vegan food continued

[watervole]

Pleased to say that our hotel last week eventually came up trumps. Kudos to the chef at the Exeter Court hotel (in Devon), after emailed requests (and tips on vegan protein) before the event, he came up with a truly excellent range of vegan food, including a couple of deserts.  For five days on the trot, our vegan had a good choice of different meals.

What was really interesting was how many other members of the convention started asking for the vegan menu: so many, that they eventually restricted it to vegans and vegetarians only as they were running out, in spite of having five or six portions of many things.

Some people just liked the variety (smoked coconut cheese turns out to be delicious, and the veg+bean stew in a halved butternut squash sold out before I could try it), and some, like my friend Charlie, who can't eat dairy and is wheat-intolerant found that many of the vegan options were ideal for her, even though she isn't a vegetarian.

At the closing of the convention, members who were not in our party, were asking for more of the same next year.

I've already written a thank you letter to the hotel and I gave a tenner to the chef before I left.

Comments

[kotturinn]

Hooray. So glad it all came off well.

[aralias]

that sounds great! well done you for persisting and the hotel for listening :)

[ranunculus]

Hopefully that will encourage the hotel to offer more vegan food.

[catalenamara]

That's great the hotel followed through and not only that offered so many great selections. I'm lactose intolerant, and occasionally go to a local vegan restaurant, because I know it's safe for me to eat there.

[cdybedahl]

The meat-eaters eating all the food meant for the vegetarians and/or vegans is unfortunately a very common problem. I regularly encounter it both at the week-long event we go to almost every summer, and at work functions with included food.

On the other hand, that time I got sick enough of it that I ordered only vegetarian food for the work thing, it took an hour before someone noticed.

[suenicorn]

Yes, I have seen that, especially at buffet events, where they can just help themselves. I think people are usually reasonable if you put up a sign asking nicely for meat eaters not to hog the vegan/vegetarian food.

[del]

I don't think this is a "people eating vegetarians' food" problem, especially after all the vegetarians saying "you should eat the food we eat!". I think it's a "caterers not putting enough vegetarian food out" problem. They need to understand you can't restrict the food to 2% vegetarian just because 2% of people are vegetarians. There's probably some sort of quasi-Bayesian maths that would pop out the right answer.

[watervole]

That's exactly my view. There is plenty of demand for vegetarian food among meat eaters. People like variety and caterers really should understand that lots of people might enjoy chick pea fritters with salsa.

[watervole]

Simply means that the caterers should supply a far higher % of veggie food. I suggest lying about the number of vegetarians.

[suenicorn]

This is great, Judith! See? All you had to do was ask nicely! I once went to a Regency banquet at Conflux, a Canberra convention. The research was done by historian Gillian Polack, and people tested out the recipes before handing them to the hotel. And the vegetarian options were so very good - who would have known that there were meat-free dishes back in the Regency era? - that I was too full up to manage dessert! (Gillian did gently urge me to at least try the apricot ice cream, so I had a scoop and it was indeed delicious!)

That, of course, was dairy, but you can do convincing non dairy ice cream; we had some at my brother's wedding, where the food was kosher and you can't have meat and milk in the same meal. (A non Jewish friend of mine who was there stared at his dish of vanilla ice cream, tasted and said, "Now I'm confused!" till I assured him there was no milk in it)

[la_avispa]

That's wonderful! You are a great negotiator!