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?

@Veganornotvegan I think your overthinking

3 meats (turkey, gammon, beef) - buy a prepared buy roast etc
roasts potatoes (in duck fat) - ask her what she’d prefer roast or mash potato - if roast par boil the potatoes together take a portion out do in oil
mash potatoes (with butter) - as above take out a portion and mash separately to the main mash. Google best way to do vegan mash.
pigs in blankets - either get a vegan alt or leave off
red cabbage
honey roast carrots and parsnips - roast parsnips with the potatoes and just boil a portion of carrots
sprouts (cooked with pancetta and chestnuts) - remove a portion and just steam/boil separately.
mashed swede (with butter) - as with mash
cauliflower cheese
Yorkshire puddings
stuffing (not vegan) - grab some vegan stuffing mix
gravy with meat juices - grab some vegan/veggie gravy

bit first ask her what she normally has or wants! If she. Ever has sprouts or swede then don’t make it

I would cater for her but if she tried stealing a Yorkshire or a pig in blanket etc I’d be very firm that it would be the last time you would do so.

I had a friend stay once who had me doing backflips accommodating her ‘gluten allergy’ only to order multiple pints down the pub as ‘she makes an exception for beers’.

Just separate her roast potatoes with a bit of foil in the roasting tin and make sure there is at least one veg that isn’t mixed with lardons. Or separate her bit out before you add cream.

Ready meal nut roast.

Small jug of vegan gravy (instant)

Huge glass of wine for you to quell your irritation when she then adds a big portion of cauliflower cheese.

Whenever I go to others houses for Christmas dinner I just tell host to give me plate of veggies and take vegan gravy, sorted, no need to fuss

So change everything, build the meal around the flexi vegan? Nope as pp, very separate meals, I'd make a point of separate colour plates and bowls, and making it clear you'd designated a 'vegan' part of your kitchen for prep and cooking, so you'll make sure all the traditional food is kept well away!

Yes, I'm surprised all the veg is cooked in animal fat really. At my parents I just take everything but the meat and the veg is cooked in vegetable oil. There is veggy grave for me, but it's made from a packet and I can do it myself.
Doesn't have to be so complicated.

Stick to your menu and separate out a few potatoes in a small dish, another veg quickly done, instant gravy. Is there a small nut roast ready meal type thing.

I wouldn’t redo all your main things. I do usually cater for people who are veggie when doing a big lunch but your menu works for Christmas as is.

No, but i just wouldnt be self centred enough to insist on a vegan dinner when im clearly not 100% vegan and the OP will be busy cooking a non vegan dinner for 17 people!!

The annoying thing will be if you go to all this trouble and then she decides to indulge in yorkshire pudding because as she says 'there isn't a vegan alternative'.

Maybe she could just cook the exact number needed for the non vegans, then apologize to the vegan that there isn't one for her because unfortunately she wouldn't be able to eat it.

Or because "its Christmas, oh go on then!"

I would definitely eat this. Im a terrible vegetarian, I only eat vegetarian food at home but if Im at someone's house I eat what they are cooking.

Exactly.

MIL is a flexitarian with an evidently fairly low bar for when veganism will cause her enough inconvenience to opt out of it. She could've just not eaten the Yorkshire that time, for example. And that's fine.

But her bar for too inconvenient is clearly higher when it's someone else being affected by her quasi veganism. That's what's taking the piss a bit.

This is EXACTLY what happens to me as a person who is gluten intolerant. I ve been offered, say, a piece of birthday cake at work and of course I politely decline . And I get

“ Oh go on, Emma made it for Dave’s birthday, it really is delicious! “

” Yes it looks lovely, but I’m gluten intolerant so I’m afraid it can’t, it will make me ill “.

“ Oh don’t be ridiculous , my MIL is the same as you and she’s fine as long as she doesn’t have more than a few sandwiches and a small piece of cake “.

“ That’s nice for her, but even a few crumbs will make me ill” .

“ There’s no need to be so rigid about it, no doubt you think it will make you fat or something , you just need loosen up and enjoy life more. And it’s a bit rude to Emma who’s gone to all this trouble for Dave’s 40th “.

I’ve had people walk away in annoyance at how “ unreasonable “ I am.

I had a server in a coffee shop actually roll her eyes at me.

People have told me off for my “ Virtue signalling “ and that “ trying to be healthy can go too far “ and “ it’s not healthy to cut out an entire food group “.

One group of “ friends” actually stopped inviting me to go out for meals with me because it was too “ awkward “ ( Actually some of them are on Mumsnet, 👋🏻 if you are reading this , hope you are well 🙂).

BTW gluten is not a “ food group “. It’s in wheat, barley and rye. So I can eat all other starches and grains , such as rice, polenta, quinoa, potatoes, nut flours such as almond or coconut.

To delve deeper, some of the cruel practices inherent in the honey industry include clipping the wings of a queen bee to prevent her from leaving, and similar to the dairy industry, bees are artificially inseminated with syringes to breed. Crowding and genetic modification leave the bees vulnerable to various diseases. The honey the bees make is their food and has all the required nutrients for them however, because we take that away, farmers are known to replace the food with a cheap corn syrup or sugar substitute which is substantially worse for the bees health and makes them sick. Also, harvesting the honey involves killing larvae and some adult bees, as a consequence of smoking the hives or using powerful chemicals as sedatives.

Just purchasing and consuming honey perpetuates the idea that animals are commodities and they exist for our purposes which is simply why vegans don’t do it. Besides, there are several plant based alternatives to honey such as Agave, Maple Syrup, Date Syrup, Coconut Nector and Vegan Honea, so it’s a fairly easy substitute.

100% hard agree @N0Tfunny

DH sometimes gets offered fish with the 'but vegetarians eat fish, don't they?'. No.

Once we were invited to a big birthday dinner party for a friend of DH's. I reminded them that DH was vegetarian. He was served (like us all) a steak with peppercorn sauce on a potato rosti. When i said 'Oh, I thought we had told you?' the response was 'Oh, I thought he'd not mind just this once'.

Your colleagues and ex-friends sound like twats. I have an allergy and my colleagues are nothing but lovely about it and even bring in food they know I can eat, and I’m not even anaphylactic.

A dollop of duck fat isn't unhealthy. In fact no food is 'unhealthy' if it's part of a balanced diet

It isn't that hard, easy to use one tray for the vegan meal the nut roast goes in one side with a divider of tinfoil to keep it from getting oily, roast potatoes and carrots in the rest of the tray in olive oil. Use a packet stuffing and gravy if it's too hard to make it vegan, take MILs portion out and then add whatever you're putting in. The cheese course just add in a few antipasti type nibbles and arrange so that they aren't touching the cheese. Dessert go with a fruity option that everyone might like alongside whatever else you serve.

I think it comes down to whether you care enough. I'm vegan and love to cook, my oldest (17) loves meat and also loves to cook. He can prepare a really good meal from scratch for both of us without getting into a flap. I've never asked him to do this, he does it because he has found a new recipe and wants to share it.

@Veganornotvegan if you can't the cross contamination risk by using one spoon for the vegan tray I think everyone should be worried about eating in your kitchen where you have handled raw meat.

@TipsyPeachSnake Re honey bees, if you are halfway competent in how you set up your hive, you get the honey out without killing larvae. You put a queen excluder between the supers, so she can't lay above that. The likelihood is that a few bees will die when the hive is being taken apart and put back together, but then ALL commercial agriculture involves the death of animals: pigeons are shot over cereals, mice are chopped up during planting and harvest....

Beekeepers don't want to kill larvae, as they are the next bees. This is why sensible beekeepers feed their hives properly over the winter. If their bees are having issues over-wintering, they will supplement the feed.

Also IME most small-scale beekeepers don't clip their queens' wings.

As for genetic engineering, so far as I am aware that's currently confined to the lab.

I've helped out with beekeeping, so I know what it looks like.

That is exactly what I would do.

There is a time and a place for passive aggressive responses this is one of them.

If MIL has a Yorkshire pud... so what. People do like to pillory people for not sticking to their self imposed diet.

Yep, she SHOULD be strong and stick to it if she describes herself as Vegan. Yep, she's making a bit of extra work for people at Xmas (at least she said before turning up at xmas).
But some people would be petty and mean at Xmas over a Yorkshire pud.

You are a not a hotel though are you? We love hosting and will cook for gluten free and vegetarians etc. So I think by catering for vegetarians the vegan can cope for the meal for one day. Anything else they have to bring their own. We started to get really detailed individual menu plans that took all the joy out of hosting/cooking for us. We are clear about what we can provide and honestly no one has stopped coming round or made a scene. Good luck.

But MIL likes to pillory other people for not adhering to her diet choice?!

Give her the choice of a vegan ready meal or what you’re eating. I’d tell her nicely that you don’t have the oven space for a separate meal.