I want my dinner on a plate.

We went out for lunch and my husband ordered chargrilled chicken. It arrived in a metal skillet with an enamel mug full of gravy. The skillet was moving all over the table and the waiter brought a wedge of serviettes to sit it on so it did not end up on the floor. It was awful for him to eat. This used to be his favourite meal but we have not been back since,

Hahaha Kittye i can't imagine - but hopefully they have had a good time!???

How silly. Can you get soup in a basket yet?

A friend of ours once asked for a blue steak. He waited for ages and eventually the waitress came out with a plate containing what looked like a piece of grey cardboard. The waitress said "The chef says he's sorry but this is as blue as he can make it"

I once saw the great Theo Randall with a student who had produced something on a slate. He told her that nothing in his restaurant was going to appear on anything but a plate.

I'm with you. I like food on a plate a) to see how much I've got - more or less than I would eat at home. b) so it doesn't all roll back into a mash in the middle. c) what's wrong with a plate. I don't like tapas for the same reason. I want it all on one plate then I can see how much I'm eating. If I remember in time, I ask for a plate, you can then see what tiny portions they are and you can have a pudding or another drink.

I think the problem is with all these cheffy programmes on television. Television is essentially visual so the food prepared has, before anything else, got to be pleasing to the eye and chefs have begun to see themselves as artists and the dishes they produce as artworks rather than meals to be eaten and enjoyed.

The judges judge the food on how it looks and how it tastes on a mouthful on a fork. If what they were judging really was the food. they would sit at a table and eat the whole dish, wait a few minutes and then give a judgement on the whole dish, of which how it looked would be part, but a relatively small part, of the mark.

Oh some hae plates
And some hae slates
Or bunnets , even blankets.
But dinna greet
For we can eat
So let the Lord be thankit.

The silliest meal I have had recently was on Brittany Ferries. We were in the waiter/ess service restaurant and I ordered a mushroom risotto. Previously this had been a rich, creamy and abundant dish served in a big soup plate.

This time a long thin plate was put in front of me, with about 2 heaped tablespoons of cooked rice that might (or might not) pass as risotto, one end, a tablespoon of cooked mushrooms the other. In the middle was a few salad leaves. Cost of ingredients probably under £1, priced at about £15.

I was describing it to DD, who gave a sigh and told me it was the latest fashion in food presentation, known as 'deconstruction'. The individual components of a dish are cooked and presented separately (mushroom risotto with mushrooms served separately from the rice) and the (quite literally) consumer then 'constructs' the meal for themselves.

My response to that was language that should not appear on Gransnet. Very trendy and a clever idea when producing art for Masterchef,but what does it do other than actually spoil the meal for the consumer, whose food grows cold while they finish preparing the meal for themselves.

At least we seem to have got over the fashion for "foam". What was that all about? I never go to pretentious restaurants twice.

I have peripheral neuropathy which has given me a hand tremor. This makes it difficult for me to spear food from a china plate using a fork, and when I succeed it often drops off the fork on its way to my mouth. I find it much easier to eat from the deep soup plates that so many of you dislike, and to eat food that's served in a bowl and which can be eaten with one piece of cutlery, fork or dessert spoon, depending on the consistency. Soup spoons are a no-no for me because I can't manoeuvre them into my mouth without spilling some, or finding soup running down the creases on either side of my chin. At home I use a bib, but when I'm out, by the time I've put on the bib, asked for help cutting up the food and then spilt cream or sauce on the bib I start to fear that someone will complain. about letting people in their second childhood be admitted. I couldn't care less what the food is served in, as long as I can actually transfer it from container to mouth with a modicum of dignity. That means 'sharing plates', including slates and platters are out if they include dollops of creamy items such as prawn cocktail, which just makes a mess, any roast dinner in a 'proper plate' is out anyway, because of the screeching noise of an ineffectual fork on the shiny porcelain is horrible, and also the food just gets pushed off the plate altogether as often as not. I have taken to choosing food on the basis of consistency and presentation - 'bowl food' is good, though my mother-in-law, now 100, did ask me a few years ago: 'Do you ALWAYS eat your food from bowls?', as though she thought we were eating like peasants, or dogs.

When my friend and I ran a little cafe we were always ready to serve food the way the customer wanted. If someone wanted their food in a bowl that was fine. I fsomeone wanted a mug of soup because they couldn'tcope with a spoon that was fine. We thought the important thing was that they enjoyed the food.

A friend shared photos of her lunch out today and on the table was a mini basketwork suitcase with little leather straps containing what looked like southern fried chicken. This chain restaurant also serves food in flowerpots. I really cannot see the point of it all.

Really smart restaurants use bone China and silver cutlery with huge napkins. That's how to eat your food.

MawBroon that is priceless, if i may borrow your words, i will use them on a cross stitch for a friend who raves about every new foodie invention.

Twenty years ago when i lived on the Dutch/German border i often ate in a Dutch restaurant that had hot stone eating i.e a paving slab that had been heated for many hours which they placed on your table you then cooked meat, onion, peppers and mushrooms on the slab, it was great fun and the gave you a real plate to eat from.

We had something similar in Singapore, grannypiper, but it was a very hot cast iron skillet that you cooked your beef on. Yokohama Steak, with a sauce so delicious I have never forgotten it! You had to wear a big bib because of all the spitting meat juices (hence the Yokohama!). Pity we didn't know about the hot stone eating when we were living in Holland - I would have liked to have tried that.

Greyduster It really was delicious and the y only sauce was fritte saus, yummy

I always want to have my dinner at one plate. Because I can't wait for the next one. I am happy if someone give me everything at the same place.

I think I need a life or maybe even to go out for a meal. I have never seen or heard of, most of these strange ways of presenting food. Square plates are as odd as I've seen!! Cooking is tedious enough without watching others do it hence no watching of chefs on TV.

Having said that, as a waitress in the late 60s I did serve chicken in a basket in the bar of a country club. Way ahead of fashion then I have clearly lost it now!