A plate is a concave container usually used to serve food.
A plate is a concave and usually rounded container that has a rim and is used to serve food . The usual thing is that, once the food is prepared, it is served on plates and these are brought to the table so that people can eat from them.
For example: «Why are there five plates on the table? If there are only four of us…” , “Be careful that the food does not overflow from the plate,” “Last night, when I was washing the dishes, one fell and broke.”
By extension to this meaning, the notion of plate is also used to name the meals served on it and the amount of food it houses inside: "I loved the main course, but I didn't like the dessert," "The duck “orange is my favorite dish” , “Uncle Osvaldo ate three plates of noodles for dinner” .
Types of dishes
Continuing with this meaning, it is common to talk about regional dishes , for example, to encompass all the recipes that belong to a certain geographical location, as well as international dishes to talk about foods that come from different parts of the world. The use of these expressions is normal in restaurants and hotels, among other establishments in which restaurant services are offered to customers.
On a non-vegetarian restaurant menu, thanks to this use of the term it is possible to distinguish between the following types of dishes:
- Starter : generally made up of soups , juices, creams and salads. In some restaurants there is a menu of the day that combines this dish with a main dish and dessert, always including a glass of juice or a small salad to complement the starter.
- First : it usually consists of stews, vegetables, rice, eggs, legumes and pasta. Shells and mussels can also be part of this dish:
- Second or main : it is normally composed of recipes that include fish or meat as the main ingredient.
- Dessert : it can be of dairy origin (such as ice cream, flan or yogurt, for example), a fruit or some kind of cake.
Food served in one of these objects is also mentioned as a dish.
Other uses of the term
There are plates that are used to support hot cups or wells on their surface . It is common, in this sense, that each cup of coffee has its corresponding saucer and that, on the table , it is always presented on it.
Decorative plates , for their part, display attractive designs and are hung on the wall as ornamentation: "Look at the plate we brought back from our trip to Montevideo," "My grandmother has plates with Patagonian motifs on the dining room wall."
Plate, in addition, is the name given to a disc that is used as a target in shooting competitions and the name of the piece that, in bicycles , links the pedals to the rear wheel through a chain.
The shower tray , for its part, is a base that is made with materials such as acrylic, natural stone, stoneware or mineral filler and is located under the shower to receive the water , direct it to the drain and thus avoid leaks occur in the ground. Since bathroom decoration is very important for many people, there are an infinite number of models and sizes of shower trays, each one designed to meet the different needs of each buyer, such as non-slip protection and resistance to products. cleaning.
In some countries , finally, a plate is a funny scene , which is funny: "María thought that today was Ludmila's birthday and she brought her a gift, but she was confused about the date: it was a plate!" . Similarly, it is possible to classify someone as a dish if they are very funny, if they have a natural grace: «Of course, when Jorge came in, it didn't take two seconds before we started laughing; It's a plate!