Filling Plates for Meals
August 28th, 2012 | 
Author: Let’s think about eating dinner and how we serve the food?
Do you fill serving bowls and put them on the table?
Or do you put pans on the table?
Or do you plate the food and take the plates to the table?
If you plate the food, do you fill a plate for each person or let them fill their own?
Have you changed how you serve as your family changed (adding kids or kids moving out, adding parents, etc).
How do you serve for company?
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Since we don’t do any formal entertaining anymore and only family or relitives I just set everything out on the counter and let everyone help themselves. That way they can take just what they want and the amount they want.
When my family is here for dinner not holidays (except Christmas Eve) we have food set up on counter in kitchen…along with plates and utensils…. everyone fixes their own plates. We do the same on Christmas Eve….when we have many meatless dishes…everyone helps themselves. Easter and Thanksgiving everything is set out on the Dining Room Table.
The grandkids are served, the rest of us serve ourselves. Grandkids are either to small, youngest is just 1, or their eyes are bigger than their belly. Guests are always served.
OK….confession time! We eat out wayyyy too much! At home, it depends what we are having. DH likes his spaghetti plated and topped with sauce just before placing it on the table. Mostly it’s serving dishes on the table and helping oneself. Oh holidays, everything is in serving dishes on the table or sideboards. Large groups, buffet style definitely.
As a young teen (who ate like a horse and still weighed about 90 lbs.), I had spent a week with an out-of-town friend. Her Mom filled the plates and that’s what you got period. I nearly starved that week, or so I thought at the time. Based on that experience, I tend to allow people to fill their own plates and prepare a lot of food to insure extra. Isn’t it strange how one experience like that can impact us for life…
Sherry, your comment sort of remeinded me of something. During one of our tours we were invited out to dinner along with several other couples. The hostess served a delicious meatloaf and as soon as everyone was served the hostess whisked the meatloaf and other dishes away saying; “Good enough for leftovers.” No one got second helpings. Now this couple weren’t that poor and I thought it was all very strange. Would never dream of doing that to guests, but she was super frugal.
Sherry, we’ve been in situations like that and it is especially hard if you are staying with someone for several days. Kids don’t do well when they are HUNGRY for days!
Nalani, I cannot imagine whisking away food from guests like that…or even DH! I guess there is frugal and then there is rude. And Becky, a week of hungry kids! Not good, just not good at all. We humans are a strange lot! God help God dealing with us all!!!
Mostly we set everything out on the counter. Everyone fills their plate then sits down. For holidays we set everything out on the tables except for dessert. That’s still served later buffet style in the kitchen. Gives everyone a chance to move about and sit next to someone else.
Growing up, my Mom always served us from the pots on the stove. We were 7 altogether so putting everything in dishes on the table made way too many dishes and Mom didn’t have a diswasher then. I should say she didn’t have an automatic dishwasher. Technically she had four of them (me, my brother and 2 sisters). I always laugh when I think about how Mom set the table because she was busy cooking at the same time; she took out 7 glasses, forks, knives and spoons piled in the middle of the table and when we sat down, we all helped ourselves to what we needed. In my home I do the same for everyday dinners and if we only have 1 or 2 guests and we eat in the kitchen. If we are enough to go to the dinning room, everything is then put in serving dishes on the table and my china comes out. If the whole family is here (19 of us now), we set a buffet in the kitchen and take it out to the dinning room.
Fun topic Becky!
Love it! Many times my Mom just plopped the pans right on the table at home on top of a pot holder! We all thrived and survived just fine!
With just the two of us here we usually fill our plates in the kitchen and then eat either at the dining table or on trays in front of the tv.
We usually fill plates and take them to the table too. If we have company, our table is too small for serving dishes so we definitely fill and carry plates.