by Clyde Starr

Created on: January 24, 2012

One of the most difficult tasks for the modern entertainer having a group of friends over for dinner and conversation is trying to make food that is appealing to everyone involved. This is made much more difficult if anyone on the guest list has any special dietary requirements or preferences that would prevent you from serving standard party fare such as a meat and cheese tray.

Probably one of the hardest of these circumstances is when someone who is a comfortable meat eater, familiar with your standard omnivorous foods you could serve to anyone, showing up, is tasked with entertaining vegetarians. The difficulty here is compounded by the fact that there happens to be several different varieties of vegetarians out there, and each vegetarian has his or her own reason for being one. You might ask what does it matter the moralistic values of the guests when it comes to why they chose to be a vegetarian, but this reason behind their food preference does come into play if you are going to be serving them food.

Your standard vegetarian just doesn't eat meat. Without taking their reasons for this choice into consideration, you could simply plan your meal not to include any beef, chicken, pork or fish, and be done with it. The market is full of vegetarian versions of meat dishes that you could possibly serve, including no-meat bacon, and vegetarian beef stew, believe it or not. However, many of these vegetarians are this way because of a religious or moral reticence over the eating of meat, or at least a given type of meat. For those morally opposed to the consumption of meat and meat products, you have to take into account if whatever your cooking was flavored using meat bases and broths, as well as if it includes any meat byproducts that might also offend your guests. 

Some vegetarians are what we call Lacto-Ovo Vegetarians, which means in addition to not eating meat, they also do not eat such products that come from animals including eggs, milk, and cheese. Now, cutting out the meat and meat products becomes a much harder proposition when you also have to eliminate the various other protein sources that come from meat animals as well. When you are stuck also eliminating flavoring agents such as beef and chicken broths and bouillon, your task can seem almost impossible.

One of the best fallback ideas in situations like this is to focus your meal using cultural dishes that are already geared towards the more vegetarian palate, such as many Indian and

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