What do you call this plate of food...?

[Lostinbooksandcoffee]

When you have a selection of various foodstuffs? For example:
Crackers, cheese, ham, boiled egg, hummus, crudités, pork pie or sausage roll, grapes.

Basically, a little bit of everything. I've seen it called a 'picky plate' or 'snack plate' on FB etc. I've also seen it mentioned on MN how they detest the saying.

So, I'm just curious what you call this type of meal?

Picky bits.

@ShowOfHands

it's nothing whatsoever to do with snobbery and everything to do with being a common thing that turns people's stomachs.

It isn't the knee jerk, involuntary reaction I object to. It's the need to say it, to tell everyone that some people do something disgusting with their food I object to.

Picky tea itself is not disgusting, in word or deed.

[quote CuriousaboutSamphire]@ShowOfHands

it's nothing whatsoever to do with snobbery and everything to do with being a common thing that turns people's stomachs.

It isn't the knee jerk, involuntary reaction I object to. It's the need to say it, to tell everyone that some people do something disgusting with their food I object to.

Picky tea itself is not disgusting, in word or deed.[/quote]
Nobody has said that

They've commented on how the phrase turns their stomach. It's not a value judgement on individuals or their dinner any more than the comparable scenario where you'd wrongly assert that I'm judging the lives of bees because I have an aversion to holes and can't look at honeycomb.

We call it snackage, named by my DD1 when she was about four I think.

English tapas!

I’m getting the impression that it’s the idea of picking that turns stomachs, not the tweeness of the phrase. Like picking scabs, noses or feet...

Party tea

It’s a Happy Plate in our house.

Nobody has said that confused

They've commented on how the phrase turns their stomach.

Even allowing that I'd never say anything you liked to eat turned my stomach, cos that's rude, judgemental and purely a matter of taste, yes, plenty of people have.

Read it back... lots of "That's disgusting" remarks, with no other comment, or "It's like picking your arse and eating it" that sort of thing!

Why? Every time this topic comes up some posters just drop in with "Ooh, picky tea is disgusting" remarks and someone tries to say to isn't a judgement!

Whereas nobody who says picky bits has anything negative to say about Luncheon Platter, Crudites, Poor Man's Tapas etc. They are all equally twee, family terms, for a random collection of leftover food items!

And if, as some assert, it is the term picking that is the problem, then some of you must have great difficulty every day of your lives... how do you make any chpices if you cannot pick one thing over another without imagining fingers scrabbling at backsides and noses?

It is just MN weirdness. There are lots of them!

If it was a totally cold dish I'd call it a snack, but if it was larger I'd include something like a warm potato salad. So I don't really have a name for it!

I’m afraid I am one who finds the ‘picky’ problematic. Nothing to do with feet or noses or eek bottoms. More to do with an image of lots of fingers licking at it. I think it may be Covid related for me right now.
Looking forward to the day I can accept an invite to a ‘bring your own, open house, picky bits, help yourself, buffet style, come one come all, elbows out, join the throng’ type invite