To serve hot food on cold plates?

[PerspicaciousGreen]

I've been chuckling my way through this thread and the desire for hot plates thing keeps cropping up: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/1651633-Omg-such-anality-from-pil-Come-and-share-your-anal-behaviour-stories-lighthearted

My parents got a new kitchen and had a special plate warming drawer installed in their oven. For the two of them. They put it on every night to preheat the plates before they carry them two steps to the kitchen table. Before that, they used to turn the whole oven on to heat the plates! My mother thinks hot food on cold plates is "disgusting", which is one of the reasons they are no longer invited round for meals if we can help it. (Believe me, there were many other complaints, it wasn't just that.)

But the reason they need to warm the plates is because they piss about so much between dishing up and eating! They've got to clean half the kitchen, load the dishwasher, wipe the counters, lay the table, wash their hands... Whereas in our house it's out of the pan, onto the plate, sit down, start eating.

They also distribute microscopic portions of food across enormous plates. They could practically just eat off side plates but have the most enormous dinner plates John Lewis could sell them. We have smaller plates and bigger portions so the food keeps itself hot.

I cannot be the only person who thinks it's actually more disgusting to use good energy to heat up plates every single night when it's your own fault the food gets cold.

I never heat plates unless I heat food in the microwave on a plate.
Nobody I know does.

I had an ex who used to warm up plates of salad and eat them for supper

I used to have a quiet eye roll at my mum’s obsession with heating plates. However, since moving to a house with a cold kitchen I now do it!
Not for salad though that’s daft!

YABU. I don't like scalding food but always warm plates in the top oven with the risen residual heat. Not for anything with salad or anything molten like macaroni cheese though. DH and I always have a little bitch when we've gone to someone's for dinner and been given cold plates. Especially as you'll be chatting, and things always take longer with more people round the table. Why waste time cooking something special that ends up lukewarm.

The people who need their food piping hot just come across as a bit awkward tbh.

...but I'm struggling to think of food that I'd need to transfer into a separate serving dish rather than just put the (already hot, obviously) cooking vessel on the table. Like, we have a nice casserole dish for stews that would go from hob to table.

Potatoes, rice, cous cous, cooked vegetables. Any kind of side dish really.

I'm pretty laid back in life but one thing I can't stand is hot food on cold plates - I often say it would be one of the very few things I could find to put in Room 101! I like my food scorchingly hot, I can't bear lukewarm food on cold or tepid plates. Yuk

We mainly warm plates for take-aways, which sometimes are cooler when they arrive, and fry-ups as there is nothing worse than a greasy fry up on a cold plate.

I'll also use warms plates if we have guests and there is likely to be delay and talking when eating.

I prefer a warm plate (am I part of the older generation now I am 50?), as I like my food to stay warmer, but usually can't be bothered doing it.

I like a warm plate and I have a plate warmer which is really good. If it's just the two of us we put them under the hot tap and then dry them and that's fine. If there's a bunch of people I'll use the plate warmer. With a slightly smug Abigail's Party vibe ...

We've got a cold kitchen - I like hot food on a hot plate.

I mostly heat plates but if the oven's not on anyway, I do it by putting them on top of a pan with a cm of boiling water in (or something that's already cooking. Quick and works a treat.

My mother does this OP. Proud owner of a hostess trolley that basically nukes any life, colour or nutrient from any food you put inside and turns plates into molten lava.
She also owns a Lakeland contraption that plugs in and heats plates for "every day".

I've never understood this need and not once in my adult life (other than at her house under duress) have I ever felt the need to heat plates.
We have electricity and central heating these days in the majority of homes, I've always considered this plate warming obsession a hangover from days past when houses only had open fires?
No idea but it's a no from me!

Unless it's salad, I like a warmed plate. I wouldn't switch on the oven especially though. As a pp said, a blast of hot water and a quick dry usually is sufficient.

Never warned a plate in my life and always manage to serve piping hot food.

Eyeroll

DH is obsessed with hot plates. When I’m cooking I do throw plates in the oven or grill for the last couple of minutes just to humour him but would never otherwise have thought to do it myself.

DMIL had one of those hostess trolley thingys and was obsessed in her own way with eating hot food. She would get really offended if you didn’t start eating as soon as you were given your (piping hot) plate regardless of how many other people were waiting to be served. There was a strict hierarchy to the order in which you were served - as the DIL I was often in the “guest” rank and therefore among the first to be served unless there was someone more remote to the family - so I’d have to start eating (and violate every single rule about waiting that I’d been brought up with) and be sitting there stuffed full while DMIL finally served herself.

But that’s a whole other thread.

Its such a mum thing.

I used to heat plates when getting a Chinese. The running joke wascthebplates were that hot we ended up with a sizzling dishes. Now because we use our combination microwave (the convection oven part) a lot. I put our plates on top which warms them nicely or sometimes just put them in the sink and pour boiling water over them and then just dry them. We also use melamine plates sometime which seem to keep the food hot.

@Okbussitout

The people who need their food piping hot just come across as a bit awkward tbh.

The people who think other people are awkward because they prefer their food piping hot just come across as a bit judgemental tbh.

I never bothered heating plates before getting with my DH but if his food goes cold, it makes him retch so he's always heated his plates and I do too now.

We eat straight away like you but also heat the plates in the oven... otherwise the food gets cold almost instantly. Food needs to be hot (unless it’s for small children).
I don’t care if I’m given food on a cold plate though and would never mention it, as a guest in someone else’s home I would just be grateful for being fed.

I have never heated a plate in my entire life. Life is too short.

Urgh can't bear eating hot food off cold plates. We always warm ours in the Aga (which is always on).

Haha! I'm with your mother on this one I'm afraid! I hate cold plates. By the time the dishes have been put on the table then everyone's had their servings and we start to eat it would be cold otherwise! I normally warm them in the smallest oven and if they're all in use I have an electric plate warmer!

I had a warming drawer put into my new kitchen, fab for warming the plates, keeping food warm if I cook out of sync and warming croissants (according to DC). If the oven has been on, I’ll just put the plates in there one minute instead.

We always warm plates for hot food. The top oven has a plate warming function.

I heat the plates if my Mum is round for tea ( she prefers it) otherwise I don’t bother