Birthday party dietary requirements

[cheesychips15]

I'm currently planning my son's birthday party. A few people have responded that their child is either vegetarian or eats halal. I was planning to have mostly veggie stuff anyway, but there will be sausage rolls and ham sandwiches for the meat eaters.

One thing that I just thought about is that I have ordered a tray of sandwiches from M&S, half ham and half cheese. Will the cheese sandwiches on this platter be ok for the vegetarians? I know some can be cautious of cross contamination. Is it worth me knocking up a few additional cheese sandwiches on a separate platter?

I would just make all the sandwiches vegetarian for ease.

It entirely depends on how they practice. It’s a bit like asking if the vegetarians will like hummus. Some will, some won’t. Make life easy for yourself and just cut out the pork. Cheese sandwiches are great. Get some of the quorn picnic eggs (my kids have no idea these are vegetarian). Crisps, breadsticks, biscuits, fruit, etc.

Oh and cold pizza. You can cook in advance, cut into strips and serve room temperature.

I didn't realise hummus had any animal derived products in?!

I'm pretty sorted on the rest of the food and everything other than sausage rolls and ham sandwiches are veggie, but I'm not leaving my son's favourite foods out of his birthday party.

I realise everyone is different but I suppose I was looking for some sort of opinions of vegetarians like "I'm veggie and this wouldn't bother me as the ham is between the bread so wouldn't have touched the other sandwiches" vs "I'm veggie and would avoid completely"

As a vegetarian myself, I personally would avoid cheese sandwiches on the same plate as ham due to cross contamination but hummus as far a I know doesn't have any animal products in.

Honestly? I’d order the platter and move the cheese sandwiches onto a separate platter, making extra sure that no ham ones are included.

I'd also do this.

Have the meat up one end of the table. People can choose what they want. If they don't want a cheese sandwich because it's been near ham then that's their choice to make.

I personally wouldn’t serve pork at an event where I know Muslims are in attendance as a mark of respect, however, my best friend is Muslim so appreciate I may go further than others are prepared to go (ham sandwiches are my son’s favourite but he can have them any time).

None of the Muslims or vegetarians I know would eat cheese sandwiches served on a platter with ham. I’d order them as two separate platters if you are able to, and I’d do one table with meat products on, and another table that is vegetarian (and therefore also halal) to avoid cross contamination.

"I didn't realise hummus had any animal derived products in?!"

It doesn't. Its vegan. It is usually chickpeas, tahini, spices, water and oil

Depending on the age I would also consider using different coloured plates (like they do in some nurseries)

eg yellow plates for vegans and vegan food, green for vegetarians and vegetarian food, blue for will eat anything and meat.

We're a vegetarian family. We would all be fine with a shared platter.

Do they really care? Muslim living in non-muslim country must be ok with other people eating pork, it's just one of those things.

My parents and brother are vegetarian and wouldn’t eat from a shared platter. We just had my daughter’s big birthday and she coincidentally also wanted sausage rolls so we had a meat table and a veggie table on opposite sides of the drinks so everyone would be comfortable.

I wouldn’t expect someone who eats halal to eat cheese sandwiches off a platter than also contains ham. I think it’s actually disrespectful to expect they would.