Would you ever serve your guests a microwave meal?

Sure, most of us wouldn’t think twice about popping a Zataran’s or a Nighthawk meal in the microwave for lunch…but would you serve that to friends?

A recent survey of UK Adults revealed that 30% of them would be perfectly content to be served a microwave meal of their choice when visiting friends.

So, in other words, as long as the guests were allowed to choose their meal, they’d be fine with you providing them a plastic tray of ready-made food.

In the U.S., at least in Texas and the South in general, this must seem unfathomable.

Dinner parties, BBQs, etc. are as much about indulging in a nice, home-cooked meal provided by your hosts as it is about the comraderie of good friends.

Save for palling around with friends for a few beers or a video game session, where a quick ordering of pizza is pretty much expected, when someone invites you to their house for dinner, you might anticipate them to provide a home-cooked meal.

Nevertheless, even chef Jonathan Moore understands.

He notes that the microwave meals of 2016 are no longer the ill-prepared TV dinners of the 1960s and 70s.

Rather than spending time over a hot stove to prepare a meal, we enjoy the convenience of quality microwave-ready food...so why wouldn’t we serve it to our guests?

After all, it allows us more time to chat and to socialize rather than getting caught up in kitchen work.

Not everyone is sold on the concept, however.  Numerous hospitality experts were quick to chime in on the study, stating that preparing a meal for your guests is akin to showing them how much you value their friendship.

According to anthropologists, it’s a tradition that dates back to early humanity when we might invite a neighbor to share in our bounty…y’know, so they didn’t kill us and steal it anyway.  Offering a meal was often a peace-making measure for early humans.

But today, that well-honed tradition might be evolving.

And when is the last time that you were invited to a dinner party anyway?

As long as we don’t show up for Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner and get offered a microwave meal, we’re probably OK with this.

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