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I agree with producestories concerned curiousity. I'm a meat and dairy lovin' cook but I try to a) find out food allergies/preferences and b) try to accommodate. I think of it as an opportunity to learn and try something new.

I threw a close-to-authentic luau this year. The way I grew up, we had luaus that incorporated some other ethnic dishes (Japanese, Chinese and Korean) so there were some veggie choices for the non-meat eaters. But I warned my veg guests that it was going to be a meat fest. I didn't alter my menu for them in this case. I just let them know what would be served.

For a group of what seems like in many ways open-minded people, it was surprising to me too to hear so many strident comments. To each his own.

(And really, the question posed was whether you should inform your host of food preferences/allergies. Absolutely. If you have a real aversion to something and want to avoid discussion or judgement, you might try what a friend of mine does and just tell people you're allergic.)

I believe that some of the more militant Vegans and Vegetarians have given us a bad rap. I know personally, if I'm in a restaurant or at a dinner party, I will politely let them know that I don't eat meat or otherwise, and often I will make a vegan dish to contribute. I don't feel like Vegans should be preachy or deride others for thier food preferences. It's rude and frankly immature. Afterall, I chose to stop eating meat, they did not. And it's okay that way.

I don't see hostility, I see choices. Hostility as defined as opposition or resistance to an idea. Yes one could say that. I make plenty of things for guests that I do not like/will not eat. Flourless chocolate torte mostly everyone loves (a South Beach diet staple) and I hate it. To me its bitter and too chocolately. Also aparagus, I hate it. But I cook it and set it in my antipasto for everyone for every occasion because they love it.
What I do not like is someone (and this happened in a previous thread) telling me oh you cannot eat meat, you should stop eating meat, you should eat less meat. I laughed at that. I am never telling anyone what they can and cannot eat. Eat whatever turns you on, pay for it and make it in your own house.If I do not want to cook your food for you that is my personal choice and that is my right. Leave my food and my choices alone.
You do not have any idea what someone else's dietary restrictions are. I have a hereditary anemic disease. I eat protein to combat it and I eat a lot of rare meat. It helps me feel better. What helps you feel better may not be the same. I would never deny someone what they chose to eat BUT if I have to cook it, I may not accommodate you.
Everyone has things they do not eat or do not like. I personally do not eat things on the deuteronomy/leviticus list. I do eat pork though. I just believe (without living kosher) that some things you just should not eat. My belief not yours and I certainly say if gator meat turns you on go ahead and eat it. But you will never see me stand on a soap box and preach about it because it is not my issue nor can I tell someone what to eat.
Certain persons (I am not going to even classify them with labels such as vegans or vegetarians) want to tell you what to eat, what to do and how to live your life and I am extremely opposed to that.
Serious Eats is a food forum (I have said this before too) and we talk about good things to eat. We do not talk about what we should not eat. That talk does not belong here.

Actually, I think that the concept of food-as-shared-experience is part of why some foodies might be less than happy about cooking for vegetarians/vegans: if not everyone at the table is sharing the same food, then they aren't sharing the same experience.

I am vegan and i have never told people personally that they shouldn't eat meat. I have said that people, as a whole civilization, eat too much meat, and i recommend that people include more vegetables in their meals as an alternative, not as an order.
I have no objection to people eating meat. I just find it irksome when people think that veganism is a form of deprivation.

I agree with pictsie, food is a shared experience, people come over to your house for dinner because you want to share a fun and enjoyable evening not one that is strenuous and stressful because one or a few people need to have their own set of rules, food, etc. It's like having to cook for kids separately at every meal, at some point the parents are going to say enough and make them eat what everyone else is eating. I don't have a problem with vegetarians as I find most of them eat something that falls under my food umbrella but vegan's who do it by choice rather than for health issues i have problems with.

Having Atkinsed seriously as part of a closely-supervised medical school study, I can only say that a bacon cheeseburger without bun or potatoes doesn't frustrate you nearly as much as it probably does the dieter, Caley. A sanctimonious attitude on the part of either side is the problem. For me, it worked well (it was a slightly modified Atkins), since I'm a carnivore at heart, but it's unpleasant to go to a good restaurant and have to skip most first courses except maybe pate (without bread, of course) and desserts.

I don't have hostility toward special diets as much as when the diner doesn't warn me and starts dissecting my food or worse; sits at the table and eats nothing. I'd much rather be warned so I can make appropriate food for everyone at my table. (Even if it's Atkins.)

I'm with you, maggiesara...and I actually thought of the same bedroom analogy earlier today when I was thinking about this question.

The consensus here does seem to be that alternative dietary choices aren't the problem - the problem is discourteous behavior, whether it's to a dinner host, a server at a restaurant, or one's meal companions. Unfortunately, many people (on SE and elsewhere) too-easily conflate the dietary choices with the behavior, and assume that, e.g., all vegans are difficult and whiny, or all Atkins dieters are fastidious and self-centered. I've known many of both, and neither generalization is true.

Of course, there are larger political questions concerning the national diet (including its ratio of processed foods to fresh, or meat to vegetables and grains as well as e.g. farming methods). Just as what type of car (if any) someone drives affects the world in which we all live, so does one's diet, and neither can be considered an entirely apolitical choice. But in general, it seems best to keep these discussions away from the dinner table.

Maggiesara, my comment was certainly not intended to be critical of Atkins or those who follow it. It is simply that there has been a lot of animosity towards vegans, and I was trying to point out that the other exteme can seem a bit... extreme... from the other side as well. I had a friend who was following Atkins and was only ever willing to meet me for dinner in a local steakhouse. That was frustrating to me as a lactose-free pescatarian, although of course when I've had Atkinsers over for dinner I've been more than happy to make something that we both can share. I absolutely think that people should make whatever dietary choices they want, as I said in my first comment. I grew up vegetarian, my partner grew up eating whale meat and puffin and reindeer, so dietary tolerance is practiced daily in our household. I just think that it is through compromise with friends that we are able to reach accross these restrictions to achieve a food-based social life, and the compromise goes in both directions, on the part of both vegans and strict Atkinsers and everyone in between.

Probably part of the hostility towards restricted diets is the cook's frustration to accommodate. For example, for a year, I was pesco-vegetarian due to health issues. My husband, a happy omnivore and the family cook (he hates it when I try to cook separate meals), tried to combat this by using tofu as though it were beef or pork. I sadly say that I can no longer tolerate tofu because of his efforts. He didn't bother looking up new recipes from vegan or vegetarian websites, just winged it and probably did the tofu injustice in the end. I'm sure a lot of this is just getting over ignorance over diets and thinking beyond the usual composition of the dinner plate.

unless your feet are underneath my table, i don't care what you eat...i also don't care what you'd rather be doing, what you "heart",or what your other car is.

I'm not on (nor do I believe in) Atkins - but I do watch what I eat. I read a menu thoroughly and if there's a chance the dish does NOT serve my dietary needs, I move on to something else. Is it worth it for me to have two mouthfuls of cheesy potatoes or an entire side of steamed veggies? (...After I have made clear to the waitperson I don't want them swimming in butter.) I do my best to choose a meal that needs little or no modification so as to streamline the ordering process and not be a PITA so beautifully described above by maggiesara ("And your mayonnaise, is it sugarless?")

Here's another "plate to spin." I spend 7 minutes thoroughly reading the menu, specifically to choose a dish that is not fried. I'm with a party of about 12. I finally ask the waitperson if there is a way to get a specific fish but not deep fried as it appears everywhere on the menu. Waitperson says no, which tells me the fish is purchased pre-breaded, so I bail on that. I see Fish Tacos. They do not have "fried" in the description...I was thrilled.

I order the fish tacos. As the rest of the table is presented with their food, a plate of fish tacos is put before me. THE FISH IS FRIED, then cut into strips, then placed in soft tortillas. I was livid. I really didn't want to cause a scene so I peeled away the fried coating and ate whatever little fillet remained.

When the waitperson came to clear the dishes, I said, "NO WHERE on this menu does it say 'fried' relating to the fish tacos." The idiot looked at me with a blank expression and said, "Oh."

Did my line of questioning not clue her in to the fact that I was trying to stay away from fried food? Did she not think it was worth mentioning to me that although not mentioned on the menu, the fish tacos did indeed include fried fish?

Not all waitstaff are this clueless. Recently at Cheddar's a waitperson told me the broccoli was usually served with butter but she would instruct the kitchen to skip the butter. I was grateful for her astute observation that I was being conscious of my food intake - and it was further displayed in my tip.

You know what it is? It's the entitlement that can be annoying (not all vegetarians are like that, I know).

When's the last time a vegetarian accomodated a meat-eater by serving meat at his or her party? When vegetarians get annoyed if a restaurant doesn't have veg options, I should be able to get annoyed that vegetarian restaurants don't have meat options. But, I don't. You won't find me requesting meat at your veggie burger festival, but you will find vegetarians demanding vegetarian options at a hamburger party. That is the annoying part.

I'd say that between thepictsie and myszka you have your answer.

Somewhat related: I'm putting together a Chinese banquet for a group of 15, one of whom does not eat any meat or poultry (though she will eat fish). Selecting the dishes and organizing the courses has been trickier than I had expected, because of the need to make sure that in every course there is at least one substantial item -- a combo of steamed rice and waterchestnut salad doesn't count -- that can accommodate my pescatorian friend's needs. The real glitch came about with the Peking duck, which I wanted to include partly because this restaurant does it very well, and partly because it's a festive dish that most poultry-eaters love and rarely get. But the restaurant typically presents the duck as its own course, and I didn't want the lone vegetarian sitting there with an empty plate. Eventually, I persuaded the restaurant to serve the duck along with vegetable-and-pine-nut lettuce "wraps," so there will be something nice for the Veggie to eat, and it will all be in the mode of hand-held sandwiches. Not really a big deal. However, the husband of one of the guests (it's essentially a business party) is a full-on vegetarian, no fish, and I have pretty much decided not to invite spouses -- partly because space starts to become problematic, but really because trying to accommodate his needs, in a banquet context (where I have to pay for 15 portions of tofu even if he's the only one likely to eat it AND forgo the crispy sea bass that everybody else would probably love) was a bigger headache than I was willing to take on.

All of which makes me think that the "hostility" with regard to restricted diets has in part to do with requiring the majority to accommodate the needs of a minority. If I own a restaurant, I have the resources -- the money, the staff, the storage space, etc. -- to offer X number of entrees per night. I know that the majority of my customers are likely to order meat, fish, or poultry. If I replace one of my MFP items with a vegetarian offering, to accommodate the relatively small percentage of my customers who are vegetarians, I reduce my potential for profit (especially because I am probably compelled to charge relatively little for the vegetarian entree, even though it may be considerably more labor-intensive than the steak or roast-chicken-breast dishes).

This holds true for home cooks as well. Say I've invited a bunch of people for dinner, and one of them eats no meat. Do I prepare a vegetarian meal for everyone, even though the majority of the guests would prefer to meat or fish or poultry? Do I strain my resources -- my time, my grocery budget -- so that I can provide beef stew for the majority and a vegetable casserole for the lone Veggie? As it happens, this problem doesn't really concern me -- I cook a lot of Asian food, and making a largely vegetarian meal, with some meat or fish elements, is very easy in that context. But I can see how it would be a real source of irritation.

I certainly don't mean to dump on vegetarians here -- the "minority" in this instance could be someone on any kind of restricted regime, whether it's low-carb or low-fat or low-salt or Kosher or what have you.

The attitudes espoused above about how difficult it is to accommodate vegetarians are why I rarely accept dinner invitations; I hate the idea of people altering their menus and serving other than what they'd prefer because of my dietary choices. I know a lot of folks on alternative diets who feel the same way - it's just not worth inconveniencing someone who wasn't already planning to make a vegetarian meal.

But Myszka, I don't understand why a vegetarian restaurant should have meat options - the point of vegetarian restaurants is that they don't serve meat, when 99% of restaurants out there do. Likewise, it's unreasonable to expect a vegetarian to "accommodate" meat eaters by serving meat when they have non-vegetarian guests - meat eaters can eat non-meat dishes that vegetarians can eat, so the comparison isn't quite fair.

No matter who has it, a sense of entitlement is infuriating, but it's important that we don't assume people have this attitude just because they follow a diet whose motives we personally can't understand.

A few reasons I get annoyed:

I'm already tired and stressed. I don't need to worry about prepping specific dishes for specific people. Come and eat. I'm not cooking for 4 year olds.

The sudden onslaught of "sensitivities" makes them feel bogus. How come, growing up, nobody was doubled over in pain from dairy, wheat, fish, tomatoes, blah blah? I doubt most sensitivities and actually think that most should be classified as "preferences." Not all -- most.

Entitlement (myszka nailed it), a proclivity to pontificate about why they eat what they eat, and an subtle hint of disdain for anyone who disagrees.

PETA and other action groups, for their over-the-top, animals-first, people-second attitude. My viewpoint is, go lay naked where a lion can find you -- animals will come first, and you'll assume your right position in the food chain. Why not expend all that vitriol saving abused children or helping the homeless?

All of this makes me envision the following scenario. Say I host a dinner party with nothing but hamburgers. The Atkinser peels away the bun like it's a turd. The waste-not "eat local" fanatic is tempted, but wonders if they sesame seeds were grown around the corner. The vegan shuns it, due to the eggs. The gluten-free simply turns up the nose. The basic dieter reaches for 3 tbl. of mayo and declares he cannot indulge in bread. Another has a "sensitivity" to yeast.

And many millions of kids crawl across glass to get it.

Get over yourselves.

tmj529, I agree that it's strange how dietary sensitivities seem to have escalated over the past few decades. From what I've read about celiac disease (no wheat/gluten) is that in the past, it was severely under-diagnosed, because its symptoms can be similar to the symptoms for a lot of problems, like depression or chronic fatigue syndrome, even migraines. Nut allergies are much more common than they were even a decade ago, which is why so many schools don't allow kids to have nuts or nut products in their packed lunches these days - anaphylactic shock is hard to argue with. And a lot of people become more sensitive to lactose as they age.

Disdain for others' choices and a sense of entitlement are extremely annoying, no matter if we're talking about the religious right or those on restricted diets. But equating the actions of PETA with the actions of those who choose not to eat animals for a variety of reasons, is unfair - PETA is a small group whose tactics and philosophy are offensive to a lot of people, including many vegetarians and vegans (like this one).

As far as "pontificating" - that is one point that strikes close to home for me. If I had a back ailment which I was able to alleviate with a combination of, say, yoga and acupuncture, I wouldn't think twice about suggesting this regimen to a friend with a similar ailment. But I bite my tongue if a friend mentions struggling with problems similar to those I've alleviated for myself with dietary changes. People are so sensitive about their diets, and so quick to feel judged when different choices are discussed (and, by extension, might chalk up a friendly suggestion as "typical vegetarian proselytizing"), that it's just not worth the discussion. I think that's a shame, but I've noticed it even among my close friends, with whom I would freely discuss, e.g., money or sex. Food is in a class of its own in this regard.

Re profitability of vegetarian dishes, no question that they're more profitable than meat or poultry dishes when costed on the basis of raw materials. But if you factor in labor, the cost can rise significantly. At a mid-level restaurant, the steak may well arrive already portioned, so it's just a matter of slapping it on the grill. Sprinkle some breadcrumbs on a halved tomato and stick it under the broiler, dish up a portion of the mashed potatoes that accompany half your entrees, and you're done. Chicken breast, salmon fillet...same story.

And then there's the vegetarian risotto. For the sake of convenience, let's assume you bring in your vegetable stock -- which is wasteful as hell, but does save someone endlessly cleaning and trimming the scraps of onion, mushroom, turnip, etc., and reducing it down and down and down until it actually has some body and flavor. Assume something relatively simple -- an asparagus and morel risotto, say. Somebody has to trim and peel all the asparagus, slice it, and par-cook it such that when it's turned into the rice base, the bottoms will be tender but the tips won't be overcooked. And somebody has to clean the morels, which can be sandy little buggers and harbor all kinds of creepy crawlies that no vegetarian (or anyone else, for that matter) is going to want to find on the plate. However, giving the morels a good solid rinse will leave them waterlogged, since they soak up moisture like mad, so you've got to go one at a time, cleaning each one individually. And then there's onion and garlic to mince, never mind that if you've got a halfway decent restaurant you're making the risotto to order, so someone's got to stand there stirring the damn stuff.

And that's for a bog-standard vegetarian entree, with no little zip or wow factor. I recently bought two vegetarian cookbooks that absolutely blow me away -- I can't wait to cook from them (Cafe Paradiso and Cafe Paradiso Seasons, for those playing at home, coming out of a truly incredible veg restaurant in Dublin). These dishes have some major wow factor. But many of them also involve a LOT of trimming and peeling and chopping before anything hits a pan. There's just a lot of labor there, compared with the labor involved in firing a chunk of protein, and labor costs money.

Sure, some protein -- especially if you're going for a wow --is a PITA as well. The person who invents the self-shelling shrimp will win my undying gratitude. But as much as I loathe shelling and deveining shrimp -- and it is just about my least-favorite kitchen chore -- it can't compare with, say, podding and shelling fava beans. Spend an hour on the shrimp, and you've got enough cleaned protein to feed a small platoon. Spend an hour on the fava beans, and you've got enough for maybe three portions, assuming it's a side-dish.

And then, seasonality comes in. Chicken is chicken, in May as in November. But tomatoes are not tomatoes in January, and if I'm putting vegetarian dishes on my menu in the winter -- and I don't live in Fresno -- I have a choice between serving a LOT of cabbage and root-vegetable stews (for which it's tough to get the punters to pay up) and using tasteless, expensive, out-of-season, flown-in-from-Chile produce, which will both piss off the locavore types and, again, send my food costs spiraling up.

And finally, the majority v. minority issue. I've got one incredibly hard-working kitchen porter. I can have him spend his time shelling and deveining shrimp, or peeling fava beans -- he can't do both. How many customers are likely to want the shrimp, if I put it on the menu, v. the number that are going to opt for Favas en Suprise? With finite resources, I have to choose between playing the majority and playing to the minority. As it happens, it makes sense to offer something that the minority can eat, so that mixed parties will be willing to come to my restaurant. But for every "minority" dish I put on my menu, I have to further restrict the number of "majority" offerings, and it becomes a pretty delicate financial balancing act.

Understand, I'm not arguing against restaurants' offering vegetarian dishes; rather, I'm suggesting one reason why the restaurant community, as a whole, may have some hostility toward vegetarians.

On another note -- because hey, it's two in the morning, and I got the keyboard, baby -- I used to have a friend in L.A. who would often have dinner in restaurants with his mother. The two of them would engage in a game I though of, privately, as "Who's More Allergic?" J would look at the menu and say, "I kind of like the idea of the beet salad, if they could make it without the hazelnuts." And his mother would say, "Oh god, beets, I even look at a beet and my blood pressure starts shooting up, I can feel the veins in my forehead starting to pulse." And J would say "Wow, the veins-thing, that's exactly what happened to me when I went to Maggiesara's house and she was cooking apples." And his mother would say, "Please, don't talk to me about apples. I was at your sister's, she gave little Sophie a glass of apple juice, they were in the kitchen, two rooms away, and I started breaking out in hives." And J would say "I used to have the hives-problem, but ever since I started drinking two glasses of pure spirulina-juice every time I went to the bathroom, the hives haven't been a problem. Well, at least, not with whole apples. Applesauce is another story."

And on and on and on. It became very clear that in their family, being a delicate flower conferred some kind of specialness -- everybody must race around making sure that every trace of apple has been wiped away, that nothing with beet-sugar in it or beet juice or pickled beets or maybe just the letter "b" has been anywhere near the house for at least 30 days. And in restaurants, of course, waiters are sent scurrying back and forth to the kitchen to determine whether the vegetarian dumplings have any soy products in them, whether the salad dressing is soured with lemon juice or (horrors!) vinegar ("it's FERMENTED," J explains with terrifying gravity), whether the "Buddha's Stir-Fry" can be prepared "without any nightshade vegetables" in it, etc.

J and his mother are nuts -- and, happily, hardly representative of any community of restricted eaters I can think of. But they do illustrate the extent to which a lot of people use food in ways that have nothing to do with nourishing the body and pleasing the taste buds. And I think that those of us on the outside who get dragged into these scenarios -- waiters, chefs, home cooks whose only sin was in inviting someone over for dinner -- have reason to resent being forced to play a roll in someone else's tedious psychodrama.

maggiesara, please don't go on like that...I laughed so hard I nearly hurt myself.

I wondered about chefs' intolerance, but my family hates my plant-based diet too . . .

I live at home right now. My mother has adopted an all-red-meat diet since I went pescetarian. I feel bad contributing to the decreased health of my family, but there's not much I can do. I offer to cook for them frequently (especially since my mother hates having to cook) - but my mother and brother refuse all ethnic and all meatless meals (my dad likes everything, and gets really, really angry if I don't make enough food to share).

On our last family vacation, my college-age sister threw a temper-tantrum, yes, a temper-tantrum, because the menu at one restaurant did not include chicken. By that, I mean that it had terayaki chicken, which she did not feel like. And she didn't like fish, pork, or beef, except for hamburger, but she didn't feel like hamburger, and next time *she* was picking the restaurant, because if she couldn't eat here, I shouldn't be able to eat somewhere else.

She's also the girl who went to a Vietnamese restaurant - and ordered a strawberry smoothie.

I'm the family member on a "restricted diet" - but I'm used to being flexible - packing snacks, ordering salads sans bacon or baked potatoes, etc. So I too am annoyed by relentlessly closed-minded eaters. But I think there's a distinction between a vegetarian/ vegan/ allergy-related "food restriction," and someone like my sister, who could, but didn't "feel like," eating any of the options on the menu.

I won't lie - I certainly don't understand some food restrictions, and I know that some diets would not work for me, just like I understand that my diet would not work for some other people.

I do get annoyed by people who don't want to try new foods, especially ethnic foods (It seems closed-minded to assume that only Europeans and their descendents, not to mention Kraft Foods, can produce edible meals) - but I guess we all prove a bit crazy and snobby when it comes to food preferences.