Food & Drink

Stop being a baby, serving food on things that aren't plates is fine

Posted by
Tom Victor
Published

You’re absolutely exasperated. You’ve decided to try out the new gastropub in town, and they’ve done something inexcusable.

You’ve been stung before, so you decided to play things safe. Fish and chips is something it’s impossible to get wrong, isn’t it?

Fried, battered cod with triple-cooked chips and peas, with a wedge of lemon on the side. A classic, by all accounts.

But when it arrives, it looks like this.

Or maybe like this.

You need to complain to the nearest adult person, be that your server, your dining partner, or the internet.

It’s outrageous, and everyone must know. What happened to good old-fashioned plates? We need to put a stop to this now before it gets out of hand.

Actually, no, we don’t.

As long as the way a meal is served doesn’t ruin its consistency, what are you complaining about? Sure, if it results in soggy food or unnecessary spillages then you might have a point, but beyond that? Get out.

You’ve eaten your lunch out of a polystyrene container before with minimal fuss, so how is this any different from your curry and rice arriving on a frisbee rather than fine china?

That mini-wheelbarrow filled with salad? Literally no different from a porcelain side dish, with the exception of the decorative wheels.

The pint glass on the table in front of you? Folks have no problem putting cutlery in it, so why not use it as a vessel for popcorn shrimp?

If you’re the sort of person who castigates ‘fussy eaters’ and yet can’t watch waitstaff put a slate in front of you without your face visibly reddening, I’ve got some news for you.

Not only are you a hypocrite, but you’re also probably a bad person.

We have been socialised to believe certain things ‘belong’ together, but that is and always has been a myth when it comes to a good meal.

If we can reinvent a pizza to include Nutella, or dip our chips in ice cream, how is that any different from eating steak served on a piece of industrial flooring or sausage and chips in a dog bowl?

One in 10 Brits are fine with the latter providing it’s clean, according to YouGov, and it’s upsetting that the figure isn’t higher.

What’s stopping us eating all our meals from dog bowls instead of plates. Stupid cultural norms, that’s all.

In reality it’s halfway between a plate and a bowl, with the best elements of both – if anything, we’re idiots for wasting our most efficient crockery on man’s best friend.

Even worse are those who complain about serving methods when they’re eating food with their hands.

Oh, your burger’s been served up on a laminated copy of War and Peace. Boo fucking hoo. You’re not risking plunging a steak knife into page 729 so who gives a shit?

Next time you go our for a meal you’re going to eat your soup out of that bowler hat and, you know what, you’re going to enjoy it. Some people would kill for that bowler hat of soup.

(Main image: Twitter/WeWantPlates)