'AITA for making my sister-in-law cook a dish that she's highly allergic to?' UPDATED

"AITA for making my sister-in-law cook a dish that she's highly allergic to?"

38M, married with three kids. Recently, my mom turned 65 and begged to see her kids/grandchildren on her birthday. I have an older brother who’s married with 4 kids (ages 2-12, only youngest 2 are his) and a much younger brother (23) who’s single. My wife and I offered to host a weekend get together.

My older brother had to work late the first night, but his wife Emily (fake name) offered to come earlier in the day with the kids and cook dinner for everyone. Emily is a great cook and her parents own a local restaurant that’s well known for a dish they serve once a month.

Emily is the chef for that dish and my wife and I have had it but my mom and brother haven’t tried it. I asked Emily when she arrived that day if she would make the dish and she agreed. I had most of what she needed but I told her to text my younger brother for any extra items and I would pay for them.

Dinner went great, food was wonderful. But at some point, my mom took a picture of her plate and sent it to my older brother with a caption that said something like “you’re missing out!” and then it all went to sh!#.

The reason Emily only makes this dish once a month at the restaurant is because she’s highly allergic to one of the main ingredients. Her parents are weirdly protective of the recipe and won’t let anyone else cook it. I assumed this was common knowledge within my family but she and my brother have only been together about 5 years, so maybe it hasn’t come up.

In any case, my brother was FURIOUS that I asked her to make it. My little brother said I was “disgusting” and my mom dramatically claimed that I put her in “danger.” Frankly, I think the reaction was ridiculous. She’s a grown woman and clearly knows how to manage her allergy. It’s not like she ate it. Also, Emily didn’t seem upset about anything and was off watching a movie with all the kids so didn’t hear any of this.

I kind of thought it had blown over after a couple hours, until my older brother got there around midnight and found Emily in the kitchen eating some cereal. He told me it was “bu%$s@!t” that I made her cook a meal she can’t eat and then let her eat cereal. Again, this woman is a grown up. She could have asked my little brother to get her something else to cook for herself but she didn’t.

At that point, I was tired. My wife had cleaned the kitchen and Emily had gotten the kids in bed. So when my older brother pulled out a chicken breast saying he was going to cook something for Emily, I put my foot down and said no.

I feel like my family babies Emily as it is (lots of reasons for this, I understand it but it’s frustrating) and I wasn’t willing to let my brother make another mess cooking a whole other meal at 12 am. The whole rest of the weekend was awkward and strained and basically ended with my mom and younger brother telling me that I ruined the whole get together. Do I not get to set boundaries in my own house??

What do you think? AITA? Or was he just "setting boundaries"? This is what top commenters had to say:

MidnightMalaga said:

YTA. Emily offered to make dinner for everyone, incredibly generously, and you asked her to make the one thing she couldn't eat herself? And then you refused to let her husband make her a meal after he got home because you didn't want the mess? You're an unbelievable @$$hole.

Quinntissential said:

I feel like it’s being hugely glossed over here that Emily has tried to STOP making this dish completely but her parents won’t allow her to because they’re protective of the recipe. To the point that it’s caused arguments between them and Emily’s not willing to keep fighting about it so she just keeps cooking it.

You know all this, but you still asked her to make it for you and your family. MORE THAN ONCE.

Pretty sure your brother was mad because that’s incredibly disrespectful. I wonder how it feels for Emily to try to opt out of cooking something she’s allergic to, only to be told by her family that her health isn’t that important to them. And then she goes to YOUR family’s house where you do the exact same thing.

Plus it sounds like she cooked, then tended to 7 CHILDREN while you all ate. No wonder her husband wanted to make her something other than cereal.

I almost never comment on these, but you’re a MASSIVE @$$hole taking advantage of someone that’s just too nice to stick up for herself. YTA so hard.

[deleted] said:

YTA. Asking her to cook isn't so bad if she cooks it regularly anyway. You telling your brother he couldn't make his wife food after she just made your whole family a meal she couldn't eat makes you a GIANT A$$HOLE and your brother should have put you in your place.

First off, you should have made sure she had something to eat since she was doing you a favor cooking a meal SHES ALLERGIC TO. The utter lack of consideration here is really awful. You should apologize to her and your brother. I'm ashamed of you.

And rouguebitch said:

Wow, YTA. Why didn’t you let her eat? The comment about everyone babying her makes me think you may be telling only part of the story.

He later shared this update:

I can see that I’m definitely the AH. Got it. I showed my wife this post and the replies this morning. She hasn’t commented much on this situation and said today it was because she was so embarrassed by my behavior that she didn’t know what to say. But she agreed with almost everyone.

I called Emily this morning and my brother answered her phone. I talked to him for about an hour and then was able to apologize to Emily. She explained that she said yes to cooking because she knew how much I like the dish and also she doesn’t think I like her that much, so she was worried I would be upset if she said no.

My brother also explained that her allergy has topical effects as well, and the cooking process gets the allergen everywhere which is why she hates cooking it so much (and also why she can’t make anything else for herself at the same time). Please note that I know I was the @$$hole even without this info. It just makes it worse.

It also makes me look at the situation with her parents differently because they’ve been having her make this meal for years and downplaying the skin reactions like it’s not a big deal.

I work in a really cutthroat, callous environment. It’s not an excuse to be thoughtless with my family, but I do think it’s had some clear effects in my general attitude toward other people. I DO like Emily. She improved my brother’s life profoundly when they got together which is part of why my family loves her like they do.

Emily was more gracious accepting my apology than I deserve but she did also tell me that she won’t be accepting invites to my house again for a while, which I think is fair. I was mad at first reading a lot of the comments but I needed the reality check. Thanks.