I was thinking about your festive/formal meal request. How about focusing on some type of cuisine where a fancy meal means lots of interesting dishes, rather than one central dish? Indian food is a good example of that, too. I like to make a couple of curries, maybe one veggie and one not, some type of dal, and a homeade bread or rice dish. Throw in a couple of salads and chutneys and it can be quite impressive.
Another possibility would be a Middle Eastern theme. Hummous, tabbouleh, maybe an eggplant dish, some kind of fancy thing with phyllo pastry (veggie or not).
Okay, you dine regularly with people who complain if they smell meat cooking, complain if they see meat, lecture you about meat if the subject comes up, and get an attitude if you try and defend meat eating in any way. And god forbid you invite them over for dinner and serve meat to anyone in any form – it’s a personal insult if you serve flesh at a meal to which they were invited.
I said rabid and I meant rabid.
You, too, will get fed up and be passive aggressively rebellious at the very least.
And these same people buy vegetarian products that mimic meat… Jeebus H. Krist, if you’re so disgusted by meat, why are you eating the worst of both worlds by trying to mimic meat with your vegetables??
Eat some hummus or felafel fer krist’s sake and let me have my steak and roast turkey.
“Can I have my veal rare please? I want it bloody and bleating.”
White Ink not sure if you want to take it this far but. . . .
I used to be a pretty rabid carnivore, and like you any meal that I had without meat left me feeling very unsatisfied. I was getting worried about the extent of my meat consumption, so I decided to try the vegetarian thing all out for a while. After about a month, I found that I could have meat free meals and feel just dandy. I was a big fan of the Moosewood Cookbook and its sequels. I have since gone back to eating meat, but I no longer eat it for every meal, and am in fact quite happy having meat just once or twice a week.
Of course this is not a two way street, this is you doing all the work, and I can understand why you may not want to.
Can your sister/friends really not eat at a table that has meat on it? Can you/Have you talked to her about this?
What I’ve come to realize in thinking more analytically, and less emotionally about this is that
a) if I have to compromise, I think my sister/friends should be as willing to accomodate me, as I am to them. how that would work exactly, I’m not sure.
b) several of the vegetarians were really using some emotional blackmail to get their way. It wasn’t just that what I wanted to eat was meaty, but it was also too cheesy, fatty, salty, insert something to complain about here. What they really wanted was to have the food be cooked exactly as they like it, just vegetarian wasn’t good enough. Somehow THAT’s gotta stop, though I’m not quite sure how to accomodate the “what you eat makes me physically ill, you’re so mean not to accomodate me” argument.
c) I did actually try to go vegetarian for a week. It wasn’t pretty. Considering that pretty much all the non-animal based protein sources are like steaming poo to me, I’m thinking it’s really not going to happen.
d) It isn’t that I eat meat all the time, it’s that Dinner is the only real meal of the day that I eat. No breakfast, cheese & crackers or a piece of fruit for lunch, or an energy bar, whatever I can grab on the go. That only leaves dinner. After only carbs all day, its really the only protein I’m likely to get.
Anyhow, I’ve got muchly to think about, I welcome any and all input. Except about the longpig, that ain’t cool.
Seriously, have you tried it? How do you know it’s not good eating? You could start with your least favorite or most manipulative/obnoxious friend and solve two problems at once.
Taking into consideration your regular eating habits, would you possibly feel better about a low meat, or meat-free dinner if you’d had a more substantial meal earlier in the day?
I’m the same as you in that a veggie diet just doesn’t do it for me. However, I’ll do much better on a veggie dinner if I’ve had a turkey sandwich for lunch.
Also, how do your vegetarian friends feel about fish? Is it just as abhorrent to them as say, a steak? (this is assuming you like fish)
I think all the suggestions about combo, meat-optional dishes are good ones.
We run the gamit from omnivore (me) to vegan to kosher to lactose intolerant to low carb to gluten allergies to … name it.
Unless you are spending hours and hours with your sister or vegetarian friends, eat first - eat afterwards. A vegetarian meal will be much more satisfying to you if it isn’t your only big meal of the day.
Buffets with lots of dishes work great. We like doing the Mexican buffet (between beans, meat, mixed veggies, corn and flour tortillas, cheese and soy cheese - everyone is happy) and Italian (pasta, and gluten free pasta, plus lots veggies, red sauce, cheese, soy cheese, white sauce, Italian sausage.) Indian sounds wonderful - and I’ll need to try it. The pasta dish with chicken or tofu along with a salad (that you can put chicken or tofu on if you don’t do the wheat or the carbs) works too. So does the “bring your own BBQ” Bring something to throw on the grill (and tin foil if your tofu dog can’t touch my meat infested grill) and something to share that you can eat. And the multi dish stir fry - a pan of veggies, a pan of meat, a pan of tofu.
Stop the complainers by not eating with them. If what you eat makes them physically ill, and you don’t enjoy eating with them, skip it. Go out for drinks (skip the worm in the tequila). See a movie. Don’t cook for people who don’t appreciate it. If you are having a dinner party - invite them over afterwards for dessert with the comment “you don’t seem to enjoy my food, so I thought you might want to join us for coffee and conversation later.” (BTW, this should illict comments of “oh, no, we love your dinner parties” and you can decide whether to give them another chance once they realize they have been ungracious and can expect the invites to end if it continues). This is easier to say than it is to do - my brother in law’s wife fits this description, and - as she is married to my brother in law - we kind of need to invite her along. Sometimes we just suck it up - try to cook to her needs and ours and try and not hear the whines that come regardless of the effort we’ve made.
Best of luck. I’ve been there - although I’ve never been the type that requires meat - I can do without it for several meals in a row.
White Ink, if they’re bitching about your food, meatless or not, you have the right to be pissed. But you have to tell them about it. If they complain again, you can say something like “Obviously, I’m not going to be able to please you. You can bring your own dish the next time.”
I’m a vegetarian, and I would never consider telling my host what or how to cook anything. I can always find something to eat, and if it’s just one vegetable and bread, I eat a lot of it. I’m there more for the company than the food. That’s just me…but as a host, I can understand your efforts to please your guests, and of course, it’s always nice when the host considers dietary preferences. Usually, they know me, and they fix something for me, and I wouldn’t dare complain.
We’ve had Thanksgiving at my house and my mother-in-law offered to bring a turkey and I said it was fine. I would even go as far to buy a (already cooked) turkey if I knew it be a problem not to have one. You make compromises to be with the people you love. If your guests are complaining, then that’s just them being bad guests, not vegetarians. There are probably some vegetarians that would disagree with me, but we have to prioritize things, and it may sound harsh and hypocritical, but I prioritize the humans I love over the animal that was killed to make the meal. I don’t think I would cook meat in my kitchen though. And I STAY AWAY from conversations about vegetarianism…for me, it’s a personal choice, not a cause for evangalism.
bughunter, the people you are apparently dining with are bad guests. Don’t make fun of me for not eating meat and I won’t mention anything to you. And I like fake meat products because they provide a different texture and are a good source of protein. And don’t assume all vegetarians are disgusted by meat. People become vegetarians for different reasons.
I’m a vegetarian who cooks for an omnivorous family. My mode of compromise is to make an essentially vegetarian meal (legumes, grains, greens, etc. - not fake meat) and then add a Hunk O’Meat [sup]tm[/sup] on the side. So we’ll have sweet and sour lentils, rice, and broccoli. And ham. Or pasta with sauteed vegetables, black beans with garlic, and bread. And roast beef. The vegetarian food with protein is my main dish, but one of their side dishes. This approach works splendidly with build-your-own meals like tacos, and when we have spaghetti, I cook meatballs separately for them to add to their plates. On the rare occasions when I feel the need for meat substitutes, I also cook those separately and add them to my own food. I wouldn’t dream of asking an omnivore to eat TVP.
I’m a life long vegetarian married to an omnivore. We’ve manage to share meals for 29 years now. No fighting no fuss. I follow the same plan InternetLegend does.
I would never bother him about eating meat and he would never bother me about not eating it. The only problem I have is when we’re eating out and thats not his fault. It’s just the fact that almost all restauraunt owners in Idaho think that vegetarians only live in California.
You cooked a meal for these ingrates and they complained like that? That’s just rude. When you’re invited to someone’s house for dinner, you eat what’s served without complaining (within reason–I don’t think it’s polite to serve meat to vegetarians, just like it wouldn’t be polite to serve pork to Jews who keep kosher).
I understand where you’re coming from, White Ink, but in the case of your sister, you just might have to suck it up. Be the better man, acknowledge that you’ll have to compromise more than she does, and get over it. It’s not fair, but that’s the way families work sometimes. And, yeah, pig out on cheeseburgers once you get back to your house.