Gratitude #68: Plates that aren’t bowls
Bowlplates are what cafe owners end up buying when they go “2-Dimensional Crockery Shopping” (trademark pending). The 1st Dimension is aesthetics — how the plates look. The 2nd Dimension is price — did you get a good deal. The 3rd Dimension is functionality — namely CAN I FUCKING ACCESS THE FOOD I CAN SEE SITTING THERE IN MY PLATE IN FRONT OF ME. Even when normally prescient cafe owners go shopping for crockery they only pay this 3rd dimension lip service. The extent of their lip service is the “pretending to be eating a meal on it” hand movement over the plate before purchasing. What this fails to accomplish is figuring out how a customer will fare not only with real cutlery, but with real food in it.
Notice how I said in it instead of the on it you’ve come to expect when discussing plates. That’s because bowlplates aren’t your typical plates. They look almost exactly like plates but — like the aliens in Men In Black — appearances can be deceiving. If you look closely at the outside of bowlplates you’ll see a steep, unforgiving edge. We generally use regular plates for knife and fork meals because they need to come in flat like a landing aeroplane to tackle food with them. It’s just physics. If the edge of the plate is too upright you have to approach the meal from directly above, like you’re trying to remove the wishbone in Operation.
Your arms end up looking like a spider monkey trying to steal eggs from a well-guarded nest. Or they look like a dressage horse’s legs. Or they look like the claw on a bowling alley Skill Tester trying to reach for that last plastic lobster harmonica. Whatever imagery works best for you. This problem is only compounded when the chefs plate the food right to the edge of the bowlplate, then you’re forced to stand up just to get the leverage required to cut your food like a caveman.
