Hosting a Dinner Party is Tough
Hosting a dinner party is tough nowadays. I don't just mean the effort of shopping for food, cleaning the house, preparing food, and cleaning up afterwards. Even just planning the menu is getting difficult. So many people have food allergies nowadays that if you get 2-3 people with different no-can-do lists it's hard to assembly a reasonable sized menu that offers enough choices for everyone.
BTW I don't dispute people's food allergies. Many folks out there observe that food allergies "didn't used to be" so common and therefore conclude that they're fake. I instead attribute the apparent increase to better awareness of medical conditions today versus years ago. I believe the same proportion of people have always had various allergies or sensitivities but now more of them know they have such conditions.
For example, one of my college roommates learned a few years after graduation that he's lactose intolerant. "When did that start?" I asked. "You always loved splitting a pizza with me." "I've probably always had it," he explained. "I just thought I had a weak stomach. Now I know why."
For a small gathering we hosted Saturday night there were already competing allergies and religious restrictions in play, even with just a few people attending. The menu was quickly whittled down to, "No meat, no dairy, no eggs." Ugh, what's left? I grumbled silently.
Cutting across the issue of planning a menu around different people's limitations is the matter of how hosts view their responsibility for entertaining guests. At one end of the spectrum people take the attitude of, "Our house, our menu, and guests are rude if they don't eat all of it and say thank-you." At the other end of the spectrum are hosts who bend over backward to accommodate a guest, setting the entire menu around pleasing a single person even if the hosts and their family find it unsatisfying. From reading online discussions of hosting problems it seems not uncommon to find people operating at either of these extremes.
In the lead up to Saturday's party I felt we were reaching the bend-over-backwards extreme. My partner had quickly negotiated a menu with the guests that respected all of their needs- including the tough restrictions of a person who told us he might not even be able to attend, and if he did come, it would be hours late. Finally I told my partner on Saturday after lunch that I was probably going to eat nothing at dinner. In my own house. I was even considering no-showing my own party because I found nothing on restrictive menu appealing to eat.
Fortunately it didn't come to that. My partner agreed to relax some of the restrictions when she realized how dissatisfied I was. I got her to recognize that when we're entertaining people with limitations we don't have to make everything on the table fit everyone's limits simultaneously. At the same time, of course, we're not going to tell a guest, "Hey, we heard you can't eat X, so here's the one thing with no X in it for you!" There's a happy middle ground in making sure that each person has at least a few food options they can enjoy.
BTW I don't dispute people's food allergies. Many folks out there observe that food allergies "didn't used to be" so common and therefore conclude that they're fake. I instead attribute the apparent increase to better awareness of medical conditions today versus years ago. I believe the same proportion of people have always had various allergies or sensitivities but now more of them know they have such conditions.
For example, one of my college roommates learned a few years after graduation that he's lactose intolerant. "When did that start?" I asked. "You always loved splitting a pizza with me." "I've probably always had it," he explained. "I just thought I had a weak stomach. Now I know why."
For a small gathering we hosted Saturday night there were already competing allergies and religious restrictions in play, even with just a few people attending. The menu was quickly whittled down to, "No meat, no dairy, no eggs." Ugh, what's left? I grumbled silently.
Cutting across the issue of planning a menu around different people's limitations is the matter of how hosts view their responsibility for entertaining guests. At one end of the spectrum people take the attitude of, "Our house, our menu, and guests are rude if they don't eat all of it and say thank-you." At the other end of the spectrum are hosts who bend over backward to accommodate a guest, setting the entire menu around pleasing a single person even if the hosts and their family find it unsatisfying. From reading online discussions of hosting problems it seems not uncommon to find people operating at either of these extremes.
In the lead up to Saturday's party I felt we were reaching the bend-over-backwards extreme. My partner had quickly negotiated a menu with the guests that respected all of their needs- including the tough restrictions of a person who told us he might not even be able to attend, and if he did come, it would be hours late. Finally I told my partner on Saturday after lunch that I was probably going to eat nothing at dinner. In my own house. I was even considering no-showing my own party because I found nothing on restrictive menu appealing to eat.
Fortunately it didn't come to that. My partner agreed to relax some of the restrictions when she realized how dissatisfied I was. I got her to recognize that when we're entertaining people with limitations we don't have to make everything on the table fit everyone's limits simultaneously. At the same time, of course, we're not going to tell a guest, "Hey, we heard you can't eat X, so here's the one thing with no X in it for you!" There's a happy middle ground in making sure that each person has at least a few food options they can enjoy.