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ventaHello! If you are a person with complicated dietary requirements, maybe you can give me some advice.
My dance team organises an event once a year (it's this Sunday, in Oxford, if you want to come along). It takes the form of a pub crawl, with dancing. At the final pub, people settle down for a chat and so on, and we provide home-made cake. We make sure that there is at least some gluten-free and some dairy-free cake, for people who eat that sort of thing.
However, for the past few years the landlord of the pub has started providing food as well. Not only does he let us use the function room for no cost he provides, at his own expense, food of the bucket-o'-stew variety. I think providing food (one meat option, one veggie, plus rice) for around a hundred people is jolly decent of him.
However, last year I got quite a mouthful from one of the attendees because their dietary requirements were not met by either of the options. If we were providing formal catering and charging people, I would expect to have asked in advance what people's requirements were, and tried to ensure they were all met. However, when the catering is being done entirely as a good-will gesture, I don't feel we can really present the landlord with a list of complicated requirements (last year I think the veggie option was also GF and DF, which I'd thought was pretty good already).
So... the details for the event say that the landlord will be providing food. I'd like to add something along the lines of this being a couple of basic options, provided by him for free, and that it might not be suitable for everyone. I have no idea how to phrase this, and don't want to sound like I'm dismissing people with detailed food constraints - I'd just like everyone to feel that they've been properly informed about what they can expect.
Alternatively, if you think I'm being unreasonable (from my privileged perspective of someone who can pretty much bite into anything without worrying) then please say so.
If it's relevant, the pub does also serve a regular pub menu (pub classics, sarnies, jacket spuds etc), and people are welcome to order their own food.
My dance team organises an event once a year (it's this Sunday, in Oxford, if you want to come along). It takes the form of a pub crawl, with dancing. At the final pub, people settle down for a chat and so on, and we provide home-made cake. We make sure that there is at least some gluten-free and some dairy-free cake, for people who eat that sort of thing.
However, for the past few years the landlord of the pub has started providing food as well. Not only does he let us use the function room for no cost he provides, at his own expense, food of the bucket-o'-stew variety. I think providing food (one meat option, one veggie, plus rice) for around a hundred people is jolly decent of him.
However, last year I got quite a mouthful from one of the attendees because their dietary requirements were not met by either of the options. If we were providing formal catering and charging people, I would expect to have asked in advance what people's requirements were, and tried to ensure they were all met. However, when the catering is being done entirely as a good-will gesture, I don't feel we can really present the landlord with a list of complicated requirements (last year I think the veggie option was also GF and DF, which I'd thought was pretty good already).
So... the details for the event say that the landlord will be providing food. I'd like to add something along the lines of this being a couple of basic options, provided by him for free, and that it might not be suitable for everyone. I have no idea how to phrase this, and don't want to sound like I'm dismissing people with detailed food constraints - I'd just like everyone to feel that they've been properly informed about what they can expect.
Alternatively, if you think I'm being unreasonable (from my privileged perspective of someone who can pretty much bite into anything without worrying) then please say so.
If it's relevant, the pub does also serve a regular pub menu (pub classics, sarnies, jacket spuds etc), and people are welcome to order their own food.
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no subject
Date: 2015-12-01 10:42 am (UTC)In fact this thread underlines the need to let people state our requirements. Ticky boxes are often more hindrance than help.
Eg yyour mention of cupcakes suggests a menu item I'd avoid. Gluten-free or dairy-free wouldn't have made any difference. Anything made from flour - esp wheat flour - is risky for me. But risky, not banned entirely. 100% rye sourdough bread is part of my staple diet. Wholemeal wheat bread is not. This makes sense: I have IBS, not coeliac disease.
If I'd been at your buffet I'd have eaten a postage-stamp sized piece of bread, esp if slathered with butter, maybe dipped in gravy. I'd have declined rice but if one of the stews had included potatoes I'd have scoffed a full portion. Unless it'd included more than a tiny bit of cabbage, cauliflower or asparagus.
Oh the joy of disability ;-)