Family Style
Some Michelin chefs deconstruct - others encourage us to make it even more simple; serve family style. Here are my thoughts on why I’m going to do this way more going forward.
Warmer, quicker, easier
Would you like to listen to the podcast version instead of reading this article? Find it here!
Recently I wrote about deconstructing meals. Arguably, serving food family style can also be considered deconstructing. Or… not constructing anything in the first place, meaning nothing has to be deconstructed at all.
Family style means serving up the dish or dishes you’ve made on the table, either in serving dishes or even in the pans or dishes in which they were made. Michelin chef Marco Pierre White, whose BBC Maestro course I am currently watching, really flies the flag for the latter. His arguments? Keeping things simple are key, and also, in his words (paraphrased), serving up cold food is a great sin.
I’ve had a habit of plating up all my meals for me and my husband, presenting them as beautifully as I can and trying to make the food look its absolute best. I never thought that I had to, don’t get me wrong - but I started doing it as I was enjoying cooking so much, and then it just became the way I serve up all our meals.
Lately it has hit me that not only does it add extra work for me to try to plate everything up and present it beautifully, it also takes away the freedom from the person you are serving. They don’t get to choose their portion size, which can feel awkward if someone isn’t able to finish what you made them. If there are different components to the dish as well, they are likely to want to choose the ratio of different ingredients for themself. It’s very unlikely that everyone around the table (even when it’s just two people) would eat the exact same amount given the choice.
Family style can possibly help some of us finish eating when we are actually full (or, as they do in the blue zones; finish at 80%. I’m still working on that skill…). This may not be the case for all, having a great big dish of food in front of you that you can come back to multiple times can be hard to resist for some, but more often than not I think it can help with portion control. After all, you have to consider other people may also be coming back for seconds - very few people want to be the one scraping the last bit of the food out of the dish when there’s a chance somebody else also wanted more!
For those of us with kids, I think family style can be a brilliant way of encouraging following their own feeling of hunger and making good choices for themselves. And of course, children want and need to have some autonomy, this is a great way of offering them that.
I really believe this way of serving is much more social as well. It can get you talking more over the dinner table - interacting with each other and also possibly appreciating the connection between the kitchen prep and the final result in front of you. There’s just that tiny bit more activity related to the eating as well which makes you connect properly with the food instead of just gobbling it up.
For the person or people who actually make the meal, it certainly saves you lots of time in plating up - without really taking away any of the joy of cooking. What’s not to love?
And a last brilliant benefit, it is very likely to minimise food waste (if some was just left in the main serving dish it is more likely to be kept as leftovers).
Maybe not all meals are ideal for family style, but if you find yourself a bit stressed as the meal is getting ready to serve up because you’re doing individual plates every time, give it a try! And let me know if you prefer it or not in the comments below.
