The gender politics of food

[JellySlice]

A thread about the gender politics of chicken for dinner reminded me of a colleague who was organising a series of large business dinners hosted by our MD. My colleague would always order lamb for the men and chicken for the women. She was distraught one day when a male guest had to drop out at the last minute and sent his female colleague instead. My colleague genuinely believed that it was rude to serve men chicken, and that no woman would willingly eat lamb because it was too rich and heavy.

Is or was this kind of belief common? Man's food and woman's food?

[IHaveBrilloHair]

Tbf, when it comes to the buffet thing, I'd just take a selection of food, it wouldn't cross my mind not to take anything vegetarian/vegan.
I don't think that's a man issue, perhaps a catering one.

[IHaveBrilloHair]

Though sort of on topic, a couple of years ago I took my bf away for the weekend, we had three meals out.
He was handed the bill every time, I was paying!

[Goosefoot]

It's a bit chicken and egg with these though. The reason severs often assume the salad is for the woman is that women are in fact more likely to order salads. If that changed, I expect servers would stop expecting the salads belonged to the women in pretty short order. You can't stop people from noticing patterns.

As far as catering and people eating all the dishes meant for vegetarians - at an event that isn't private, many assume that what is out isn't everything that is in the kitchen. They assume the caterers have done their job and planned for the right food for the right amount of people. As a diner in that situation you don't usually have the information to know if you would need to leave extra for some people with special requirements and I don't think most people would see that as their role. It's like going to a hotel buffet - you don't hold back because more dinners might also want the beef, you assume they have another roast ready to go when the one being used is finished.

[tobee]

I've found at group gatherings eating, say, Indian or Chinese food, women order dishes to share and men will order for themselves. If you're used to going out with a group of women, it can be a bit of a shock when men order something and pour the whole lot onto their plate, while everyone else is passing food around.

[ahumanfemale]

I agree about the assumption that there's enough food for everyone. I think that vegetarian or vegan should be a totally separate buffet table - on the other side of the room.

I used to work for a high-end caterer when I was much younger and it was definitely thought that women wanted chocolate cake/desserts and men, well, something else for dessert.

Also..straws in women's soft drinks, but not men's. That happens a lot now to me.

[JellySlice]

I expect the straws in women's drinks but not in men's is because of lipstick.

[Bowednotbroken]

I agree with a pp that's it's not necessarily a male thing. I am sensitive (not allergic) to both wheat and dairy so to avoid unpleasantness while at day long events I order accordingly. So the food, on a separate plate, labelled both with 'dairy/wheat free' AND my name, was placed separately to the main buffet. Still demolished by the time I got there though...

[Bowednotbroken]

And yes I did spot the main culprit was a woman!

[Shedbuilder]

@IHaveBrilloHair

Tbf, when it comes to the buffet thing, I'd just take a selection of food, it wouldn't cross my mind not to take anything vegetarian/vegan.
I don't think that's a man issue, perhaps a catering one.

But it wasn't a standard catering event. The woman who supplied and cooked the meal did so as a gift to the newly-wed couple and everyone knew that.

We'd all twice been asked whether we wanted the vegetarian meal or the meat meal. People had been asked to choose veggie or meat before they attended the wedding and then again earlier in the the day. And the food was laid out with Vegetarian and Meat separate and labelled. And it wasn't just that. Most of the women served themselves a reasonable portion while the men had plates piled high. I still seethe when I think about it. Not one of the men had the grace to express embarrassment or regret.

[Stripesgalore]

All the events described where people had their food taken were private ones. I don’t know why people have started reframing it as some kind of public all you can eat buffet.

[jomaIone]

I was in a restaurant in Chester with my in laws. The waiter was explaining the menu and he said something along the lines of 'for the men today, you'll see a rich steak and ale pie and something lighter for the ladies, our special is sea bass with sautéed vegetables.'

I was INCANDESCENT with rage. However the men ordered steak pie and my MIL had the sea bass so I couldn't really complain at the time. This was in 2019 too. Such a weird thing to say, and the restaurant was really modern and cool.

[DaughterX]

@jomaIone

I was in a restaurant in Chester with my in laws. The waiter was explaining the menu and he said something along the lines of 'for the men today, you'll see a rich steak and ale pie and something lighter for the ladies, our special is sea bass with sautéed vegetables.'

I was INCANDESCENT with rage. However the men ordered steak pie and my MIL had the sea bass so I couldn't really complain at the time. This was in 2019 too. Such a weird thing to say, and the restaurant was really modern and cool.

I've never heard of this in restaurants so this would have absolutely confused me.

[rorosemary]

I've had a work thing with two (female) halal colleagues. Their halal option was eaten by selfish colleagues so they decided to leave and took themselves out for dinner in a fancy restaurant. I was bloody proud of them to not just accept this shitty behaviour. Never happened again, our boss made sure of that.

[JellySlice]

'for the men today, you'll see a rich steak and ale pie and something lighter for the ladies, our special is sea bass with sautéed vegetables.'

Because we women are all watching our figures, right?

[MoltenLasagne]

Growing up the expectation was that women had smaller portions (and I'm on of those women that really do have a smaller appetite anyway) but as a consequence we either got served the first and best portions, or we got to go round the buffet first.

The very worst experience of greedy men I had was at a wedding which had a bbq with loads of choices. The men on the first tables up were served burgers, hotdogs, wings, skewers and all the trimmings etc you could really see the heaped plates. When it came to our (low ranked) table there was barely any food left at all - I got a sausage in a burger bun with the scraps of salad. Clearly the caterer hadn't communicated with the servers how much was calculated for each person so they just handed it over. I got very drunk that evening on an almost empty stomach.

[Scout2016]

The preferences of the men in older generations of my family have tended to dictate meals. They don't cook but get deferred to. The whole family don't eat something because uncle doesn't like it. Dad thinks soup isn't a proper meal...
On Vegetarians - my suspicion, after 26 years being one, is that firstly it doesn't occur to anyone who eats meat to check how much veggie stuff there is before they help themselves. Because they've never been in the position of finding there is nothing they can eat so it doesn't register. Same as my DH will eat a second portion he doesn't need when it could have done as a meal for someone else another day and saved cooking twice.
And second is that it's still not really taken seriously. I think the attitude is that being vegetarian is a choice not a need, and you've chosen to make your life more difficult so tough. I still get restaurants saying they are sure they can russle something up, like they are doing me a favour.
Bit more off topic but another reason it should be separate, as well as making it clear how much (or little) there is, is because, while having alternating sandwiches might look pretty, I don't want to be picking bits of tuna and beef off my veggie option.
Feel better for that, sorry for mini rant.

[Mizzler]

I had an infuriating experience at a work thing. It was one of those all-day conferences with a lunch and I'd pre ordered a gf meal.

My meal was brought out seperately and they called out my surname. I didn't hear because I was talking to someone else and a bloke just nabbed it and ate it! When I asked him why, he said it was because he thought it looked nicer than the general offering.

The caterer made me an omelette which I ate after everyone else had finished.

[HoneysuckIejasmine]

Mizzler did he have the decency to apologise?!

I always avoid the veggie things if I know there are veggies present. But otherwise I do enjoy veggie food. Especially after a wedding when someone nabbed my friends veggie meal (it was a sit down dinner, they just told the waiter they were veggie because they fancied it but obviously the bride and groom had ordered the right amount of each meal) and she ended up with sad pasta whipped up in a hurry in the kitchen. Poor lady.

[Mizzler]

Nope! He was totally unrepentant!

[Wavescrashingonthebeach]

@Mizzler grrrr thats so rude!!! Id be livid!!

@rorosemary Im so glad they stood up for themselves like that. I was friends with a Muslim colleague and we went out for lunch- me vegan, her halal- and we settled on a nice Chinese restaurant where we both had plenty of options.

[BarbaraofSeville]

Tbf all buffets should always be more veggie than meat regardless who’s eating, because meat eater don’t exclusively eat meat and will always want the veggie stuff as well

This. I hate buffets where you get processed pork five ways and then made to feel guilty by the vegetarians because you dare to pick up a cheese sandwich or onion bhaji. Buffets should be about 8-90% vegetarian in recognition that everyone will eat vegetarian food and no-one needs an all meat plate and very few want one.

The lamb/chicken thing in the OP is bizarre. Who on earth thinks like that? My favourite meat is lamb and would always choose that if it was chicken or lamb. I would be most pissed off if given boring chicken without asking if I'd have preferred lamb.

Desserts is an interesting thing though. In my experience, most men aren't particularly interested in puddings. Before such things ceased to exist, my work offered training courses that are usually attended by 80-90% men. We served a buffet lunch including nice puddings and usually they were hardly touched. Some of the courses had more women on them due to a slightly different target audience and the more women on the course, the less puddings made their way to our break room as leftovers.

But kudos to the Spanish waiter on one holiday that DP and I went on. DP ordered a tuna salad and I ordered meatballs and he put the food down in front of us correctly and if he thought the man having a tuna salad and the woman having meatballs was in any way unusual, he didn't show it or say anything and I was taking notice because, like this thread illustrates, there's a lot of sexism and stereotyping in catering, so I was slightly surprised that he didn't give me the salad.

[BarbaraofSeville]

@whirlwindwallaby

It's just as bizarre to assume that omnivores would only want food containing some type of meat. I'm just as likely to order a chickpea burger in a restaurant as a chicken one. Cater properly and people can choose what they like.

That reminds me of the time that I ordered a couple of small plates in a pub for lunch. One was falafels, pittas, hummus and salad and the other was macaroni cheese garnished with bacon.

You could have the macaroni cheese without bacon of course, but the bacon was specified on the menu and therefore it would seem reasonable that you would have to ask to have it without.

It came without bacon and when I complained about the lack of bacon, I was told that because I had ordered falafels that meant I was vegetarian so wouldn't want the bacon.

Not the point of the OP, but pizza toppings are another one that I get unnecessarily wound up about. Recent pizza menu through the door had about 15 different types with processed and/or spicy meat on them (who knew there were so many different ways to serve pepperoni?), 7 different chicken pizzas and 4 that were vegetarian, two of those just cheese.

I'm not vegetarian but don't like meat or chicken on pizza so usually get a mediterraean vegetable type but think there should be some other more interesting combinations that don't rely on pepperoni or chicken.
Honestly, people with such tiny minds shouldn't be allowed to run catering businesses.

[NiceGerbil]

I'm feeling really sad about undercatered buffets! There should be more than enough for everyone and I don't get the meat eaters should not have vegetarian stuff either. I've not really experienced this- what do you mean by vegetarian stuff? Anything that isn't meat or what?

Genuinely confused. I always do stuff like home made coleslaw and Herby warm buttery new potatoes and cheeses and stuff. I'd be gutted if most people didn't have any!

[NiceGerbil]

The giving the steak or beer or whatever to the man in a restaurant, if as suggested the server is doing it as it's the 'norm' then that's even worse considering most of the time they will have taken your order. And not thought oh that's not the norm. Or anything. And then give the food back to front.

I know they have s lot of customers but if you order similar dishes that usually remember who ordered what.

[Stripesgalore]

Here is the post in its entirety. I don’t know why this is confusing. I also don’t know how, given that there were only 20 people at this buffet, they couldn’t have made sure there was a choice left for the person who had cooked the meal.

‘Friends were married in a lovely old house in the country. More than 20 of us stayed over and on the second day one of the guests (she's a professional chef) made dinner for everyone aided by me and a couple of other women.

We were about 50-50 vegetarian and meat-eaters and everyone had been polled and asked what they would eat.The majority of the vegetarians were women. When we laid out the serving dishes on the buffet table the vegetarian dishes were separate and clearly labelled.

I was one of the last out of the kitchen and by the time I got to the food all the veggie dishes had long gone. All the meat-eating men had filled their plates with everything on the table, including the veggie food. Four of us women sat and eate bread and salad because the men had eaten our meals. There was a lot of meat left over. Most of the men were unrepentantly 'Oh, we didn't realise.'

The whole thing was steeped in sexist entitlement. The vegetarian women got short measures and then tried to share their meagre dinners with those of us who'd been left out. Women did the cooking, serving and cleaning up afterwards and it was the women who went without because the men were thoughtless and greedy. I was so angry.’