Holiday Dinner Hosting Etiquette

Etiquette and Talking Tofu:

Welcoming the Vegan or Vegetarian Holiday Guest

Thanksgiving can be torture for folks who don’t eat meat. So, if you want to make a vegetarian feel like part of a holiday crowd, never, ever ask:

1. You don’t mind if there is some beef stock in the soup, do you?
2. Is this, like, a spiritual thing?

3. How do you get your protein?

4. Do you need to leave the room when we bring out the turkey?

5. Does your mother know about this?

6. Isn’t that tofu dish we made special for you interesting?

7. Wasn’t Hitler a vegetarian?

8. Can’t you just pick the meat out of it?

9. Do you have anything against dessert?

10. Why are you a vegetarian?

By David Colker, Los Angeles Times, 1991

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia