The once-famous Twitter account @wewantplates has long since faded into memory, and whoever runs the handle hasn’t posted anything in more than a year.
Those versed in social media will recall a time when a picture of a cheeseburger, delivered on a slab of black slate, would spark online chaos. Photographs of French fries in miniature chip fryers and snacks in teacups, colanders, even tiny shopping trolleys were commonplace; even more outlandish were serving instruments like bright yellow Crocs (used to house mozzarella sticks), a fish pie on a genuine fish tank — yes, there was a live goldfish swimming about beneath the cod and salmon — and bao buns on the underside of a porcelain cow.
We might also take a moment to remember condiment udders, where ketchup, mayonnaise and the like were squeezed from vertical plastic tubes, through real rubber teats, onto waiting dishes below.
Today, the craze for farcical, near-insane culinary receptacles hasn’t entirely been consigned to history — not long ago in Magaluf, I was served chips in a greasy steel basket — but it is no longer one of the internet’s more pressing issues.
We have been lumbered with the blate, though — crockery that appears normal but is ludicrous and stealthy in its capering. The blate — a real term — is neither plate nor bowl, instead a halfway house between the two. Blates are, you see, essentially plates with a one or two-inch high lip at the circumference, unconvincing in nature and intangible by design.
Blates have become popular not in middling suburban pubs or syrupy-cocktail clad activity joints full of pulled pork, but in higher-end restaurants with dishes like monkfish on white beans or butternut squash raviolo with cavolo nero and toasted hazelnuts.
The blate — a real term — is neither plate nor bowl, instead a halfway house between the two
They are irritating because they are completely pointless. Blates tend to be too shallow and wide to serve soup or similar but have enough curvature to disrupt the standard use of a knife and fork. To cut a piece of meat without aggravation mostly requires a horizontal motion, but blates force a greater angle with the implements. One foul move and the cutlery hits the upturned sides.
They make no sense at all. Pasta or risotto might arguably work here, but we must ask ourselves why? Risotto is supposed to be served on a normal, flat plate, pasta in a pasta bowl. The latter is softer and easier and traditional for a reason.
Generally, blates are favoured because they welcome bases like mashed potatoes and rich sticky sauces that often taste too much like veal stock. Both foodstuffs are hugely popular in restaurants today. What’s more, fancy ceramics are all the rage, and the high-rise edges of grey, slightly wonky and coarse surfaces match the low-hanging bulbs and wooden tables of post-modern British dining.
But while there is much to celebrate in our culinary renaissance, blates are only a ceramic blight on eating, another bullish fad for diners ever eager for the new for the sake of newness. Such effort with such little return is frankly bothersome.
Right, well, if you still need convincing, then I will offer you a pragmatic take on an impracticality: blates do not fit in the dishwasher.
