Plated meals or family-style?

[JungleGiraffe]

I grew up with meals being plated in the kitchen by whoever cooked and then brought out to the table. DH grew up in the Netherlands and always did "family-style" where serving dishes are brought out to the table and everyone helps themselves.

AIBU to think family-style is stupid? It causes food waste because you have to make extra because can't predict how much people will take. & it causes over-eating because people keep eating until they're stuffed rather than until their plate is empty. & it wastes time because you need to carry more to the dining room and back (sometimes when we have breakfast at the in-laws there'll be 30 different things on the table!)

I plate up. Unless your family is massive, like more than 4 people (which is average size I think?) why can't people just come to the kitchen and say how much they want to be plated? That's what we do. I can't imagine all that washing up from family style on a daily basis.

And spag Bol family style?!? Fgs.

I present food to people. It really is up to them whether they eat it or not.

Dishes on the table. Always.

AIBU to think family-style is stupid? It causes food waste because you have to make extra because can't predict how much people will take. & it causes over-eating because people keep eating until they're stuffed rather than until their plate is empty. & it wastes time because you need to carry more to the dining room and back (sometimes when we have breakfast at the in-laws there'll be 30 different things on the table!

Stupid? Well Im far from stupid and all of our meals at home are eaten at the table and served 'family style'. Though I did grow up with meals being brought to the table on your plate.

And it really isn't a problem to make enough for people to eat as well as a bit extra to cover larger appetites. But that's the way I was brought up and there was always enough of a meal cooked so that anyone who appeared at meal times could have something to eat. No one ever went hungry or wasn't fed and I'd never have anyone get up from the table hungry because of not enough being cooked in the first place. An apple to fill you up at the table is no substitute for another couple of spoonfuls of a nice meal.

Does 'family style' cause over eating? I think you're clutching at straws there in your attempt to cause a stooshie.

The extra work involved? I have a very large family/extended family and even if its a meal where its only my children and their families we have 20 or so people here every week. Its not difficult to manage. The table was made long enough to suit us as was the sideboard everything is laid out on. Yes, there are things on the table but there would be 3 lots of water jugs for eg so everyone has one within reach and things don't need passed around. Three dishwashers take care of the dishes.

Easy peasy.

I grew up with plated meals, but our family always eat family style, DH cooks our meals and prefers to dine this way, I like it too.

Legitimate question, don’t you think, @overnightangel, when the OP is so worried about her family overeating? I don’t know about you, but I grew up in a household where we lived hand to mouth, payday was Friday and you could absolutely tell where in the week we were by what there was to eat. And you knew not to ask for seconds for exactly the same reason as you knew not to ask for an expensive toy for Christmas.

I prefer family style, although this is the first time I’ve heard the phrase. I can't think what I’d usually call it, now..
I dislike the term “plated up”.

If DH and I are just being slobs on the sofa with TV, we have plate servings, or help ourselves in the kitchen, like a carvery.
If we're at the table and/or have family or guests, we always do serving dishes, with flowers, napkins and candles as well.
I love the stage when everyone is still sitting at a wrecked table, chatting away ..

I love the stage when everyone is still sitting at a wrecked table, chatting away ..

Its one of the greatest pleasures in life and one that Im extremely thankful for.

Legitimate question, don’t you think, @overnightangel, when the OP is so worried about her family overeating?

I suspect the Op's only concern right now is wondering how much of a barney she was able to cause on her thread.

I’m amazed it took so many pages for someone to come out and state the real crux of the matter, which is the MN obsession with class. All the snarky hints in the first few hundred posts weren’t obvious enough then? .

People are so desperate to prove their real MC credentials, but heaven forfend they might be seen as aspirational or, worse, inadvertently do something common . It’s hilarious watching people tripping over themselves to out-MC each other.

I grew up solidly WC and my husband U-MC, and yet we were both brought up with a mixture of plating up or serving bowls on the table so people could help themselves, depending on the type of food. It really is the most ridiculous stretch of snobbery to think that at-home food service is in any way linked to class 🤣.

I’m also still baffled by all the posters who supposedly can’t grasp that the person cooking would know how much their immediate family eats or their likes and dislikes, or not be able to just ask them how much of something they want. I’ve fed my husband for over 30 years and my children for over 20; why is it “controlling” or “infantilising” to be able to dish up their dinners on autopilot?

Always plated up. Grew up that way and can't see a reason to change. A few enquiries about whose hungry and how many of the main item each person wants is sufficient to produce a decent meal with no leftovers.

I'm surprised there are so many advocates of family style when there are numerous threads about Bil's or Uncle Bob's (or Aunty Mabel's) who take all the best meat / Yorkshire's/ mash and leave little for others causing huge resentment.

We do both depending on what we are eating. Personally I grew up plated and with a mum who over fed and a dad who wouldn't let you leave the table if you hadn't finished everything on your plate. Consequently I have huge weight problems, portion control and struggle to ever leave food on my plate. I am much more likely to over eat if food is plated up as I will finish everything rather than just take what I want.

Food is not usually wasted as we will have for lunch the next day.

It’s just plain wrong to insist that if you tend to plate up (and again, I’m going to stress there are plenty of times when we don’t, depending on the food - mezze, Tex Mex, Indian, tapas, cheese and charcuterie, antipasti - these are all usually laid out on platters and in dishes for people to help themselves) that you’re automatically the type of person to be stingy, rude, domineering and mean-spirited with food. That’s just patently not true, and it’s lazy and small-minded to extrapolate from your vanishingly small sample to a country-wide population.

Neither my DH nor I have weird attitudes like that about food, and we always ensure we cook more than enough if we have guests. I, in particular, absolutely detest mean-spiritedness with food, and I also absolutely detest any kind of morality attached to how much or how little people want to eat. Policing what others eat is so far removed from what we’re about that I can safely say that you don’t actually know what you’re talking about. You may have experience with someone or some individuals who are like that, but that’s not been the case in my family over at least three generations of broadly doing it this way, nor is my DH’s family like that. And they’re a big family of boys, so they could well have quite legitimately tended towards it to make sure everyone got their fair share.

We tend towards plating up because that’s easier for us, fits well with our set-up, and it creates less dishes. Granted if we were living in our much bigger house, and not this small flat, and we had our big dining table which seats 10, a separate kitchen and a full size dishwasher, the proportion of meals that might be served in serving dishes would naturally go up, because I’d have that option more easily and it’d be more convenient in general. We’d also be a lot closer to family and friends so we’d do more entertaining and cook much bigger meals much more often.

Here’s a cat to set amongst the pigeons:

When my DH and I have big summer salads as our evening meal we don’t even plate up individually - we just arrange it all on one of our big pasta plates, sit down together and eat straight from that! Glass of wine each and job done! And amazingly, we don’t just shovel it all in without considering the other person, neither of us has disproportionately more than our fair share and we both come away happy and contented without any rancour or hostility or policing of how many bites we each had.

We started plating up when DS was about 3 and became really overwhelmed when there was a lot of food on the table, grabbed stuff etc.
We now mainly plate up but if it's something new to the DCs or where they are likely to want seconds, we put it on the table and give them an initial portion.
I don't see how plating up prevents leftovers!

God I hate family style!!! It's a faff waiting for food to be passed around and it ends up being cold before everyone has finished piddling astound because it's apparently the law to wait until everyone is ready before we start eating and allllllllllll the washing up afterwards 😩 gives me the rage!!

When we do get to live in our house I’m totally going to get a hostess trolley to keep food nice and warm! Actually come to think of it our habits will likely change quite a bit as we’d have to trek back and forth between the kitchen and dining room for seconds and I can see myself thinking fuck that shit and just setting it all out.

I hate plated up but have never heard of the term family style. My in laws do plated up and always give me too much. Much prefer to be able to help myself.

I’d never heard it either - I only use it for clarity on the thread, because the OP did.

it’s not really a big deal. Some people do it one way, some do it the other, and many people do a combination of the two, or any number of variations. I don’t care what anyone else does in their own home, and luckily my DH and I are broadly on the same page with pretty much everything so no cause for argument.

Depends how many people - I tend to plate up because we have a small kitchen/diner, so there's not really room for serving bowls on the table.

When I've lived places with a bigger table, I tended to family style evening meals, and plate up lunch. But TBH, I have no strong feelings either way.

We were generally family style at home - because it was one person't job to cook and another to set the table. Except for dishes like curry which would need a pot on the table. Those were plated up and brought in.

Mixture of plating and serving dishes on table. Veg and salad and dressing or gravy on table. Main dish portion probably served up in kitchen eg lasagne or roast put on hot plate in kitchen, then you collect and take to table and help yourself to the rest. Always candles and linen napkins though.

Oh yes we always put gravy, condiments, sauces, etc out for people to have what they want.

I watched a show years ago about children who were fussy eaters and it was suggested that putting everything in the middle of the table was a good psychological trick to encourage said fusspots to eat things they normally refused. The theory was that they would see everyone else helping themselves to vegetables etc and think they were missing out if they didn't do the same. Always fancied trying it with my 'I'm not driving a mini metro' 7yo, but our table is weirdly narrow and there wouldn't be enough room for plates.

Salad, olives, coleslaw etc do go in the middle of the tiny table though

I plate up if it's just us 4 (me, DP, DS4 and DS1), but if we have guests I usually do family style.

Exactly!!! I’m guessing the people who have never heard of food being served on a plate have never eaten out. Poor wee souls.

It's funny to me that so many people are concerned about the extra washing up of family style. Because we ALWAYS do family style, we just put the dish or pan it was cooked in on the table. I would only actually use different dishes for a really fancy meal or maybe for things cooked in an oven tray to save space.

I grew up with family style and am better at portion choice than DP who grew up with plated food. I also don't really understand how it works for small children: toddler DD eats very different amounts on different days/meals.