What do you call this type of meal?

[tectonicplates]

I had never heard the term "picky tea" before joining MN.

I'm talking about the kind of meal where you have some slices of bread, a selection of vegetables and dips, cheese, and often some leftovers and things so it turns out a bit random. You put all the food in the middle of the table and everyone helps themselves.

What do you call this meal in your family?

It is a Saturday Tea, regardless of what day it is. Surprised you lot didn't already know this. 🙄

We call it 'cold tea' . Huge treat for DC when they were little as they were allowed to eat it in front of the television. We often had it on Sunday evenings.

I have to admit I am sniggering at all the 'discusting' comments.

Never had a tea made up of odds and ends that didn't get finished: bits of cheese, slice of ham, corned beef, wedge of a pork pie. All you need add is a wedge of bread and pickles. What do you do with small amounts of leftovers?

That you may pick at a scab makes a picky tea gross. Why? How weird are you that you can't separate food from scabby knees?

It's just MN oddities. Like the toilet brush, washing towels after each and every use etc. Weird!

This is how we often do lunch, so we don't call it anything special!

I had a friend come round once who was amazed at this approach 'do you often do it like this???' like it was an amazing revelation. It's just less work and people can have what they want!

We call it Party Food

Oh lol just reading back a bit. I do this as it was how we did it when I was young, and my grandparents etc.

The phrase 'cold collation' rings a bell

Fridge tapas. Or if I put a picnic blanket on the floor a carpet picnic.

Picnic, indoor picnic, cheese board, mezze, tapas or freezer tapas (if frozen items involved).

Or for my Dutch family, breakfast or lunch! (Cheese, plus bread, salads is breakfast!)
Tea is a drink here. Never heard of ”picky tea” before

My dc call it a feast!!!

Never had a tea made up of odds and ends that didn't get finished: bits of cheese, slice of ham, corned beef, wedge of a pork pie. All you need add is a wedge of bread and pickles. What do you do with small amounts of leftovers?

We never really have leftovers like that, they all just get eaten.
Our leftovers consist of things like carrots, mashed potato or a portion of a meal. I usually end up eating them because nobody else will!

Party tea in our house

It's fridge tapas in our house, basically the dregs of the fridge the night before the food delivery.

Buffet.

I think we just call it "random". But if it's a fridge clear out, it's more likely to be "stuffinapan" or "bottom of the fridge stew", because the dregs of the fridge are things like leftover lentil soup, or mashed potato, or vegetables like carrots, celery that are going a bit bendy and unsuitable for eating raw. We do have mixed cold stuff sometimes, but we don't really buy ham etc very often, so that kind of meal is more likely to be bits from the reduced deli shelf in Morrisons, so it's yellow sticker tea, or when we were little "mum's gone a bit mad with the 10p samosas"

Bits and bobs

Bread and stuff. We are quite a literal family.

We call it a picnic dinner as we do sit on the floor/balcony to eat it, in normal times we would take it to the park.

We like this sort of meal so much that we have been known to have Christmas dinner on 24 Dec, so as to be able to celebrate properly with the leftovers!

My DP and I used to have this quite a lot (not so much any more, although I don’t know why). Deli dinner is what we call it, because it’s mainly stuff you get in delis like tubs of olives, cheese, sliced meats etc. We’d usually cook one thing, maybe peppers in tomato chilli sauce, so there was one hot thing.

We call it a picky bits lunch / tea

AChickenCalledDaal, we have Christmas dinner on the 24th too as we both love leftover roast chicken and roast potatoes. We have it with salad, cheese, pickles, crisps etc. It means no one has to cook on Christmas Day.

It's an 'SOS' here - 'stretch or starve'! Very popular!

Picky bits!

My friend calls it a picky lunch/tea. We just say snack tea (which could also mean sandwiches)

We like this sort of meal so much that we have been known to have Christmas dinner on 24 Dec, so as to be able to celebrate properly with the leftovers!

@AChickenCalledDaal You're brilliant. I love this