Don’t tell me dinner plates are all washed up
- A Sainsbury’s study reveals a quarter of Brits eat most of their meals from a bowl
- Generation Z is close to cancelling out the once civilsed noble dinner plate
- READ MORE: Dinner services are back on the menu and they’re more flamboyant than ever
At first, I thought I was being over-sensitive. What did it matter if I was offered ‘bowl food’ at parties instead of proper food? Who was harmed by a host offering up my supper in a bowl, rather than on a plate as it should be? Perhaps they simply hadn’t run the dishwasher.
But when I also started being offered bowls in restaurants, I began investigating. And I learned that the noble dinner plate, that essential ingredient of any truly civilised meal, is on the way to becoming extinct, cancelled by the younger generation in favour of the bowl.
A recent study by Sainsbury’s reveals a quarter of Brits now eat most, or all, their meals from a bowl, with the distressing addendum that 4.7 million of us admit to having eaten fish and chips or even a roast dinner out of one.
The very idea horrifies me. Imagine chasing a roastie around a bowl. I may not keep an ‘only for best’ set of crockery fossilised from my wedding list, but I do pride myself on matching Jasper Conran for Wedgwood bone china dinner and side plates.
A Sainsbury’s study reveals a quarter of Brits eat most their meals from a bowl. Generation Z is close to cancelling out the once civilsed noble dinner plate
I like to eat with my eyes, appreciating all the different components of the dish. When I have spent a whole afternoon slow-cooking osso buco for guests, served with my partner Stephen’s ambrosial saffron mash and roast radicchio, the last thing I want is them churning it all up in a bowl.
But I appear to be a dying breed. John Lewis reports a 14 per cent like-for-like increase in bowl sales this year (with the new half-plate, half-bowl ‘coupe’ particularly sought after …ugh).
Online gift retailer The Wedding List is seeing couples pick twice as many bowls as plates.
Even domestic goddess Nigella Lawson (oh, Nigella, not you too) declared: ‘If I could, I’d eat everything out of a bowl.’
So how exactly did the dinner bowl stage its coup?
Online gift retailer The Wedding List is seeing couples pick twice as many bowls as plates. Even domestic goddess Nigella Lawson (oh, Nigella, not you too) declared: ‘If I could, I’d eat everything out of a bowl’
First came the party bowls in place of canapes.
Then came a wave of healthy eating trends from the States that all depended on a bowl for presentation: the Hawaii poke bowl, and the acai breakfast bowl, among them.
So far, so wholesome …but the trend really took off when sloths realised they could scroll through social media on their phones or slouch in front of the TV more easily with a bowl.
In all seriousness, my millennial French lodger, Nicholas — who works in fine wine — said: ‘Gravity works better with bowls as it is easier to keep the fork in.’
Are we raising a generation of giant toddlers who can’t handle a plate, knife and fork? Should we perhaps just put it all in a blender like baby food next?
I prefer grown-up conversation over dinner while dining on a hard surface, especially since I’m very protective about my precious Designers Guild sofa.
Sudi Pigott has been investigating the new trend in eating out of bowls. However, she remains unconvinced about giving up her dinner plate
The high priestess of dietary claptrap, Gwyneth Paltrow, has also waded in. ‘Everything tastes better in a bowl,’ she trills.
But I’m with loquacious chef Jeremy Lee, of Soho’s Quo Vadis, who raises his hands in theatrical horror at the idea of anything other than a plate for serving even his signature smoked eel and Poilane sourdough toasted sandwich.
Like many chefs, he believes that a plate showcases carefully sourced ingredients and indicates you care and want to make the meal memorable. You won’t get that if you dump the lot into a bowl as if it’s feeding time at the kennels.
Of course, I do appreciate that many saucy foods, not least pasta, often work better in bowls. And dishes from Korean bibimbap to Japanese udon soup (when slurping with the bowl held close to the chin is de rigueur) require one.
But for everything else, try to take away my plate and I’ll come for you with my cutlery…
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