Hosting a dinner does mean taking some care to make sure you actually serve food people can eat. From dietary and religious restrictions, to people making a choice to avoid certain ingredients, communication is key.
A man decided to prepare a dish with some venison, only for one dinner guest to flip out, as she believed that he should have disclosed it beforehand. People online were divided on who exactly was in the wrong. We reached out to the host in the story via private message and will update the article when he gets back to us.
Cooking for a large group of people does mean making sure you know who eats and doesn’t eat what
Image credits: piasupuntongpool / envanto (not the actual photo)
One man ended up under fire for cooking his guests venison
Image credits: Miguel_SR / envanto (not the actual photo)
Image credits: mcd_brkfst
Humans have eaten venison, since the dawn of time
While in this day and age venison might be seen as more of a luxury, in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, it’s still a commonly found protein. Even if you are not from a place where it’s eaten often, deer meat is not exactly the most exotic item. After all, our ancestors worldwide ate deer and its ilk far into the 20th century.
Indeed, the very word we use in English, venison, point’s back towards its origins. Venison, from the Latin venari, meaning “to hunt or pursue” indicates exactly how our ancestors saw deer and its meat. Basically, humans have been eating deer or one of its relatives ever since we were hunter-gatherers. While it might seem a bit “gross” to some modern readers, venison isn’t the same as “road meat” and is a common ingredient to this day.
However, some suggest that it’s still worth warning the guests about the ingredients in the dishes. While, on paper, this makes sense, realistically, the host needs to know ahead of time about any dietary restrictions. Announcing a meat-based dish at dinner only to learn that half of the guests are vegetarians would simply never fly. Cooking for just one person is already a bit of work, cooking a big dinner takes a ton of energy and people should be more appreciative.
The host had no idea it would be an issue
Based on what the person in the text wrote, they were aware of any restrictions (or lack thereof) and as far as they knew, their dishes would be accepted. At worst, this could be a miscommunication, the host believed that people who eat meat would accept venison, the woman didn’t expect meat to mean meat from a deer.
The real “issue” here is the woman’s reaction, instead of freaking out, she could have simply told the host her future preferences. After all, when you enter someone’s house and they cook for you a dish that you haven’t told them not to, it’s a bit rude to suddenly get angry. Similarly, comparing venison to opossum is just frankly insulting. All in all, this seems like a small and absolutely petty argument.
All in all, this is just a classic example of an overreaction. It’s ok to not like venison for a variety of reasons, but flipping out at the host is absolutely unreasonable, particularly if you didn’t actually indicate anywhere that it would be an issue. After all, if you are a guest and you don’t communicate your expectations, you sort of have to deal with what you get.
Some folks asked for more details
Most thought he was in the right
But a few thought he could have actually checked first
Lastly, some readers thought the entire thing was mishandled
