To not heat my dinner plate?

I think I might need to get one; I enjoy cooking and entertaining and could do without an extra chore when everything's coming together. I also want to get an old fashioned hostess trolley for the dining room!

Lighten up Beth! It's just a chat about gravy and cold food 😂

Anyway, to my fellow warm food fans - I would highly recommend getting a plate warmer. Best investment I ever made!

Yes we like our food rested too, for the most part. But then we like it to stay at optimal temperature for as long as possible whilst eating, so we warm (not heat!) our plates to facilitate that.

Wouldn't do it for pizza though, and we don't have to do it for pasta anymore either since we got lovely thick pasta bowls that conserve heat very nicely.

I heat them at the weekend and for smarter meals and guests (unless it’s a lot of guests and I don’t have space to warm them in the oven.) Never done the boiling water thing, would get stressed with that I think as they must surely need to be dried too. But in a hurry after work in the week, rarely think of it or do it. The DC moan if food is too hot as well…

Lots of food tastes much better once allowed to rest.

Absolutely pointless!

How much heat from your warm plate do you think is going to transfer to the presumably sizzling hot toppings through a pizza crust?

My dad always wants a warm plate, my mum is less bothered.

I bought him an electric plate warmer for Christmas one year, my mum said he uses it every day! It is like an electric blanket for plates!

"Cook the plates" is funny.

"Just a couple of minutes in the air fryer!"

If you put hot food on a hot plate it’s pretty obvious the food is also going to cool down. You cannot change the laws of physics.

Seems like we've found MN's new bunfight topic.

Nothing.

Read the original post.

My husband would love if I did heat his plate. I hate heated plates as I don’t like my food burning hot and I’m always getting burnt by things as im
clumsy. DPIL and DP to a lesser extent don’t like their food unless it’s hotter than magma. I genuinely cannot eat for 5 minutes when we eat at their house as it’s so scalding hot. I prefer mine lukewarm

Deep.

What are you talking about? How slowly are you serving? How can the food possibly be cold? Is this a Christmas dinner you're eating outside in the snow?

Here's what I don't understand. A course might take 10-15 minutes to eat. During that time it will no longer be the piping hot temperature some of you seem to crave. How do you all cope after the first minute or two?

No-one eats a whole meal piping hot unless they are eating out of a pan still cooking on the hob. Food cools down aas you eat it.

I thought it was a funny reply. Reading comprehension fail.

The previous post said 'nothing worse than cold gravy'

I would have gone with 'paper cuts'

Not all us 'old people' can be bothered (I only do it at Christmas, because with so many items to serve oneself everything tends to end up rapidly cooling by the time anyone gets to a table with a full plate) but my DD and SIL (30s) are meticulous about hot plates, because they don't like food cooling down too fast. Nothing 'generational ' there. Just personal taste.

But typically for MN this topic has turned a simple question into an 'aren't old people ridiculous!' thing.

I always bung the plates in the warming drawer if we’re having something hot. Can’t stand hot food that isn’t quite hot enough 🤢 Neither elderly nor a slow eater.

This tickled me - my DM is obsessed with heating the plates (which I assume she got from her mother my late DGM, equally obsessed, had a heated hostess trolly which used to get wheeled from the kitchen to the dining room for every single meal, lest the food cooled for even a nanosecond before being eaten). I think people fall into two camps, it’s either vitally important to you, or you couldn’t be more unbothered (I’m in the latter camp). Recently moved house and now have more ovens - finally, finally I’ll be able to meet my DM’s plate heating requirements (it’s v difficult if you only have one oven to cook a roast dinner, Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes AND heat not only the plates but also the serving plates, which my DM requires).

I heat them for a roast dinner and ‘special’ meals but everyday - nah, I’m usually shovelling food in so quickly it doesn’t have time to get cold! I also have side salad with hot stuff and that’s weird off a hot plate.

It's got to get shoehorned in, somehow.

Wtf , how is serving hot or cold gravy ( or anything else) racist!

My ex MIL used to insist on heating up chips from the chip shop. They'd be put in the oven and would turn soggy. I wouldn't put mine in, when they were plenty hot enough.

I don't bother unless the oven is in when the plates warm nicely sitting above in the top oven. It is nice as keeps food hotter for longer but a faff I can do without generally. I expect the 'older generations' do a few more things which younger people no longer bother with.

Good question! I'm 54 and always remember my mum doing it.

I always zap my plates in the microwave to take the chill off it. Takes literally 30secs.

I have a thing about cold food being served though.