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 don't believe in capital punishment but I'd make an exception for people who serve hot food on cold plates.

I had never heard of heating up plates before meeting DH whose mum does it. The only time we do it is a sunday roast when we use the hostess trolley (and we only have one of them once a month.)

I don't do it, I dislike hot plates and it unreasonably annoys me when someone else does it for me (although these are largely elderly people, so I never say anything). To me it's a very outdated and unnecessary thing to do.

@Soontobe60
I'd rather be judgemental and know that people fucking on making sure their gammon is hot come across like fucking nightmares than have zero self awareness and not realised how I'm an annoying old fashioned faffer. But each to their own I guess.

I hate cold plates for hot food. I just microwave the plates. I do have a very cold house though and by the time I’ve helped children eat my food would be stone cold.

@Vooga

*YABU. Hot food on stone cold plates? No thanks!

I know some people don't bother with warming the plates but I've always found that, unless the food you're serving is searingly hot, a cold plate cools the food on contact - and tepid food that's supposed to be served hot is not very appealing*

Jeez some of the language in this thread is ridiculously dramatic. Who has "stone cold plates", unless you're keeping them in the fridge? Hot food that's touched a room temperature plate is not tepid, it is slightly cooled.

Il think I am the odd one though as I really don't mind my food not being oven hot, I thought that was quite normal.

My plates were stone cold through winter...

[quote Okbussitout]@Soontobe60
I'd rather be judgemental and know that people fucking on making sure their gammon is hot come across like fucking nightmares than have zero self awareness and not realised how I'm an annoying old fashioned faffer. But each to their own I guess.[/quote]
You, like other posters who put hot food on cold plates,Okbusitout, are getting extremely worked up about this, is it really necessary to sling around insults over this?

I do it for guests and/or a roast, but for a normal tea just us two, it wouldn’t occur to me. I wolf my tea though, it goes from too hot to eat to gone in about twenty seconds. My parents do that faffing around after serving hot food thing and it takes all my willpower not to chuck my fork at them.

I always heat the plates as they live in a very cold cupboard in my kitchen (which is by far the coldest room in the house).

I didn’t do it until I married a chef & then also went to work in a restaurant. If I stay somewhere with a buffet breakfast I think it’s a bit meh if I pick up a plate from the springy plate dispenser thing & it’s clear that it’s one of a batch that’s only just been put in there so isn’t really warm at all.
On the other hand searingly hot isn’t great (& not just in a Premier Inn breakfast buffet context). Really, really hot plates do tend to go with meals where sharing is more likely-eg Thai or curry. The staff will usually say ‘mind the plates, they’re hot’ & according to my spreadsheet 92.5% of diners will then automatically grip the plate.
I’m still working on the statistics for those who thought
A) they weren’t hot enough
B) they were hot but didn’t merit a warning
C) to those who claim to have Asbestos fingers they are virtually frigid.
D) you sadistic bastards I’m going to give you a shit score on Tripadvisor when I get out of A&E.

I'm tempted now to cook an extra portion of dinner, plate it up and monitor its temperature for the length of time it takes us to eat our food - see how much it really cools down!

We heat ours if the kitchen has been cold. We've had heating issues and the plates have come out of the cupboard like ice! Not as bad now it's fixed but we've decided (except younger Ds) that we like warm plates so have carried on

Dh aunt heats her plates up. I don't bother, lifes too short plus we scoff the lot before it has a chance to go cold

My parents always heat their plates, I don't and aren't really a fan of doing so. It isn't a bit of a pain as always have to heat their plates when they come for a meal, but I don't mind, I suppose we all have our quirks and I think this has to be a bit of a generational thing.

life is too short

For the many posters saying this as a reason not to do it, it takes one minute to warm multiple plates!

Nobody cares either way what other people go so there is no need to justify why you don’t.

I grew up in a house with a range. We warmed plates and used hot water bottles. The house was old and cold and the heating system wasn’t great. I’ve continued on doing it when serving cooked food. My sister does the same. We are all products of our upbringing.

I always warm plates for guests and we usually do for ourselves unless in a desperate hurry.
I hate lukewarm food.
The only exception is a hot item with a side salad on the same plate eg lasagna. Then it’s a cold plate.
Takes a few seconds to microwave a plate.

@Megan2018

I always warm plates for guests and we usually do for ourselves unless in a desperate hurry. I hate lukewarm food. The only exception is a hot item with a side salad on the same plate eg lasagna. Then it’s a cold plate. Takes a few seconds to microwave a plate.

See, I just don't get that. (Sorry to pick on you, several posters have said it!) You hate lukewarm food so much you always warm your plates, expect when the hot food is accompanied by a salad in which case it's no problem and you'll happily eat it whatever temperature it comes. A separate salad plate would make more sense to me!

Ooh no, I don't like hot food on cold plates either, I put the plates in the microwave for a couple of minutes before serving it up.

Oh and we have separate salad plates

Always warm plates and bowls. Can't stand hot food on a cold plate or soup in a cold bowl, Takes minutes to warm them and it keeps your food hotter.
I just can't imagine not serving hot food on cold plates.

All the posters saying life's too short, it's a faff, takes too much time, etc., are making mountains out of molehills. It's not difficult or time consuming it's warming plates not splitting the atom. It usually entails putting them in a piece of equipment that is already being used and already hot, for a few minutes before you serve. If that's too hard for you to manage then I wonder how you manage to work out all the timings for individual items when cooking.

I like my food to cool down before I eat it, lukewarm is the perfect temperature for me, so cold plates all the way.

Always heat plates here, if it's hot food being served with a salad we serve the salad in a separate dish/ bowl.

It’s a generational thing- my DGM always heated plates. We do in winter if it’s very cold- our kitchen cupboards are against an outside wall which gets very cold (Victorian house). It’s annoying to have cooked and then have veg etc go stone cold in the two minutes it takes us to plate up and start eating.

Older houses used to be colder, and many people took meals through to the dining room to eat, by which time food served on cold plates, eaten in a fairly cold room, would’ve started to have gone cold. It’s probably not necessary in modern kitchen diners, but I wouldn’t judge older relatives harshly for doing it!

In my own parent's house and my in-laws plates are always warmed. But both live in cold 1970s houses. Particularly my ILs, the plates are like slabs of freezing cold concrete when you take them out of the cupboard. Boiling the kettle and pouring some boiling water on the plate used to do the trick if the oven wasn't already on.

These days I live in a lovely warm house so the plates never get that cold so I don't bother.