Give me your favourite picky plate foods!!

[bookishblondie]

I fancy doing a spread Saturday afternoon so tell me what you love when you have picky plates / picky tea!

I’m getting on a bit too and my DM in the early 80’s use to call it a picky tea. Perhaps it’s a regional thing?

Junior members of the clan would like

Babybel cheeses
Ritz crackers
Pizza slices
Mini cheese & ham toasted sandwiches
Huge selection of crisps
Cherry tomatoes
Strawberries dipped in chocolate
A tin of M&S Belgian biscuits

Senior members of the clan are happy with

Gala pork pie with mango chutney
Scotch eggs (the Sainsbury's soft-set egg ones are currently highly favoured)
Extensive cheese board with all the accompaniments
Pate & toasted sourdough bread
Scones, clotted cream & naice jam
Red velvet cake

Chorizo cooked in cider? Tell me more 😃

We used to call it stuff on a plate.

Olive rolls/baguette from Waitrose
salted butter
white stilton
onion chutney
Good ready salted crisps
Hummus with extra garlic grated in and lemon juice

😆

Artichoke hearts, smoked salmon, brie, baby peppers stuffed with cream cheese. French bread, a green salad, coleslaw.
Or, taramasalata, tomato, cucumber and coriander salad with toasted pitta bread.
Or a variety of cheeses plus a choice of chutneys, water biscuits, cheese and onion crisps, Black olives to go with any of the above, maybe some small pickled onions too.

My late DGM would have called it a collation 😂 She was quite posh and would be almost 120 now though. French terms are so non U 😂 She would have probably inwardly cringed at “buffet” even more than “picky tea” although she was far too well mannered to comment on it 😂

I would like to pretend it’s summer despite the weather and have:

Poached salmon
Quiche
Potato salad
Tomatoes that taste of something
Watercress salad
Asparagus vinaigrette
British strawberries and cream

If you want something a little more simple, a charcuterie and cheese board with crusty bread, olives, cornichons, pickled baby onions and crudités would be just fine by me.

What time shall we come round? 😂

Honestly this site teaches me something about humanity every single day. Usually how much easier it is to offend people than I could ever imagine!

Oh yes - the little cigar shaped things filled with pulled pork, the squid rings, and mozzarella balls in pesto are my top three. Then if going for another £8, the little honey mustard cocktail sausages, honey roast ham chunks and chicken drumsticks. Heaven.

Gala pie.

Love a Picky tea.

In my family this was always known as 'a spread' until it was upgraded to 'a buffet'

Now known to junior family members as 'that thing where you put lots of things out on the table and we can help ourselves to what we want'

Salami
Perello mixed olives and pickles
Cubes of cheddar cheese
Ciabatta
Olive oil and balsamic for diooing
Sundried tomatoes

My late DGM would have called it a collation

Mine too, a cold collation in fact.

She was most definitely not posh (but thought she was) and could render any food inedible so something where you could choose how much you were going to leave on the plate eat was always a bonus.

To explain; 'picky tea' can sound like 'picketing' in some local dialects and is still an highly emotive term in some former mining communities, and so is best avoided. 😲

A cheese and pineapple hedgehog.
Although I'm also tempted by the cockney winkles up thread.

I saw collation mentioned a few times on the other thread, does sound posh!

Im wondering if part of the consternation is about this meal meaning different things to different people. It’s how we eat at least once a week - perfect family food where kids have different preferences. But other posters see it as a once or twice a year special meal. I’d actually refer to it as a buffet at Xmas if we had guests. What I’m talking about with picky tea is a bunch of random leftovers and things we like!

You are so right. I’m old and had not heard of picky tea/lunch until my DIL said it. To me it perfectly illustrates that the host puts on a lovely ‘spread’ and you can ‘pick’ whatever you like.

It's like when everyone got told to act OTT about the word "moist" but for Mumsnet

And loo brushes

Crusty baguettes, good butter, runny brie, prosciutto, grapes and nectarines or fresh figs.

My son had a lovely girlfriend who once told me her favourite tea at our house was 'when you take everything out of the fridge and put it on the table'! 🤣

Welcome to MN OP. I wasn't born in Britain, but lived her a good few years.

Are you feeding guests on Saturday a canape/hors oeuvres type evening meal made up of small servings like tapas? OR
Are you feeding your own family canapes on Saturday? Are there children? Allergies? Intolerances? Sorry, but I too have never heard the term 'picky tea' 🤔

Cheese board and olives with fresh bread 🥖

Because they are immature twats.

My parents would just call it 'tea'.

As in, you either have soup/a sandwich for lunch, & then you have a proper dinner in the evening, OR you have a proper Sunday lunch/go out for lunch & then only require 'tea' - a huge spread of anything & everything from the fridge - later rather than dinner.

Tbh it's a bit of a lost art in my generation - my kids had long school days & anything that would've been a component of tea was a lunchbox regular.

But if I reclaimed it, I'd probably do loads of samosas & bhajis, naice ham, olives, crusty bread, salted butter. Lots of homemade chutneys & pickles.

& lots of individual salad bits so people could build their own - my family is rife with weirdly specific aversions to perfectly ordinary vegetables...