Vintage Advice: Buffet Thoughts

Thoughts about Thoughts for Buffets

Thoughts for Buffets (Houghton Mifflin, 1958)

I didn’t buy this book. I didn’t even open it. I loved the cover and the mental images it evoked and thought there was no way that the book’s contents could provide more entertainment than my own overactive imagination.

(Apparently it’s a cookbook, in a series, in case you were wondering. But Thoughts for Buffets was by far the best title.)(PS: Just found there’s a More Thoughts for Buffets!)

Here are some of my own buffet thoughts:

Cheesy potatoes? Ohgoodohgoodohgood.
See that line of people at the end of the table? That’s where you start. There is a reason there are no plates here.
Chicken? What a surprise!
Please do not eat as you fill your plate, especially while leaning over the table. You are thinking of another long, rectangular eating surface: a trough.
Have you had your flu shot?
Are those raisins or chocolate chips?
(Quick mental math to determine how many slices of bacon one can prudently take, given the size of the crowd)
Your beard is getting dangerously close to the dip, sir.
This is not an All You Can Eat buffet, it’s a They Ate It All buffet. (half an hour before a restaurant buffet’s official end)
Please don’t lick your fingers/sneeze/cough/crop dust as you walk the length of the buffet table. Pretty please.
I’m concerned about there being enough dessert. If I skip the barbecue table for now and go straight to the pies, will there be any protein left for me later? (Do I care?)
Did you get a flu shot? Did I?
Hey, person in line ahead of me. There are two fillets left. If you take them both, I will get nothing. Don’t pretend you can’t feel my eyes boring into the back of your head.
Don’t double dip! Do not explain to me that Mythbusters proved that double dipping doesn’t have immediate health effects. I don’t care. It’s yucky.
Why do I always get stuck behind indecisive eaters?
When there are 12 varieties of dessert on the table, the hosts will not be offended if you don’t sample them all. Really.
I think I must try every single dessert on this table?
No, it is not okay to manhandle the rolls or fruit in order to obtain your preferred variety. You touch it, you take it. (And for the love of all things bright and beautiful, do not sniff it.)
Do we really have to be invited to the buffet table by table? Can’t we be trusted not to stampede or cut like savages? Oh, yeah…
Can we just make a rule that large parties require a two-sided buffet table?
Can people really not see that the food on both sides of the buffet table is exactly the same?
Do not blow your nose on the linen napkin. Really.
When they say, “All you can eat,” they don’t mean, “All the calories you need to consume to survive for the next three days.” Humans are not like alligators or lions. There will be another opportunity to eat in a few hours if not sooner.
Every item on the plate of that person next to me is white/orange/brown.
Man! I wish I took what he/she took. It looks better than mine.
How many meatballs are too many?
Dear parent who wants everyone to know what a diverse eater your child is: we don’t care. We will take umbrage if you serve all the smoked salmon to little Johnny who will take a bite out of each piece and then run off to chase balloons.
Why do East coasters stand “on line?” How does that make more sense than “in line?”
Why don’t Europeans stand in line, at buffets or airports?

Reviewing these pulled from real-life buffet thoughts, it’s apparent that nothing brings out humans’ bad table manners like a buffet. Either that, or I’m a catering curmudgeon. Quite possibly both things are true. However, never fear, if you come to my house, I will cook for you and encourage you to eat yourself silly. With a modicum of manners, of course.