Vegetarian Question

[Drunken Housewife]

By coincidence I'm planning on doing vegetarian tacos tonight for dinner.  It will be monterey jack cheese, cheddar cheese, Soyrizo (vegan chorizo), black beans, green onions, salsa, and olives for the fillings.  I forgot to get lettuce -- I hope I have some in the crisper that is still good.

[Poppea]

From post #1. "Lets assume the hostess is uber polite and would not tell you that she minded either option even if she was actually steamed about it."

That's not being über polite - that's being a doormat.

Besides, I think it would be really uncharitable of the hostess to be steamed about it assuming the following:
1) The guest asked.
2) The guest used mbored's phrasing when asking (i.e. "Would you prefer that I filled up at home" was an option).
3) If bringing a dish - whether to share or for herself - the dish was already cooked and ready to be served - i.e. no inconvenience to the host.

Really it all boils down to what's more important to you in a hosting situation - the guests or the food. For me the guests would always come first. I'd feel horrible if a friend turned down an invitation rather than informing me of a dietary restriction out of some sense of displaced "politeness".

In the example at hand the guest did not ask.  She did not bring a dish to share.  Her food was not part of the New Orleans theme and she cooked it in Southern Girls kitchen.

Southern Girl had invited her guests over to celebrate an authentic Mardi Gras dinner.

[Aeris]

From post #1. "Lets assume the hostess is uber polite and would not tell you that she minded either option even if she was actually steamed about it."

That's not being über polite - that's being a doormat.

Besides, I think it would be really uncharitable of the hostess to be steamed about it assuming the following:
1) The guest asked.
2) The guest used mbored's phrasing when asking (i.e. "Would you prefer that I filled up at home" was an option).
3) If bringing a dish - whether to share or for herself - the dish was already cooked and ready to be served - i.e. no inconvenience to the host.

Really it all boils down to what's more important to you in a hosting situation - the guests or the food. For me the guests would always come first. I'd feel horrible if a friend turned down an invitation rather than informing me of a dietary restriction out of some sense of displaced "politeness".

In the example at hand the guest did not ask.  She did not bring a dish to share.  Her food was not part of the New Orleans theme and she cooked it in Southern Girls kitchen.

Southern Girl had invited her guests over to celebrate an authentic Mardi Gras dinner.

I think there's some confusion here with people talking past each other a bit because snowdragon keeps trying to conflate the thing that would apparently make her furious (a vegetarian offering to bring something) with what happened in your OP (the pescetarian not asking and just showing up with food).

Snowdragon was using the bolded and italicized quote as though the hostess would acquiesce to a mere *offer* to bring something, but silently fume about it - which is, of course, completely unreasonable (and not at all what actually happened to Southern Girl). MarieE was responding to *that* usage of the quote, and I believe her point was that a hostess being furious at someone who merely offers, and is willing to accept no for an answer (which FishGirl clearly did NOT do), would be really extraordinary and uncharitable.

I don't blame *Southern Girl* for being upset at what happened, but it is a completely different thing than what snowdragon appears to be trying to tie this to.

[MariaE]

Thanks Aeris, that was it exactly. I absolutely do not blame SothernGirl - FishGirl was ridiculously rude and would be excluded from my dinner parties as well. A person acting the way mbored described that she does - not so much 

[White Lotus]

As host, I ask about restrictions, and cook to provide food everyone can eat. It is a challenge and usually fun.  However, every meal is not a pot luck, and I don't like it when I have, say, a SW menu ready to go and someone shows up, unasked, with Thai curry, which just plain doesn't fit in, or worse, hunk'o'meat.  (Special Snowflakes who bring usually uncooked meat to my vegetarian house, and then announce they've brought DINNER, throwing off my timing and my menu sometimes by an hour or more, drive me nuts! This would be FishGirl, who would only do this to me once, unless I had to have her again for some reason.  Then I think the Meat BBQ would break, and that is the only place to cook meat at our house.  Too bad.  She'd just have to take it home.)
Like I said, as a host, I ask about restrictions and do my best to accommodate.  If someone with restrictions offers to bring something, we can come up with something for them to bring that integrates into the planned menu and fits their needs.  As a guest, I always offer to bring, usually a vegetarian entree, so there will be one, and then we make sure it goes seamlessly into the planned menu.  The problem, to me, lies in not communicating with one's host/guest.  Taking over a planned party with your unplanned-for thing that does not fit into the hosts' menu, is IMO, controlling, "specialness" to the nth degree, and quite rude.  Hostess gifts of edibles are normally of the kind that do not have to be consumed right away -- wine, candy, maybe artisan bread -- and are not expected to be consumed immediately, but rather kept for the hosts' later enjoyment -- in part so these gifts will NOT screw up a planned menu and dining experience. 
If I show up after being told NOT to bring, and there are things I can eat, great.  I eat them.   If there are not, and this has happened, literally nothing at all, I quietly do not eat, and am always grateful for the stash I keep in the car.

[mbbored]

I agree with all of you that asking to bring the dish is key. I would never dream of showing up to somebody's home with a dish in hand unless we specifically discussed it before hand.

Really the most important part is communication between the host and the guest with restrictions, so that the guest has the opportunity to express they can't eat something (for medical or ethical reasons) and the host has the opportunity to determine how they want to handle that.

[Minmom3]

For me, I think the cherry on the fecal pile is that Fish Girl is bringing FISH. Raw fish that must be cooked.  Of all the things to bring uncooked to somebody else's (spelling looks wrong here...) party, fish is about the least welcome thing I have ever heard of.  There are rules at most of the workplaces I've been to that you may not put fish in the microwave, because it's smelly and that smell lingers nearly as long as burned popcorn does.  Bringing raw fish to someone's home, assuming that you'd be welcome to cook it there, is taking (IMO) huge license to smell up the hosts kitchen.  It piles rude on top of rude, let alone the time and functionality disruption of another person's kitchen.  It's incredibly self absorbed to do that.  Fish Girl would NEVER get a repeat invitation to my home after doing that to me.

I know there are plenty of ways to cook fish such that it doesn't stink up the kitchen, because I've had to devise some myself to be able to cook fish at MY house, because DH gets testy about that 'we had fish last night' aroma.  But knowing I can do it at my house doesn't mean somebody else knows how to do it, nor that they will be able to do it at a home they don't live in.

[twiggy]

For me, I think the cherry on the fecal pile is that Fish Girl is bringing FISH. Raw fish that must be cooked.  Of all the things to bring uncooked to somebody else's (spelling looks wrong here...) party, fish is about the least welcome thing I have ever heard of.  There are rules at most of the workplaces I've been to that you may not put fish in the microwave, because it's smelly and that smell lingers nearly as long as burned popcorn does.  Bringing raw fish to someone's home, assuming that you'd be welcome to cook it there, is taking (IMO) huge license to smell up the hosts kitchen.  It piles rude on top of rude, let alone the time and functionality disruption of another person's kitchen.  It's incredibly self absorbed to do that.  Fish Girl would NEVER get a repeat invitation to my home after doing that to me.

I know there are plenty of ways to cook fish such that it doesn't stink up the kitchen, because I've had to devise some myself to be able to cook fish at MY house, because DH gets testy about that 'we had fish last night' aroma.  But knowing I can do it at my house doesn't mean somebody else knows how to do it, nor that they will be able to do it at a home they don't live in.

Thank you, I've been trying to figure out how to express the smelly factor. I don't eat fish. I don't care for the taste, or the texture, or the smell. I have literally gagged at the smell of seafood being cooked. (no allergy/intolerance, I just don't think seafood tastes good. Except for crab cakes)

Depending on the state of my spine that night, I would either turn Fish Girl away, with her fish, or else I would excuse myself frequently to get fresh air, gag, and weep quietly. Well, maybe not weep, but still. It would be a terrible evening, and I wouldn't invite her back.