First, apology to the mods, I really couldn’t decide it this belongs here or cafe society. Recipe(s) involved, but the question is, I guess, about manners and morality/ethics.
Okay, tonight I made what we call “clean out the fridge stew” for supper, which is why this question came to mind again.
Years ago it was a recipe from a friend whose birth family had called it Vegetarian Chili. Which was a reasonable name, it was mainly a mix of various beans and some other vegetables in a mostly tomato-y base with lots of chilis and peppers and onions and spices.
She’d married a devout meat eater, as in, if there’s no meat involved, it isn’t a dinner. So she started adding meat to the no-longer Vegetarian Chili. Not any particular meat, whatever she had on hand or needed to be used up. Most often it was ground beef, but it could be lamb, or ground turkey, or chopped up leftover roast chicken, or, heck, hot dog slices. Whatever. Otherwise the recipe stayed pretty much the same. At least five kinds of tomatoes (diced and stewed and crushed and whole plus either sauce or paste. Maybe both – she was cooking for a family of six. And beans. At least pintos and small whites, but pretty much anything else was game. She even tossed in baked beans once. (Said the sweetness from the molasses was a bit unusual, but not enough to put off the hoard.) And squash was a standard to add bulk, at least zucchini and summer but whatever else vegetable that was at hand worked too. Tons of chopped onions and garlic and peppers and chilis and, well, you get the picture. Chop everything up into a reasonable size to eat off a soup spoon, pre-cook meats if needed, toss it all in a dutch oven and simmer in the oven for at least an hour. Done.
After she passed the recipe on to me it mutated further. We’re not as dedicated carnivores, and hubby isn’t fond of really spicy food so I milded that stuff down. Also cut down quantities wildly, since we’re a household of two, and even though we’re both willing to eat leftover lunches sometimes, there are limits.
Plus I started adding fruit that was starting to be less that wonderful. You know, the apples that were no longer crisp? The end of that box of raisins that had turned into hard pebbles? Those peaches that were disappointing because they never really ripened into wonderful juiciness? That handful of dates I never found a use for? Peel/core/stone as appropriate, chop small, and toss in. The random bits of sweetness against the background vegetables tastes good, at least IOO. Which is how the recipe became 'Clean out the fridge stew."
Sorry, long prelude. Now to the story: one time, Wow, two decades ago, friend had made Ex-Vegetarian Chili for supper. One of her sons asked if his new school friend could stay for supper, and of course she said yes. So, the supper was apparently the ‘normal’ for them free for all, and everyone enjoyed the chili. At the end, when she was clearing bowls to prepare to serve dessert, the friend thanked her very nicely for the meal, said it was great. She told him he was welcome.
And then he said something like, “And to think my mother was afraid we wouldn’t fit in.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “Well, you know. With having to eat halal.”
Urk. The meat that time had been pork. Not even pork adjacent. It was chopped up pork loin. Pork, pork, pork. She didn’t know much about the rules of halal eating, but basically everyone knows Pork Is Forbidden.
She said she stood there pole-axed for god knows how long. What should she do? What should she say? The pork was eaten! If it was something he was allergic to, like nuts or shellfish or whatever, she’d have to do something fast, but what? Do you induce vomiting? Rush the kid to a hospital? Call poison control??
But for a religious taboo? Would vomiting the food up ‘help’ him spiritually somehow? Or just make him aware he’d sinned and thus feel awful? Should she call his parents and ask? But then THEY would know, and couldn’t unknow it.
Maybe it didn’t count if the person had no idea he was breaking the taboo? Or maybe there was some ritual or atonement he had to go through and thus he/they should know?
She had no idea. Finally she stopped staring and said, “Who wants ice cream?” and just carried on. The boy was happy and smiling and clearly in no distress and so…she never told him or his parents or anyone at the time.
“Least said, soonest mended” she said she’d decided, when she told me about it years later. She’d found out later from her son that the new friend had told him he ate halal food, but son didn’t understand what that meant, and hadn’t passed it on to her.
So, my question is, in a situation like that, where you know after the fact that someone has unknowingly trespassed against some religious or ethical rule they hold, what’s the right thing to do? Do you tell them? Do you stay quiet? I think my friend made the best choice she could at that moment, that situation, but is there an overall rule to follow?
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