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AIBU?

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Is it common to have the fruit bowl on the dining table?

305 replies

viiswi · 16/03/2018 15:41

Hi

Hubby and I have a dilema.

He wants the fruit bowl on the dining table.

I always thought it was common. We currently have it on a side table.

Please be gentle with me.....Grin

x

OP posts:
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JaceLancs · 01/02/2026 22:47

We only have a kitchen diner so one table which we eat at as well
In the middle of it I have a bowl full of glass fruit then up to 2-3 smaller bowls with edible fruits separately
Thankfully it’s a big table
Coffee table in lounge has a glass dish of shite like the odd drawers of same elsewhere - spare car keys, receipts, candle lighters, misc other stuff!

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 01/02/2026 22:40
Grin
TomRavenscroft · 01/02/2026 22:02

Just realised I’m replying to myself Blush I’m easily confused and I’ve had a name change of two since.
Probably frightfully common of me.

TomRavenscroft · 01/02/2026 22:01

TomRavenscroft · 16/03/2018 16:13

Never mind a fruit bowl, Nigella Lawson likes to keep all kinds of fruit separate and even have black and white grapes on different plates, and she's pretty posh. She calls it 'institutional' to have a mixed bowl, for which read 'common'. Grin

My fruit is all cheerfully mixed together, sometimes with some renegade veg too. It's only not on the table because the table is too cluttered. It's on a sort of side unit/storage thing in the kitchen.

Yes, I remember reading that. It’s funny how laissez-faire Nigella is about many things and then how snobbish about a few weird things.
Mine is resolutely mixed, and on my dining table, although the room itself is more of a kitchen diner.
At the moment - Nigella would shudder - next to the fruit bowl is a punnet of plums, as in a plastic punnet, cheerfully displaying its Morrisons label Shock

Gin4lunch · 01/02/2026 20:59

morningconstitutional2017 · 16/03/2018 16:22

I eat fruit every day but I never leave a bowl of anything edible on any table as I couldn't guarantee that puss wouldn't rub her face in it.

WOW!!!

Oysterbabe · 21/03/2018 15:03

I don't have a fruit bowl. I keep fruit in the fridge apart from bananas that tend to live on the kitchen counter next to the butter dish. Maybe buying one would make me eat more fruit. I'd keep it on the dining table out of reach of toddler and baby.

JacquesHammer · 21/03/2018 14:56

Ours is on the dining table.

However there is only two of us here so no moving ever needed Grin

viiswi · 21/03/2018 14:14

@Ohfuckinghellwhatnow

Thank you xx

OP posts:
boboismylove · 20/03/2018 23:30

its from a pound shop but is actually quite nice

boboismylove · 20/03/2018 23:29

I keep it on the table and is used for tobacco and crisps

finominow · 20/03/2018 23:27

I have two fruit bowls (not counting the tinned fruit in the larder or the fruit winders in the biscuit tin) because I once read that it was quite wrong to keep bananas alongside other fruit. Both bowls are kept on the kitchen windowsill. Sometimes I like to place a bowl piled high with just one type of fruit (red apples in spring/ summer, or satsumas around Christmas) on the kitchen table in case anyone visits so I can look all harvesty.
Other times the fruit bowls are filled with the odd shrivelled lime, some biros and spare AA batteries.
HTH

Herbalteahippie · 20/03/2018 23:27

Shut up and eat the bloody fruit. Smash the bowl on your head after.

sockunicorn · 20/03/2018 23:16

mine is on the dining room table. Its a 6 seater (8 if the ends are used) and theres only 4 of us so we just slide it down the table to the unused 2 seats end when we have meals :)

TheRagingGirl · 20/03/2018 22:22

What’s fruit?

@cosyLulu Grin Grin Cake

Ohfuckinghellwhatnow · 20/03/2018 11:18

Seriously? You are calling poor OP common because she used the word "hubby"? How mean and disrespectful. OP, put you fruit bowl wherever the heck you like and furnish it with however many varieties of fruit you like, because guess what? There is no fruit bowl police, people! It's your HOME not a homage to Nigella or Kelly-fucking-Hoppen. Do we really live in a world where your fruit bowl contents and placing is THAT important? What a time to be alive..... Wink

flowerslemonade · 20/03/2018 08:27

I don't have one, I keep my fruit in the fridge.
I don't have a dining room or kitchen table though which might be why.

toomuchtooold · 20/03/2018 05:58

I think if you actually have a dining table there's a limit to how common you can be. When I was a kid all meals were eaten on the coffee table as we didn't have a dining table - no room for one in the kitchen, and certainly no dining room. And what's more, it was the only flat surface in the house - I had to do my homework on there until I got a little desk when I was 8, which I then used till I was 14 and my dad's work was getting rid of their old office furniture out of the HR/accounts department and they offered them for free to anyone who wanted one. Meals continued to be eaten on the coffee table except on Christmas when the fold-up table would be retrieved from the cupboard and set up in the corner of the living room for the duration.

And you try and tell the young people that... they won't believe you Grin

CosyLulu · 20/03/2018 05:04

What’s fruit?

LillianGish · 19/03/2018 09:56

Can’t believe this thread is still going - good to know where everyone stands on the crucial issue of the day. Asked DH what he thought and his contribution is to say that if you have to ask/care whether or not something is common then you probably are and where you keep your fruit bowl makes not one jot of difference.

LyannaStarktheWolfMaid · 18/03/2018 22:38

My little butcher block trolly also has two baskets for veg and surplus fruit that doesn’t fit in the bowl. I also have a separate bowl for tomatoes, and a box for onions and garlic. I often have a stunt pineapple, which usually gets eaten after a week or two. In the autumn I sometimes buy some stunt baby squash...nobody ever eats these. 😳

LyannaStarktheWolfMaid · 18/03/2018 22:33

Ours is on a kitchen trolly butcher block type thing. Otherwise I would think sideboard or worktop. Having it on the table would be a pain!

RegentsParkWolf · 18/03/2018 22:09

For the love of god how has this run to twelve pages? (In the interest of transparency - ours is on the sideboard and we have a banana hanging thing)

Bloodybridget · 18/03/2018 19:21

Ours lives on top of the fridge (not a tall fridge). I never thought about any class implications!

Gin4lunch · 18/03/2018 19:21

I'm cooking a rare breed shoulder of hogget and need advice on what wine to use in the gravey.dh feels red is best but I'm not sure.please help as I like white.

TheRagingGirl · 18/03/2018 19:20

just don't rely on her baking recipes as I did some odd things happened

I've had her How to Eat since it first came out - way before her television programmes - it was a book made from her Spectator columns basically - and I find her basic recipes in that pretty OK. Although for baking I go back to Marguerite Patten & my mother's Good Housekeeping book from the mid-50s.