Dining with vegetarians

[johnckirk]

I heard a conversation on the radio this morning, where the two presenters were moaning about vegetarians. Apparently Gordon Ramsey (the chef) has been in the news recently for refusing to serve vegetarians at one of his restaurants; after doing a bit of digging on the web, I assume that they're referring to this story, where he criticised the pop

Comments

[terpsichore1980]

Catering for special diets they know about is the host's job, including if necessary a seperate veggie option. However, it is the guest's job to make sure the host knows in advance about any special requirements. It is definitely not reasonable to only anounce you are a veggie on the doorstep, or to expect the host to have prepared something veggie on the off chance. I would consider this to be unacceptable even if the veggie concerned is prepared to just eat the veggitables as it deprives the host of the opportunity to cater for the guest concerned. That's my twopenneth ;-)

I am happy to eat veggie food, but if I am catering for a mixture of veggies and meat eaters I generally do two seperate dishes and make sure the veggies get first refusal on the one without meat.

[pozorvlak]

Having been bitten by this kind of thing before, I'm now paranoid about asking what dietary restrictions my guests have (veggies are one thing, but you've also got to think about people with religious convictions and allergies). Vegan food covers most things, but I'm not a terribly good vegan cook.

I think "live and let live" is in order: you don't bug me about eating meat (and ideally don't kick up too much of a fuss about cross-contamination etc: I'm prepared to use separate utensils for meat and veggie food, but it is a hassle), and I won't, say, call you a hypocrite for eating fish/wearing leather/whatever.

[pozorvlak]

To clarify: I will, by default, make my best effort to use separate utensils for meatstuff and veggiestuff, but I really appreciate perspective and sanity: it really won't matter if meat and veggie sausages share a grill tray, and if you'll overlook me turning them over with the same pair of tongs in the heat of the moment that would be much appreciated. wormwood_pearl is wonderfully reasonable about this kind of thing.

[shuripentu]

I'm trying to think of a non-religious reason for wanting seperate cooking implements that doesn't boil down to "eww, squicky". Not that "eww, squicky" is an invalid objection when it comes to food, of course, but in this case I wonder if it's not something that's worth overcoming. After all, it does create more washing up. ;)

[johnckirk]

The main reason I can think of is allergies, e.g. if someone is likely to go into anaphylactic shock if my peanut burgers touch their beef.

I think there is a question of context as well - if you're cooking a bunch of burgers from the freezer, then you probably wouldn't even know that the same utensils had been used for meat and veggie unless someone told you. On the other hand, if people are cooking rare steaks, and the tongs are literally dripping with blood, people might feel that this spoils the taste of their lentils :)

[shuripentu]

Ahh, I meant that comment in the context of vegetarianism; I don't think allergies to meat are very common. :)

I guess changing the taste of the food can be an issue - if you pick all the bits of meat out of a dish, you can definitely still taste it there. Which isn't a problem for me now, but there was a time when the smell of bacon made me feel ill, so...