This imagination exercise was hypothetical; however, a very similar situation happened to me. I was initially overjoyed to learn that there was a vegetarian offering at the rehearsal dinner, the night before my wedding. Understandably, during the hectic business of pre-wedding planning, no one thought to ask what exactly would be served. On the night in question, we were looking forward to our rehearsal dinner (a large one, because of the large bridal party). All of the meat dinners were brought, steaming plates of Chicken FranVaise with sauced vegetables and rice on the side.
In a few minutes, the staff brought out the vegetarian dinners. When they did I thought there was some sort of pre-wedding practical joke being played on me. On the plate was a pile of carrot, broccoli, and zucchini strips. They were steamed just past the point of being flavorful and devoid of any sauce or accompaniment. In addition, the chef had made no attempt to present the food in an appealing manner; it was just piled on the plate and allowed to tumble at will.
The server must have seen the look of confused disappointment on my face because she returned a moment later with a regular meal that she had just assembled in the kitchen. "You can at least eat the vegetables and rice from the regular meal," she offered. I attempted to eat the plain veggies, but the meal lacked any taste or texture. I eventually ate the sauced side dish and the rice from the meat meal. I was aware that the sauce contained meat stock, but there were no other choices at the time.
This incident has remained in my mind for the two years since my wedding. While vegetarianism is infiltrating our popular culture, the chef at this well-to-do hotel had obviously not had any experience with cooking vegetarian meals for special events. If you are planning a wedding and expect to serve vegetarian fare, you'll need to do a bit more planning than I did. Unless you like plain, steamed carrots.
