian, she ought to be using one of her animal products when convenient cards on a day where her 'veganism' would be a faff for someone else to accommodate. I'd probably get a high end ready meal type dish, make sure there's at least one or two vegan sides, make some Bisto up just for her and then leave her to it.

And if she asks for anything that isn’t vegan, I’d be making a huge fuss and refusing to allow her to ‘ruin’ her principles. 😂 Either she’s vegan or she isn’t. I have an acquaintance who is vegetarian but eats fish. Because obviously fish aren’t real animals and don’t count or don’t have pain receptors. 😉

I often think this when I see a vegetarian or vegan contestant on Masterchef. Normally there's such a stress in that programme on the prime ingredients they're using, but when someone uses a vegan butter or cream nobody seems to say 'and what was in that?'. Odd.

This.
It displays that you’ve given her request serious consideration regardless of whether she’s a “committed” vegan or not (and I am not being critical of anyone who is vegan or vegetarian) . We all have choices in life and the OP can chose to accept her MIL choice or not, but why make a drama out of it.

Yes, if she does decide to eat non-vegan after insisting on special catering then I think sufficient fuss has to be made to prevent her from expecting it as a norm.

I'm like you @Veganornotvegan in loving hosting and cooking and eating. It is also part of MY pleasure, and my reward for all the effort to have food that I find delicious - so yes to the duck fat potatoes, yes to butter in the mash, yes to proper gravy made with meat juices...

However, in our close family we have a variety of allergies and dietary preferences including a nut allergy, cmp allergy, one mostly vegetarian, one mostly vegan. So I am used to being creative around that. I also refuse to buy fake UPF versions of fish, sausage, bacon, cheese. If people have made a choice to be vegan then imo they have to accept that they are giving up on some taste options.

So alongside the Christmas roast and all the usual trimmiings, I go to some effort to make a really spectacular vegan main - so non-meat eaters can feel indulged. But they're having something different not a roast with all the trimmings.

Vegetables I work around by keeping back a few seperately either at the start or just before adding the butter. For their option I mash potatoes with olive oil etc. It's all in the planning. But I imagine that if you're making such a spectaular Christmas feast then planning and, juggling multiple dishes, is going to be one of your strengths.

With a choice of desserts, then everyone has to accept that at least one of the options will suit their allergies / preferences, and it will be clear which ones do not - I do not make different versions of the same dessert.

Oh I agree it's annoying. And I think if op sees her cheat with anything between now and Xmas she should say 'are you ok to eat that at Christmas too'. And because of that I wouldn't be at all embarrassed to serve some non vegan things which mil can take or leave, as long as there is enough vegan for her to have a full meal.

I just mean she only has to be a bit flexible and drop her cooking everything from scratch and not asking anyone to bring anything standards a little bit to be able to give everyone a meal they can eat. It's not a binary choice between not caring to mil's request and having to cook 2 of everything.

Egg and milk...

Most Quorn isn't vegan. Only the range that actually says VEGAN on the pack, and that's very limited.

I was vegan for some time and I would always insist on bringing my own meals. She’s being a pain. Probably for attention.

You can buy a small roasting tin for a few quid. Just seperate her potatoes and carrots after par boiling and roast in veg oil. Its very easy. Alternatively substitute maple syrup for honey for everyone. Imo its nicer. Hand her bisto and a kettle at the last minute to do her own gravy.
As a Competent cook this is really easy stuff. So it seems more a principle on your part, perhaps? If you care for this woman and truly respect what she's doing for her health/ethics/environment you could achieve a work around with little bother. However if this is really about finding her irritating and resenting her, don't bother and perhaps she'll visit less.

so you follow your own rules 100% of the time and expect to be punished in front of others for “breaking” them do you? so that’s what you do to others? alright love 🤦🏽‍♀️

I’d go with the others. Vegan ready meal it is. Is she the sort who will make out you have not
thought about her is you don’t agree?

Well do this and don't let her near the good stuff. Bet she won't be vegan by next Christmas.