AIBU to think I am a crap hostess for not warming plates?

[lessonsintightropes]

It's just never occurred to me to do so - the only time I ever know I have hot plates is when being served in a pub and something's been microwaved on it. I usually bring the mains and sides to the table for people to self-serve from (not wanting to give people too large/small portions) and it's just not really something I do, or have noticed others doing when having dinner at theirs apart from a v posh cousin who no longer works and has a massive triple oven in her house in Islington and therefore wrote it off as some odd posh phenomenon

You're not a crap hostess for that. At all. Has someone said something to make you feel you are?

Sorry, it's not really a thread about a thread, but there was a discussion in Chat about how to warm plates for a dinner party, and the OP hilariously had suggested putting them in the tumble dryer (but had forgotten that it, well, tumbles, so not so good for plates). But the entire discussion proceeded on the basis that everyone warms plates for entertaining, I realised I never did it, and just needed to work out if I was making some horrendous social faux pas by providing cold plates...!

God almighty. Well at least you're not putting them in the tumble dryer! Or indeed giving your guests 3rd degree burns with ludicrously hot plates. I hate it in restaurants when the plates are scalding hot.

I've never thought of warming plates before the other (hilarious) thread. I chalked it up to an overseas thing, as I'm in the US. It didn't actually occur to me that restaurants do, I'm usually just annoyed when a plate comes out so hot you can hardly handle it.

Seems a silly, unnecessary step to me, but perhaps it makes more sense in colder climates. I would never do it as a host.

I do like a warmed plate, a roast dinner for example just seems wrong on a cold plate, but I wouldn't deduct hostess points from you for not doing likewise.

Hah, this is hilarious, only because I worked as a waitress for years in my callow youth and we got in trouble if the plates were hot, as that meant they had sat too long in the warming window! The salad plates, on the other hand, absolutely HAD to be chilled, we were not allowed to serve a salad on a warm plate.

At home, I entertain usually on the holidays and because DH has a great big sprawling family, food is served buffet style on the sideboard with a stack of room-temperature plates and the silver at the beginning.

Replies to that thread will be from a self selecting group, mostly people who do warm plates.

I have on occasion tried to warm plates with limited success.

I never warmed plates until i met my dp, he loves a warm plate! It's great for keeping things like pasta warmer for longer. I throw them in the oven for a few minutes before dinners ready most times now but wouldn't cross my mind to notice if a hostess hadn't!

OP, I think you're being terribly unreasonable. When I am dining at someone's home I expect, nay, demand a heated plate for my food! Any thing less is simply uncivilized.

J/K, it would never occur to me in a million years that someone might serve me food on heated plates in their home. Of course, when we're eating at a friend's home, it's usually pizza directly out of the box, or if we're feeling fancy, on paper plates.

My mum has always warmed plates. She just sticks them in the grill space which, being over the oven, warms them nicely. They are never too hot to touch and it does keep the food hot longer

I have special plate warmer pads from Lakeland which you microwave and then stick on the plates until the food is ready to go on.

I like warmed plates, but I can pretty much never be arsed doing them.

I'm still a bit about this plate warming thing.. what a faff on.. Each to their own but I certainly wouldn't expect stuff like that in somebodys house if I was into faff.

I warm my own plate for most meals, but not dh's (because he doesn't like it, not because I am mean).

I usually ask other people if they are here for meals (I am not posh enough for dinner parties!) if they would like a warm plate too- I find it is about a 50/50 split.

Before meeting dh I would have automatically warmed everyone's plate, it wouldn't have occurred to me that anyone wouldn't or that anyone would prefer a cold plate.

My parents are Plate Warmers, they have a special built in plate warmer underneath one of the ovens. My dad will often leave the food on the side undid he'd because we have to wait for the plates to finish.

I haven't inherited this need to warm plates.

I do sometimes a) if it's a complicated meal that might take a while to serve b) if we have guests c) if DM is staying.

At someone else's home I wouldn't notice.

God no, my food is fine, it doesn't need a warm plate. what a hassle and waste of time.

Warm plates used to be more common back in the 70's/80's from my own experience.

I remember at least 2 of our cookers, in the days before separate jobs and ovens, had eye-line grills and 1 had a plate warmer tack above this, the other a drawer beneath the oven. I've not seen a specific plate warmer in years and certainly don't have the inclination to try to squeeze them in the oven.

I warm plates - I stick them in the bottom of my AGA - alternatively my microwave has a plate warming setting.

Food stays hotter for longer on a warm plate!

Oh dear. I (1) warm plates and (2) live in Islington, though I don't have a triple oven.

I've heard of people putting plates and dishes to warm in the dishwasher (programme set to the last bit when it heats up to dry the stuff). It is a faff getting everything ready to serve up, and warm plates, especially if the oven is full of things finishing off cooking. I use the tops of saucepans full of boiling stuff to warm plates.

I warm my DH's plates but not my own. If i'm hosting a meal, my favoured method is to warm plates in the dishwasher.

I still suffer from Christmas Day flashbacks circa 1994 when my XDH put cold plates for 23 guests into the bottom oven of the Aga without my knowledge....prior to me roasting the potatoes. I didn't have any back up means to roast the spuds so the guests had beautifully roasted turkey, warm plates and anaemic potatoes sweated in duck fat. Still seething at the memory.

My mum does it and gets terribly bothered when I don't. But doing it in a domestic kitchen goes back to the days when people were carrying plates through to the dining room and didn't have much heating, I think. There's a bit in one of my mum's old cookbooks about how important it is to keep the heat in for five minutes while you get ready to serve ... I never leave plates of food lying around for five minutes anyway!

I can see the point for fish or something that loses heat fast, but I honestly can't tell the difference otherwise.

My mum had a friend staying with her for almost a week. This friend complained that the plates weren't warm. I'd have thought that if you're getting free accommodation you keep minor niggles to yourself! Mum wasn't available next time her friend was in the area.

Never warm plates. What a faff. My mum doesn't but my MIL does. Makes no difference to the food being served IME. I'm not keen on restaurants that serve food on plates too bloody hot to touch without a cloth. But then I also like my food to cool a little before I start eating so maybe I'm just a bit odd like that!