Home > Feeding Frenzy > Archives > 2008 > July > 30 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USDo you serve meals family-style?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On our recent vacation, my husband and I had a cookout with some friends with teenage children. When the food was ready my friend, Andy, offered his kids the option of plating the food for them or serving it family-style. Both kids enthusiastically voted for plating.
I was really surprised. With the exception of some dinner parties when I prepared something in individual portions or packets, I’ve always put everything on the table for people to help themselves. I felt it let people chose what they want to eat and how much of it. I guess it’s also how I grew up eating and never really thought otherwise.
On one hand, serving family-style prevents waste from putting too much of something on a plate which ends up uneaten (I am not a member of the clean-your-plate club) but on the other hand, plating keeps portion sizes under control and keeps me from telling my son, Alex, “That’s enough mashed potatoes!”
It got me wondering which is a better approach. It’s definitely an easier cleanup with no serving plates and bowls. Health-wise there are pros and cons. Plating food allows you to control what goes on the plate, but open serving can help kids learn to monitor for themselves and might encourage them to take more healthy stuff, like veggies, if it’s right in front of them.
How do you serve food in your home? Do you watch portions by plating food for your family? What do you see as the pros and cons?
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: Home cooking
Comments
By MomOfTeenBoys
July 30, 2008 4:09 PM | Link to this
We tend to serve more buffet style. No way am I going to create more dirty dishes by putting all the food in serving dishes!
By Plater
July 30, 2008 5:47 PM | Link to this
I’m a mom of preschool boys, but I still agree with MomOfTeenBoys; why dirty the extra dishes?
By Liz
July 30, 2008 6:28 PM | Link to this
My hubby and I have three teenaged daughters. We eat together as a family every single night that we are able to. We eat family style and it often turns into a long dinner full of laughter and fun. We all take turns with the dishes, so the extra bowls or plates are not a big issue.
By jg
July 30, 2008 8:19 PM | Link to this
Unless it is Thanksgiving - I plate. With 5 kids at home plus my husband and I it is much easier - especially when one or two are late for dinner. That way everyone gets equal portions and what is left over is a free for all!
By chocoholic
July 30, 2008 8:58 PM | Link to this
It’s just my husband, a less-than two-year-old, and me, but I still plate things. We don’t have a family table in the kitchen, so we eat in the dining room at night and I don’t like carrying all the dishes in there. It helps us cut back on seconds because it requires getting up and walking back to the kitchen to get them.
By dad
July 31, 2008 6:45 AM | Link to this
Eating family style is less about the food, but more about the social graces and family bonding. It is a time when the family can not only share the days events, but learn the social graces of eating, being dependant on another to pass food to ypu, or to take the time to serve another. Both of my children, a daughter who is now a teacher, and a son who is in college and playing football, are still very close, continuing to come home for dinner, and they bring their friends. Many of the friends are not used to eating this way, but I have been told on many occasions, “I wish we did this at my house” or “I feel at home here”.
By JJ
July 31, 2008 8:08 AM | Link to this
My daughter and I eat dinner together every night, at the dining room table. We plate at the stove and kitchen countertop.
When entertaining, I do buffet style, unless it is a holiday, then everything goes on the table. When I do the buffet style, only salads and bread go on the table. Everything else is in the kitchen.
Having a “sideboard” helps alot when entertaining.
By Stacey
July 31, 2008 7:28 PM | Link to this
When it’s just my husband, my 7 year old and me, I usually plate for no other reason than we usually eat as soon as I finish cooking so I just fix the plates before I leave the kitchen. On the nights my husband has to work late, I (usually) fix his plate and leave it in the microwave so I can but away the food and clean the kitchen before going to bed.
For family and holiday dinners, we always serve the food buffet style from the stove and/or kitchen counter then go to the dining room and kitchen tables to eat. Like MomofTeenBoys, we already have WAY more than enough dishes to wash, plus if we put all of the food on the table, there wouldn’t be enough room for the plates. Also, although we almost always eat together, we never set the table. We just put out a stack of plates and the flatware on the counter next to the food when serving buffet style.
By FCM
August 3, 2008 4:30 PM | Link to this
Everyday dinner with the family—buffet style out of kitchen…I am much to slammed for time when I get home from work to go about getting it into serving dishes…some things (rolls, etc) are on the table so learning to pass the plate is there. Cassaroles are an exception. Those go in the dish they were baked to the table.
Larger gatherings are buffet style because the table only holds 6 and all the extra bowls take up much need real estate. The food is put in nice serving dishes at that point.
Now when we do the ‘party style’ meals out of trays those go on the table and are as close to family style as we get most days.
There are a few exceptions: Having the grandparents or guests over where family style is ‘expected.’
Then again I am a Mom who realizes that Ice Cream for dinner is just a good for the soul kind of thing. Maybe 2 -3 times a year dinner is nothing more than a sundae.
Family dinner is many things. Something to be sressed about should not be one of them.
By West Cobb
August 12, 2008 9:23 PM | Link to this
It depends upon what we are having. We are into a big salad for each person now with grilled chicken on top so I fix each salad and that’s it. My boys will get theirs off the counter top or choose one at the table, whatever works. It is a one bowl meal! Got to love it!