An Irish Diary

Above the fold – Fionnuala Ward on food, napkins and plates

Napkins on plates make no sense

I recently spent a good 30 seconds peeling scraps of a napkin off the bottom of a roll I’d purchased in a busy city centre bakery. Photograph: Getty Images

Fionnuala Ward
Wed Sep 14 2022 - 19:01

Do we no longer trust plates? Side plates, that is, used in coffee shops to dispense croissants and brownies and pastries and the like to their non-takeaway customers. Did a survey do the rounds at some point where it was universally agreed that they were tainted or contaminated or unclean in some way? That when placed in a dishwasher, they were in no way subjected to the same amount of water or dishwasher powder as their dinner plate cousins likewise locked inside?

Because all the evidence indicates that we have. Otherwise, why is it that we have taken to placing a napkin on a side plate and then said croissant or brownie or pastry or, in one particularly traumatic instance, heated panini on top of that napkin? After all, no-one in their right mind would put a napkin on a dinner plate and plop a dinner straight on top!

And anyway, napkins are not natural residents of plates. They serve no useful function. If anything, they make a good situation (brownies or croissants or pastries being that good situation) bad by attaching themselves to the item under which they reside. Suffice it to say, I recently spent a good 30 seconds peeling scraps of a napkin off the bottom of a cinnamon roll I’d purchased in a busy city centre bakery.

And most confounding of all, in circumstances like these the napkin itself fails to uphold its napkin duties. It can’t do what it’s supposed to do, becoming torn or food stained and consequently of little value when removed from under the purchased item and placed on a lap. Just to take the most random example, say a napkin attached to a heated panini, that napkin will metamorphise into a greasy mess and the customer in that coffee shop will have no option but to cast this napkin to the outer regions of the table in double-quick time.

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Now just to be clear here, I haven’t always been consumed by plate-related issues.

I lived in Japan for a while where bowls had the upper-hand. And these bowls were truly wonderful and came in two varieties. First of all, there was the kind you could wrap your hands around and raise upwards, which was used for noodles and miso soup and things like that. Drinking from these bowls was considered perfectly acceptable behaviour. In fact, slurping was permitted and not only permitted but encouraged, indicating, as it did, a visceral delight in the meal.

And then there was the small, ornate, delicate kind which facilitated carefully prepared portions of the most flavoursome food. These bowls generally had lids so consuming their contents involved a genuine sense of anticipation and surprise.

All told, the fancier the meal, the greater the number of bowls.

Plates were there to be sure but, to be honest, struggled to make an impression. In fact, as often as not concerted efforts were made to help them stand out in some way. There were square plates and rectangular plates and plates with dips and lips and added little extras. These plates were unique and quirky and not at all without appeal. But plates were generally viewed as a foreign indulgence. A kind of play-thing which posed no threat to the dominance of bowls. And this was widely understood in an unspoken kind of way.

The bowls could rest easy.

But plates did play a significant role in conversations growing up. If ever my mother was questioned about an event she’d just attended - a dinner in the golf club say or a meal in a restaurant with family or friends – no more damning indictment of the entire occasion could be uttered than that of the plates for dinner not being properly heated beforehand.

“Well, the plates weren’t hot” as good as indicated that it was time to move onto other topics.

In truth, this was a generational issue – my mother’s generation and my grandmother’s generation. A time when family meals might involve a warning not to touch the plate.

And, of course, they were right. A hot dinner on a cold plate is not a good combination. Maybe our current problem regarding napkins on plates is to do with the fact that we’ve become casual, very casual, about meals in general which in turn impacts on how plates are viewed and what goes where on the table and why.

So, let’s hear it for plates. In all shapes and sizes. They’re underrated. They’re understated. They do a fine job.

And let’s leave them at it. All on their own.

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