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!)

Less waste from serving dishes as leftovers can be re-heated/used in something else, not so leftovers from people's plates. I don't want someone else deciding for me how much I may have of anything and I certainly don't want to control others in that way if I'm the one cooking.

Put food on plates unless we are specifically having a help yourself style tea with picky bits or if it's a big meal with extended family. Never had any problems with it.

I plate up unless we're having party food (buffet) or BBQ.

Nothing wrong with either. You're massively overreacting.

@Patsypie me too! I thought this was just an aspidistra weird issue! My mil will talk about "packing fil up" instead of making a packed lunch. Quicker to say but makes my skin crawl for some inexplicable reason

We do a take your own at Christmas but never at all times, we cook and it gets eaten. We do sometimes ask what the 12 and 15 year old want.

We do both depends on the meal. We didn’t have a kitchen table when I was growing up so we never had sharing style meals but I quite like the conversation and manners it is teaching my children.

Hate plated up food. I like helping myself to what I like and how much I like.

Definitely put dishes out and let people help themselves. How do you know what appetite other people have or what they like or dislike.
Plating up would cause overeating as opposed to taking just what you want to eat.
All goes in the dishwasher so a couple of bowls or platters is not that much fuss is it?

How do you know what appetite other people have or what they like or dislike.

For my family, I know what they like and dislike. I also just ask how hungry they are before I start dishing up onto plates.

I know my family of 4. I rarely plate up too much or too little.

Oh my lol that did make me smile. My step mum always plates up for us when I put good out family style. Drives me mad. At her house she pretends to do family style but then serves up as well. Nuts

If you go out for Sunday lunch, your food normally arrives on a plate. What is hard to understand?

I do both, depending on my mood, lol. If anyone has an issue with it, they can make their own meals and do their own washing up.

Would depend on how many people I’m cooking for. A nightly meal, I’d plate up. Weekend dinner or with guests I’d do family style so people can help them self to their choices and portion size and not what I decide for them

There are times when family style works (a big meal with extended family.

DH tries to do it for just us and it does my nut as he eats absolutely everything on the table, regardless of how much is put out, so there never the portion or two I had planned for the freezer.

Ilovepixie

All the people i know in RL who say this are awful to share a meal with. E.g. DH cousin, who will literally eat 5 people's worth of whatever meat is offered, leaving 1 portion left for the other 5 people to share. You have to fight him for the serving spoons.

Or DHs friend, who will ignore all the vegetable dishes on the table then complain there's not enough food.

You don't get to eat all of your favourite dish, you get to eat a balanced meal when someone else is serving/cooking. The person cooking has planned how much is reasonable to cook for everyone who needs to eat.

I don't understand how you can do family style with children either. Lots of children will simply only serve themselves favourite foods and ignore vegetables etc.

DS will quietly eat broccoli with no complaint if it's on his plate, if given the chance to serve himself he would never eat a balanced meal.

Because they are taught that they have to take something from each dish and eat something of everything. Teaches portion control and introduces different foods. They can have more of what they like (sprouts for me) and less of those they enjoy less (cabbage!).

I do both, it just depends on what we’re having! Tonight I made beef wraps and served it family style, they could grab as much salad and beef as they wanted, any prepared salad left over went straight in the fridge, as did the leftover beef! But then yesterday we had sausage pasta and I plated everyone’s up! I don’t think either way is stupid, I think it’s just personal preference

Parker231

You can't teach children to eat things they don't like. Some children are simply fussier.

DH uncle did family style, always. Result = DH cousin had an absolutely terrible diet for years, he never ever served himself vegetable at home. Yet would eat them when on his plate at restaurants.

I like family style occasionally but it simply doesn't work day to day for many families & that's ok.

Every family is different but it worked for us and we’ve never done any different (DT’s are now 20). When they were toddlers DT’s had favourite foods and those they liked less but they had to eat something of everything even if it was one piece of broccoli or chunk of fish.

You can't teach children to eat things they don't like.

Of course you can. You can't make them like them, but every generation of children before this one has been taught that they have to eat things whether or not they like them.

We always ate family style and the first time I stayed at a friends her mother plated my dinner. I nearly died, can’t to this day stand plated food at home. It all goes in serving dishes and everyone is given a hot plate. This entitles people to eat only what they want and like. I always cook more than enough as I’d rather have food over than not enough and really hate mean portions.

We do dinners 'family style' the children can choose how.much they want and eat more this way (I have naturally very thin children we are a slim family in general) and if they don't want to eat a big portion of something they haven't tried then they can try a small amount and add more.if they like it , I always serve a large salad or.lots of veg with meals so they can help themselves to that too ... We have VERY little food waste as we freeze or eat for.lunch/dinner leftovers which we wouldn't do it it would have been on someone's plate 😷 x we eat this way for all meals if we are eating together x I hate being plated up at other people's houses x

Plate up in the week but when I have friends over I do family style and it's so much better than when I used to try and plate up for them.