Plate up or self serve?

[Spondoolie]

Christmas dinner/roast dinner - which do you do?

YABU = plate up
YANBU = self serve

The phrase plate up is very council

And there’s the nub of it.

If you’ve got a kitchen island and a dishwasher and serving dishes and a big dining table and family who can be arsed with all that polite dish-passing while their dinner’s getting cold, you’ll not understand those of us who are happy with “give us a plateful while it’s hot”.

Dishes in the centre of the table, everything gets passed around and people take what they want. Turkey is carved and people say how much they want.
Plating up should only take place in a restaurant.

And?

Self-serve when I'm cooking.
DP loves plating up and invariably 'over-serves'. He's also a fan of 'we should finish what's on our plates and not waste'. It definitely leads to overeating as a PP suggested. Urgh.

I plate up but it's just me, DH and the kids.

So true. As with so many things there's a class divide with this. Middle class pass serving dishes around at the table.
I'd never known anyone who plated up until I was in my twenties and had the misfortune to have to stay with my then boyfriend's father and his latest girlfriend. We went to this woman's house and she cooked a meal, dolloped everything on each person's plate and we had to eat it from our knees as they didn't have a dining table. We then had to go to a dreadful pub on the Scotland Road in Liverpool, I wondered why this woman had taken a holdall with her but it became clear when she filled it with dirty glasses and used ashtrays from the pub to take home. Apparently she'd never bought a glass because she always stole them from pubs.
So in my mind plating up at home is associated with the worst type of people, never experienced it in the 40 years since then.

I’m a self serve person, and that’s what we do in my house. Then everyone gets what they want/ will eat.

My parents and wider family are mostly not self serve people- my Dad is particularly not keen on self serving but idk why as he’s fussy and difficult to please. But he’s ridiculous about food generally.

Wow.

The fact that this particular woman was a thief is entirely separate from the fact that many people don’t have room for a large dining table and multiple serving dishes etc. The ‘worst type of people’, really? What a dreadful snob you are!

The phase very council is very snob

Self-serve all the way. I hate someone else deciding how much and what I am supposed to eat. Besides, the ones who say they "ask", in my experience the person plating always feels the bloody need to add an extra spoonful despite you saying "that's enough". No. If I want more, I'll have seconds, thanks.

Well yes and no. I do have those things, yes, so I get your point, but I didn’t growing up. But we still had a small table to sit at and a kitchen, and it was still self serve at Xmas. Most people have a plate they can put the turkey or stuffing etc on, and a couple of bowls they can put the sides in. You don’t need an island, a dishwasher and a big table.

in my experience the plating up is often about allocating portions, to ensure everyone gets a fair share, hence why the expensive elements like the meat are often portioned out.

Self-serve all the way. People get what they want and the food stays hotter.
I would never plate up, but a relative of mine would always insist on plating up- it took forever and the first person had either finished their meal before said relative (last person) had sat down, or if you do the polite thing and wait until everyone is sat down before tucking in, the food is stone cold.

Literally anything can be a class signifier on here. Anything.

Self serve - dishes on the table. It means you only have what you want on your plate, you don't overfill your plate as you can help yourself to seconds (and thirds) so there is less waste, and everyone can pass the dishes round to each other and I get to eat my food at the same time as everyone else.

Plus I think it's nicer.

I'm the opposite! I hate the constant passing of food around a big table. My mother is also an over-hoster so you're five mouthfuls in and the passing restarts as she's constantly pressing people to have seconds. It really annoys me having to keep putting my cutlery down because X hasn't got any cranberry sauce etc.

I serve the food on my breakfast bar so my table looks nice with the decorations in the middle. Everyone has easy access to everything and it's peaceful once you've sat down. If I'm being lazy, it's also good for not staining white tablecloths.

If MIL is there, I plate up as she refuses to follow basic food hygiene so no matter how many servings spoons are in the dishes she sticks her fork (which has been in her mouth) in the serving dishes. One Christmas day the dish with the leftovers of a cheesecake on it was in front of her and she sat there scraping crumbs off the serving dish.
Unfortunately we are going to my mum's this year and she has said that she will be putting the dishes on the table for everyone to help themselves. I am dreading it.

Used to be dishes on the table self serve, but we got rid of the huge table,so no room for dishes now. I disagree about extra work,there was a lot more washing up with all the fancy dishes and bowls. Kitchen is tiny, open plan to living room one end, dining table in conservatory,folk stand in kitchen day what they want on their plate and how much.

How do you cope in restaurants?

You can’t see ghe difference between a restaurant and eating at home?

Well not really. You go to eat and have food given to you on a plate.

Same thing happens in our house.

Self serve.
We put all the dishes on the kitchen counters and everyone serves themselves before seating down.

self serve from dishes on kitchen counters, leaves table clear so.more room for everyone

Dishing up in the kitchen, usually 3 of us doing it as each person tells us how much of each thing they want. We’re very efficient after all these years and it stops <nameless relative> snaffling the lions share of roast potatoes which he doesn’t finish and niece making off with a plate of only pigs in blankets.

There’s no space on the table for 8 - 10 people’s place settings and drinks, two roasts, two types of gravy, spuds, pigs in blankets, three or four different vegetable dishes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, bread sauce and DS’s pizza.

The big stuff in the kitchen, then seconds as anyone fancies.

(Two roasts as we have omnivores and vegetarians)