Carlos Bastarache: Spiked-Vegan.jpg

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There seems to be a general consensus that vegans are annoying. I get it. I do. I have been vegetarian my entire life. I was vegan for about five years. Militantly vegan. Like, PETA-level vegan. Put weird stickers about dead animals on meat at the grocery store vegan. I was annoying. And, people had the option to avoid me or to say, “Alia, stop being annoying.” However, no one in that entire time took it upon themselves to intentionally give me animal products to put me in my place. Because while my behavior was annoying, “spiking” my food is clearly worse.

That isn’t the case for the vegan diners who incurred the wrath of Laura Goodman, chef and co-owner of Carlini in Shropshire (England). On December 29th, the chef took to a private group called Boring Group to vent her spleen — declaring “Spiked a vegan a few hours ago.” Other members of the group had questions about this, so she expounded: “Pious, judgmental vegan (who I spent all day cooking for) has gone to bed, still believing she’s a vegan.”

Well friends… that can’t be good.

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People continued pressing for answers until Goodman added to her story. First, she amended her statement. “Actually I should have said ‘they’re’ not a vegan … not ‘she’s,'” — thus changing the number of spikees from a single terrible vegan to a mass of them. Then, she added, “Started with asking me to telephone them, over Christmas, to discuss the dietary requirements of their guests within a set time frame, and ended with me wondering why I’m explaining this simplistic post to a pious c—.” She obviously didn’t expect pushback from the group and rather than examine her own behavior, she turned on them.

If you are playing internet villain bingo at home, make sure you marked off violated a professional trust, boasted about it to virtual strangers, became defensive, and lashed out. You know what happens next: THE SHIT GOES VIRAL.

Carlini #Shifnal chef Laura Goodman 'posts about giving meat to vegans' ~ truly disgusting behaviour and makes me really worry as a #vegetarian how many other vigilante chefs there are out there against non meat eaters https://t.co/lXIdzYOJgK

— Kate Phillips (@shropshirekat) January 1, 2018

Now, vegans and non-vegans alike are flooding Trip Advisor, Yelp, Facebook, and Twitter with their low opinions of Goodman and her actions. They are even taking to the telephone to directly level death threats at the chef, which her fiancee (and co-owner of the restaurant) says is making her “suicidal.” He has also started backpedaling for her, insisting she merely gave her vegan customers a pizza Margherita with mozzarella.

Even if that is the case, you have to disclose it’s not vegan cheese when people who called you ahead of time and explained their dietary needs order it, you dink.

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An astute commenter on Facebook made a fair analogy: “I’m an omnivore but I am a lifelong teetotaller and would be very upset if someone spiked my drink,” she wrote. “There is no reason, medical or otherwise, why I can’t drink alcohol — I just don’t. On Christmas Day I take my own bottle of non-alcoholic wine because most people don’t see the point of getting it in, and I’m stuck with pop or Schloer, which is just grape juice. Or even worse, they think it’s funny to openly give me alcohol and say, ‘Oh, just get it down you, live a little.’ Very insulting.”

We don’t think that death threats are an acceptable response, but the anger being leveled feels appropriate to a degree. Certainly, no vegan can ever dine at that restaurant and feel safe ever again. But, really can anyone with a dietary restriction? There is a trust that exists between the person providing and the person receiving food, and without it dining is a nightmare. And, should you need to make substitutions or decline ingredients for health reasons, it can literally be deadly.

Yes, we get that vegans can be annoying. You know who is even worse? “Spiking” chefs.