veg*n party etiquette
Community was new this week! Yay! It's been about three years since the last new episode. (For those of you that don't know or care, but care enough to learn vaguely what I'm talking about, Community is a new-this-year comedy on NBC that centers on a Spanish study group at a community college. The show is pretty adept at taking worn-out comedy tropes and turning them on their ear, or in this week's case, taking a mafia movie and focusing on chicken fingers in the cafeteria. It's every bit as absurd as it sounds, and it's the greatest show on NBC right now.) The Britta Quote of the Week: "If you guys knew how they treated the animals you're eating, you would eat them even faster, just to put them out of their misery. And then you would throw up." I don't know why I have such an irrational love of Britta on this show - probably because she is the least fleshed out character portrayed by the most wooden actor on the show (she was dramatically trained, I think, at Juilliard or some such nonsense), so it's largely a case of "so bad it's good." And of course she is vegetarian. Haha.
Speaking of vegetarian, it's springtime, so we're back to my favorite awkward time of year where everyone wants to cook out, leading to the same debate as always: are hosts of cookouts expected to have vegetarian options? I can argue both sides of this one on my own, but it's always interesting to see where the mind grapes fall among other people. I can present two extremes as examples. Some time ago, a friend of mine invited a bunch of people over for dinner with a meat-based dish as the main course - including vegetarians, people he knew wouldn't be able to eat it. Curiosity got the best of us - why is he inviting vegetarians over for a dinner we clearly won't eat? - so we went, and the host, shocked and sheepish, offered the rest of his kitchen to make "whatever we wanted" so we could eat, too. I sat there and ate nothing the entire night. So... why the hell did he invite people he knew to be vegetarian in the first place? God only knows. If such inane dinner parties still happen, I wouldn't know, since I haven't been invited to another since. The other extreme that comes to mind is a board game night I threw well over a year ago, and the first one I invited a vegan person to. I almost always bake something or another for my game nights, so I made vegan snickerdoodles that night. They weren't terrible, but they had a different consistency and a nuttier flavor than my usual cookies, and all the non-vegan people insisted that I was not allowed to make vegan desserts ever again. (Of course, I still sneaked in vegan dishes like an apple cobbler every now and then, and no one was the wiser.) Over time, if I knew a vegan person was coming, I'd make a supplementary vegan dessert more often than not.
And I've been witness to a wide variety of locations on the spectrum. I guess the correct compromise is a potluck-style event, or a "bring your own stuff to grill" event, where no one is singled out based on their dietary restrictions (but grilling events are ALWAYS sketchy, 'cause where else has this grill been? What else has it touched?). I remember a cookout along those lines last summer. And some potlucks I know of are perhaps even more accommodating than that, though more restrictive all at once, when everyone is asked to provide to the lowest common denominator (e.g., vegetarianism) so that everyone can have everything. But it works. Then there are the friends who specifically contact me when they send invitations, to let me know where they're standing on food supply, and whether I have to fend for myself outright or not. Usually it's not a big deal. But there are also the friends who make arrangements for everyone, making sure there are vegetarian/vegan/gluten free/whatever options available if they know such people are attending. My games nights quickly took that tack (though I always wondered if they'd have to - I mean, the point was to play games, not eat cookies or other desserts). And certainly there are other parties like that (to some people, it's a matter of manners, or being a "proper host").
But, on the other hand, I do get it. If I have a food allergy or choose not to eat some sort of food for any reason, at the end of the day, the onus is on me to make sure I act accordingly. And sometimes it can be difficult for a host to appropriately cover all the bases, especially if they aren't used to/don't think they can afford vegetarian (or vegan, or gluten-free, etc.) cooking. And also, what happens when you go out of your way to accommodate and those people don't eat as much as you thought they might? (Well, that comes with the territory of serving any food at any party, but now it's also potentially stuff you wouldn't normally eat.) I'm usually pretty much okay with fending for myself, especially at large gatherings, especially when invited somewhere indirectly or by someone who doesn't know me well.
And of course, there are the (for lack of a better word) jerks who just consider vegetarianism to be no different than picky eating who refuse to make any accommodations on those grounds. There are similarities, to be sure, between veg*nism and picky eating, but there's still usually a difference - and sometimes significantly so.
At more intimate events run by particularly close friends, I'm grateful to not even have to think about it, to just know I'll be taken care of. But there's also the gray area in-between that and the situation of two paragraphs prior.
I don't have the ability on my LJ account, and this is a more complicated deal than just a multiple choice question anyway, so it's just an informal comment poll! What's the acceptable treatment? As you can see, my opinion varies by situation. This is a tricky one where my usual "live and let live" approach can't be universally applied - something has to give, somewhere, so that everyone is as happy as possible.
Speaking of vegetarian, it's springtime, so we're back to my favorite awkward time of year where everyone wants to cook out, leading to the same debate as always: are hosts of cookouts expected to have vegetarian options? I can argue both sides of this one on my own, but it's always interesting to see where the mind grapes fall among other people. I can present two extremes as examples. Some time ago, a friend of mine invited a bunch of people over for dinner with a meat-based dish as the main course - including vegetarians, people he knew wouldn't be able to eat it. Curiosity got the best of us - why is he inviting vegetarians over for a dinner we clearly won't eat? - so we went, and the host, shocked and sheepish, offered the rest of his kitchen to make "whatever we wanted" so we could eat, too. I sat there and ate nothing the entire night. So... why the hell did he invite people he knew to be vegetarian in the first place? God only knows. If such inane dinner parties still happen, I wouldn't know, since I haven't been invited to another since. The other extreme that comes to mind is a board game night I threw well over a year ago, and the first one I invited a vegan person to. I almost always bake something or another for my game nights, so I made vegan snickerdoodles that night. They weren't terrible, but they had a different consistency and a nuttier flavor than my usual cookies, and all the non-vegan people insisted that I was not allowed to make vegan desserts ever again. (Of course, I still sneaked in vegan dishes like an apple cobbler every now and then, and no one was the wiser.) Over time, if I knew a vegan person was coming, I'd make a supplementary vegan dessert more often than not.
And I've been witness to a wide variety of locations on the spectrum. I guess the correct compromise is a potluck-style event, or a "bring your own stuff to grill" event, where no one is singled out based on their dietary restrictions (but grilling events are ALWAYS sketchy, 'cause where else has this grill been? What else has it touched?). I remember a cookout along those lines last summer. And some potlucks I know of are perhaps even more accommodating than that, though more restrictive all at once, when everyone is asked to provide to the lowest common denominator (e.g., vegetarianism) so that everyone can have everything. But it works. Then there are the friends who specifically contact me when they send invitations, to let me know where they're standing on food supply, and whether I have to fend for myself outright or not. Usually it's not a big deal. But there are also the friends who make arrangements for everyone, making sure there are vegetarian/vegan/gluten free/whatever options available if they know such people are attending. My games nights quickly took that tack (though I always wondered if they'd have to - I mean, the point was to play games, not eat cookies or other desserts). And certainly there are other parties like that (to some people, it's a matter of manners, or being a "proper host").
But, on the other hand, I do get it. If I have a food allergy or choose not to eat some sort of food for any reason, at the end of the day, the onus is on me to make sure I act accordingly. And sometimes it can be difficult for a host to appropriately cover all the bases, especially if they aren't used to/don't think they can afford vegetarian (or vegan, or gluten-free, etc.) cooking. And also, what happens when you go out of your way to accommodate and those people don't eat as much as you thought they might? (Well, that comes with the territory of serving any food at any party, but now it's also potentially stuff you wouldn't normally eat.) I'm usually pretty much okay with fending for myself, especially at large gatherings, especially when invited somewhere indirectly or by someone who doesn't know me well.
And of course, there are the (for lack of a better word) jerks who just consider vegetarianism to be no different than picky eating who refuse to make any accommodations on those grounds. There are similarities, to be sure, between veg*nism and picky eating, but there's still usually a difference - and sometimes significantly so.
At more intimate events run by particularly close friends, I'm grateful to not even have to think about it, to just know I'll be taken care of. But there's also the gray area in-between that and the situation of two paragraphs prior.
I don't have the ability on my LJ account, and this is a more complicated deal than just a multiple choice question anyway, so it's just an informal comment poll! What's the acceptable treatment? As you can see, my opinion varies by situation. This is a tricky one where my usual "live and let live" approach can't be universally applied - something has to give, somewhere, so that everyone is as happy as possible.