Shoes, Shovels, Slates: The New Plates?

In the modern world, being served restaurant food on chopping boards is a regular occurrence, as is pondering the conundrum of how to pour gravy over your roast without ending up sat in a pool of meaty juice.

But would you be willing to eat out of a shoe? And what about a dog bowl?

YouGov asked 2,030 Brits what were acceptable vessels to serve up food in if they were clean – not that this makes it much better – and found that nine per cent of diners wouldn’t actually mind eating out of a shoe.

Meanwhile, ten per cent of respondents – presumably canines – said they wouldn’t object to eating out of a dog bowl in a restaurant.

‘Hipster’ restaurants have been increasingly popping up in the UK’s towns and cities over the past few years, with Instagram culture fuelling the rise in eateries serving up food on unusual items, which is an almost guaranteed way for them to get more publicity.

This is all much to the chagrin of the #WeWantPlates movement on social media, which supplied YouGov with what it felt were ridiculous examples of ‘crockery’ so it could ask people which they would be okay eating from/out of.

Shoes and dog bowls were the vessels that incited the greatest amount of tutting and head-shaking among diners, with the majority preferring good old-fashioned (how/when did they become old-fashioned?!) plates. Bizarrely, one per cent of respondents said they wouldn’t eat from a round plate and we truly can’t think of any possible reasons why this could be.

Maybe they were among the 17 per cent who wouldn’t object to eating off a shovel, or the 28 per cent that would be happy eating off a flooring panel – not off the floor itself, we feel we must stress, but off a floor panel placed on their table, which makes all the difference.

Aside from actual real-life plates, the most acceptable items to eat off were named as slates, which 69 per cent of diners have no problem with, while 64 per cent don’t mind wooden boards – we need to find out who they are and see if they’ve found a way around the gravy issue.

More than half (52 per cent) also said they were okay with food being served in plant pots. Plant-based eating may be becoming more popular, but we’re not sure that it needs taking quite this far.

But maybe Brits just love food so much that they aren’t bothered what it’s served up on and they just want to begin eating it as quickly as possible. Perhaps the old adage ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a horse’ needs changing to ‘I’m so hungry I could eat out of a shoe’? Regardless, loyal members of the #WeWantPlates movement are sure to be irked.