What is ‘girl dinner’ and why is everyone talking about it?

Fiona Frawley

Header images via TikTok/ makeitmads / liviemaher

Picky bits, small plate; whatever you want to call it, it’s now trending.

Since TikTok’s rise to mainstream prominence, we’ve seen our fair share of food trends come and go on the app. There was “nature’s cereal” (a bleak arrangement of berries and coconut water), the rise of seacuterie boards (or as I like to call it, the yassification of tinned fish) and of course, the infamous baked feta pasta dish that everyone and their granny tried to emulate.

The latest dish doing the rounds is “girl dinner”, indicating that pretty much anything can be a food trend.

The concept was first shared back in May by creator Olivia Maher, in a video which has since amassed 1.3 million views.

In the video, Olivia explains: “I cannot find the TikTok right now, but a girl just came on here and said how like in medieval times peasants had to eat nothing but bread and cheese and how awful that was and she was like “that’s my ideal meal”. This is my dinner”.

She then flips the camera around to reveal a meagre presentation of cheese, a minuscule halved slice of sourdough, a few grapes and a jar of pickles, announcing “I call this girl dinner or medieval peasant dinner”.

@liviemaher #girldinner #medievaltiktok ♬ original sound – Olivia Maher

Since then, multiple users have jumped on the trend to show their own “girl dinner”, some of which are more elaborate with delicately laid out cured meats and carefully sliced strawberries. A large chunk of the dishes circulating as part of the trend are essentially solo charcuterie boards with a new name, but the lazier or less aesthetically put together dishes are definitely akin to the kind of dinners our mothers and grandmothers tend to make for themselves when there’s no one around to cook for.

I’m sure it’s the way in more families than my own – matriarchs are so fatigued from years of preparing full dinners for the entire household night after night that when they finally just have themselves to cook for, dinner is either a bowl of cereal (and not “nature’s” kind), a slice of toast or if they’re feeling particularly adventurous, a solitary boiled egg. My granny’s dishes usually consisted of a hazelnut yoghurt (never any other flavour, she knew what she wanted) and a couple of fig rolls. Throw in a side of pickles and that’s the original girl dinner – she was way ahead of her time.

They’ve yassified Mammy salads pic.twitter.com/NktSA861Ap

— ⭐ amy o'connor ⭐ (@amyohconnor) July 8, 2023

Some have likened girl dinners to adult lunchables, others have expressed concerns that the servings are far too small and “suspiciously low cal“. Whatever your thoughts on the trend are, it’s easy to recreate – just whack whatever you have in your fridge and cupboard onto a plate in neat little piles and take a video of it. Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it, and all that.

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