Not sure what to do re cooking

[Cin70]

We are fairly new to sailing and living aboard and I've just discovered my daughter's new boyfriend is vegan. They are both joining us early May for a week. Is it entirely unreasonable that I don't cook for them? I really can't be bothered with all that fussy food thing. What do other liveaboards do when faced with this?

 

[Sybarite]

Welcome to the forum.

Point them towards the nearest supermarket and tell them they have two hours for any special products they may wish to buy.

I remember organizing weekend charters for the office many years ago. Some would say I can't come on the Friday night but I can be there at noon on Saturday. Others would say that they would love to come but would have to leave at noon on Sunday etc etc.

After one week'end of this I said that the boat would be leaving at first light on Saturday morning and that it would be coming back on Sunday evening. No exceptions and share of charter costs payable in advance and non refundable. (Some who dropped out at the last minute thought they would not have to pay their share).

Special needs are the bane of a collective activity and so you should establish the ground rules from the start.

 

[Vancouver Island]

Are you asking if it's okay to forego making meals because you are on a boat or would the same apply in a house? Would you make meals if the boyfriend wasn't vegan? If our daughter came to visit for a week I would be happy to accommodate a special diet but I would expect help with both the shopping and the preparation. You haven't made it very clear if you actually want their company, if you don't you shouldn't invite them....if you do you have a strange way of showing it.

 

[Seashoreman]

As it is the boyfriends diet and he is presumably fairly knowledgeable of his needs I would suggest that you tell him you are clueless about veganism and he should bring his own food. Obviously he can still share boats snacks, fruit, bread etc. ?

 

[sarabande]

Bring a stack of Fray Bentos pies, and stick Quorn labels on them. A bit of real protein will change his mind (literally).

 

[Wansworth]

Shops are full of veggie treehugging food,my wife is one so I find it best to eat what she eats,lots of salad etc

 

[Shearmyste]

I eat meat very little veg, wife eats no meat and lots of fruit and veg, sometimes I do go veggy for a few weeks but it usually coincides with me actually catching something, what we do tend to do is start by choosing the carb then add what we both eat. Even the meat man Hugh FW went veggy for a year. So you can make it work if you choose to do it.

 

[Cin70]

I eat meat very little veg, wife eats no meat and lots of fruit and veg, sometimes I do go veggy for a few weeks but it usually coincides with me actually catching something, what we do tend to do is start by choosing the carb then add what we both eat. Even the meat man Hugh FW went veggy for a year. So you can make it work if you choose to do it.

It's not vegetarian I'm talking about but vegan. He doesn't eat any animal products at all, so that means bread is out because it contains whey. Pasta contains eggs, risotto contains cheese, yoghurt is an animal product, so I'm left with roast mediterranean vegetables. But I can't serve that everyday. I think we might be eating out a lot. Cakes are a no go, so I'm just a bit stuck. I can do quinoa with some sort of leaves, as well but what about breakfasts? It isn't that I don't want my daughter to visit, I do, but it's the problem with cooking as so much of our social time is spent around the dinner/breakfast/lunch table. Loving the idea of getting the Fray Bentos pies out and sticking quorn labels on them! Might go down with them like a lead balloon though we'd be rolling in the aisles haha . . .

 

[Cin70]

Bring a stack of Fray Bentos pies, and stick Quorn labels on them. A bit of real protein will change his mind (literally).

Loving that idea lol (-:

 

[lpdsn]

I had a crew member for a weekend that was a vegetarian of some sort. He was the owner of a company that was providing about 80% of my income at the time so I didn't want to offend him. I was just upfront and said I didn't understand the ins and outs of vegetarian food. He brought it all himself. The only problem was the rest of us found it quite tasty and kept eating his stuff rather than our own.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

A Vegan colleague managed OK on field trips to the high Arctic. It isn't that difficult! However, he did have a sort of preference list in case a fully vegan diet wasn't available; he'd (for example) eat dairy products ahead of invertebrates ahead of fish ahead of red meat, for example. His real problems were in Norwegian restaurants; most Norwegians (especially in the Arctic) are almost aggressively carnivorous.

Ask your daughter's advice. There are plenty of excellent substitutes for milk based on rice or nuts, and there's a whole aisle in all our local supermarkets dedicated to them; they also keep better than milk. Many butter substitutes are OK for vegans; look at the labels. Quorn has already been mentioned. Vegan bread etc. are all available, again in the major supermarkets, though I think that most bread would actually be fine - wholemeal bread doesn't usually have any dairy products in it. Lentils, chickpeas and other pulses are good for protein - and actually quite tasty. Tofu is another protein source; we have it once or twice a week, shallow fried and then added to stir-fried vegetables with a suitable sauce; I think most of the sachet Chinese sauces are OK for vegans. If not, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, 5 spice mix and flour for thickening makes a good sweet and sour sauce - adjust vinegar and sugar to suit.

We are not vegan or vegetarian, but it is common enough that I regard being able to feed someone who is as basic hospitality. Most Chinese, while not full-time vegetarian, eat vegetarian meals on certain days of the Chinese calendar, and of course most Hindus are vegetarian - indeed, one of the best sources of vegetarian recipes is an Indian cookery book! Use oil instead of ghee, and avoid yoghurt based suaces and it's OK for vegans, too.

 

[EU_Cruiser]

If you went for a meal at your daughter's boyfriends home would he serve you meat? If, in principle, not, then why should you be expected to cater to his his vegan leanings? If he would then you should accommodate his tastes. Try Google for some ideas.

 

[TOKOLOSHI]

Let the Daughter be the ships cook!:encouragement:

 

[Davy_S]

The simplest solutions are often the best, tell daughter that you saw the new boyfriend with another woman, a lady of the night, hopefully she will dump him, thus saving years of faffing about with a food nutter, its best in the long term.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

If you went for a meal at your daughter's boyfriends home would he serve you meat? If, in principle, not, then why should you be expected to cater to his his vegan leanings? If he would then you should accommodate his tastes. Try Google for some ideas.

Being Vegan or vegetarian is usually a matter of conscience, not taste. While I don't fully agree with their reasoning, I can see where they're coming from, and I have reservations about the way meat is produced. I disagree with them because whether we like it or not, our bodies are adapted for a diet that includes meat as a protein source. However, asking someone to violate strongly held principles is not acceptable, in my view. I wouldn't expect a vegan to provide a meal including meat because it would violate their principles to do so, just as (say) trampling on a cross would violate mine. I would expect them to provide a tasy and nutritious meal that didn't violate their principles!

 

[shan]

The simplest solutions are often the best, tell daughter that you saw the new boyfriend with another woman, a lady of the night, hopefully she will dump him, thus saving years of faffing about with a food nutter, its best in the long term.

 

[Bertramdriver]

My experience of veganism, earned from a vegan ex wife and vegetarian daughter is that it is a strategy employed to control their environment. Used as a passive aggressive method to ensure that they are always be the centre of attention and guaranteeing that they will always hold the moral high ground.
The only way to to regularise the situation is to lay down ground rules early on the cruise IE. We are meat eaters and intend to continue as such. If your dietary needs differ then you should go shopping and buy supplies of food that you can eat and you can prepare it yourself before we infect the galley with dead animals. We normally eat together as a group and do not get involved in discussions or pass judgement on what others are eating but if that is a struggle for you then you can eat of the foredeck
It works

 

[BrianH]

If your dietary needs differ then you should go shopping and buy supplies of food that you can eat and you can prepare it yourself before we infect the galley with dead animals.

I remember the travails of a visit from my vegan diet daughter. Thinking I had solved a difficult arrival dining-out evening in a country that was behind the times with such dietary diktats, I took her to a Mongolian restaurant where one collects the food required from a wide range of both meat and vegetables then takes it to the cooking range for the selection to be cooked by the staff there.

One look at the utensils and hot plates and she immediately turned tail to put her vegetables back, saying that the scraping of the hot plates that the cook was making after each customer was not sufficient to prevent her from ingesting minute particles of flesh from a previous carnivorous selection.

Not a comfortable visit.

 

[nauticalnomad]

You sure they are boyfriend/girlfriend? Or just mates? I didnt think vegans entered into heterosexual relationships?

 

[Heckler]

My experience of veganism, earned from a vegan ex wife and vegetarian daughter is that it is a strategy employed to control their environment. Used as a passive aggressive method to ensure that they are always be the centre of attention and guaranteeing that they will always hold the moral high ground.
The only way to to regularise the situation is to lay down ground rules early on the cruise IE. We are meat eaters and intend to continue as such. If your dietary needs differ then you should go shopping and buy supplies of food that you can eat and you can prepare it yourself before we infect the galley with dead animals. We normally eat together as a group and do not get involved in discussions or pass judgement on what others are eating but if that is a struggle for you then you can eat of the foredeck
It works

Love it!
S