buffet

Part of the Meals series

Common meals

Breakfast • Brunch • Lunch Tea • Dinner • Supper

Components & courses

Appetizer • Entrée • Main course Side dish • Drink • Dessert

Related concepts

Food • Eating • Cuisine Etiquette • Buffet • Banquet

A buffet is a meal system where customers generally serve themselves. It is a popular method for feeding a large number of people with minimal staff. It is also a popular method for feeding a small number of individuals who eat way more than they should be legally allowed to (i.e. Josh & Jon at lunch). Buffets are offered at various places including hotels and many social events. Sideboards are also known as buffets as they may be used to offer the dishes of a buffet meal to guests. It is widely thought that in general the quality of foods at buffets is not on the level of an average "sit down" dinner. The reason being that because buffet food has to be produced in such large quantities, it is often cost and time prohibitive to focus on detail oriented aspects of food such as presentation and perfecting seasoning. However, this is not an across the board rule.

Types

A Chinese buffet restaurant in the U.S.

One form of buffet is to have a table filled with plates containing fixed portions of food; customers select plates containing whatever food items they want as they walk along. This form is most commonly seen in cafeterias. A variation occurs in a Dim sum house, where the patrons make their selections from a wheeled trolley containing the plates of food that circulates through the restaurant. Another derivative of this type of buffet occurs where patrons choose food from a buffet style layout and then pay based on what was chosen.

Another form, known as the all-you-can-eat buffet, is more free-form: customers pay a fixed fee and can then help themselves to as much food as they wish to eat in a single meal. This form is found often in restaurants, especially in hotels;

A third type of buffet commonly offered in delicatessens and supermarkets is a salad bar, in which customers help themselves to lettuce and other salad ingredients, then pay by weight.

A fourth type of buffet is associated with a celebration of some sort.

As a compromise between self-service and full table service, a staffed buffet may be offered: diners bring their own plate along the buffet line and are given a portion from a server at each station. This method is prevalent at catered meetings where diners are not paying specifically for their meal.

A traditional form of buffet in Sweden is the smörgåsbord, which literally means table of sandwiches.

Home buffets

An Indian buffet in Australia

Buffets are effective for serving large numbers of people at once. For this reason, they are prevalent in institutional settings, such as business conventions or large parties. Another advantage of buffets compared to table service is that diners have a great deal of choice and the ability to closely inspect food before selecting it. Since a buffet involves diners serving themselves, it has in the past been considered an informal form of dining, less formal than table service. In recent years, however, buffet dinners are increasingly popular among hosts of home dinner parties, especially in homes where limited space complicates the serving of individual places.

Home buffet set-up

Home buffets work well in both small or large spaces, but only when every element of buffet set-up is considered. The room in which a buffet is to be held must have sufficient space away from furniture to prevent damage. The most efficient buffet table set up consists of one to two tables wide enough for two rows of platters. This allows guests to serve themselves from both sides of the table, speeding up the serving process and reducing the risk of spillage.

Buffet tables should be set up in a logical order, with plates first, followed by the main course and side dishes. Last should be utensils and napkins. If possible, desserts and especially beverages should be served from a separate table, preferably far away from the main buffet table. This helps to prevent spills.

History

While serving oneself at a meal has a long history, the modern buffet was developed in France in the 18th century, soon spreading throughout Europe. The term originally referred to the sideboard where the food was served, but eventually became applied to the form. The buffet became popular in the English-speaking world in the second half of the nineteenth century.

When the possession of gold and silver has been a measure of solvency of a regime, the display of it, in the form of plates and vessels, is more a political act than a gesture of conspicuous consumption. The 16th-century French term buffet applied both to the display itself and to the furniture on which it was mounted, often draped with rich textiles, but more often as the century advanced an elaborately carved cupboard surmounted by tiers of shelves. In England such a buffet was called a court cupboard. Prodigal displays of plate were probably first revived at the fashionable court of Burgundy and adopted in France. The Baroque displays of silver and gold that were affected by Louis XIV of France were immortalized in paintings by Alexandre-François Desportes and others, before Louis' plate and his silver furniture had to be sent to the mint to pay for the wars at the end of his reign.

During the 18th century more subtle demonstrations of solvency were preferred. A buffet was revived in England and France at the end of the century, when new ideals of privacy made a modicum of self-service at breakfast-time appealing, even among those who could have had a footman behind each chair. In The Cabinet Dictionary of 1803 Thomas Sheraton gave a neoclassical design and observed that "a buffet may, with some propriety, be restored to modern use, and prove ornamental to a modern breakfast-room, answering as the china cabinet|repository of a tea equipage"

20th century

A small cold buffet at an art school exhibition

In a 1922 housekeeping book entitled How to Prepare and Serve a Meal, Lillian B. Lansdown wrote:

The concept of eating a buffet arose in mid 17th century France, when gentleman callers would arrive at the homes of ladies they wanted to woo unexpectedly. Their surprise arrival would throw the kitchen staff in to a panic and the only food that could be served was a selection of what was found in the cold room.

The informal luncheon or lunch—originally the light meal eaten between breakfast and dinner, but now often taking the place of dinner, the fashionable hour being one (or half after if cards are to follow) —is of two kinds. The "buffet" luncheon, at which the guests eat standing; and the luncheon served at small tables, at which the guests are seated....

The knife is tabooed at the “buffet” lunch, hence all the food must be such as can be eaten with fork or spoon. As a rule, friends of the hostess serve... The following dishes cover the essentials of a “buffet” luncheon. Beverages: punch, coffee, chocolate (poured from urn, or filled cups brought from pantry on tray); hot entrées of various sorts (served from chafing dish or platter) preceded by hot bouillon; cold entrées, salads, lobster, potatoes, chicken, shrimp, with heavy dressings; hot rolls, wafer-cut sandwiches (lettuce, tomato, deviled ham, etc.); small cakes, frozen creams and ices.^[1]

The informal luncheon at small tables calls for service by a number of maids, hence the “buffet” plan is preferable.

The "all you can eat" buffet has been ascribed to Herb Macdonald, a hotel manager who introduced the idea in 1946. In his 1965 novel The Muses of Ruin, William Pearson wrote, of the buffet:

At midnight every self-respecting casino premières its buffet—the eighth wonder of the world, the one true art form this androgynous harlot of cities has delivered herself of.... We marvel at the Great Pyramids, but they were built over decades; the midnight buffet is built daily. Crushed-ice castles and grottoes chill the shrimp and lobster. Sculptured aspic is scrolled with Paisley arabesques. They are, laid out with reverent artistry: hors d'oeuvres, relish, salads, and sauces; crab, herring oyster, sturgeon, octopus, and salmon; turkey, ham, roast beef, casseroles, fondues, and curries; cheeses, fruits and pastries. How many times you go through the line is a private matter between you and your capacity, and then between your capacity and the chef's evil eye.^[2]

There is a growing tendency to misuse the word "buffet" to indicate an "all you can eat" meal, even if the food isn't already prepared and laid on a table, but rather you pay a set price and can order anything from a menu, as many times as you like.^{[citation needed]}

Popular buffets

In the United States, Buffets, Inc., a large buffet chain corporation which owns Old Country Buffet, Country Buffet, and HomeTown Buffet. HomeTown Buffet popularized the "scatter buffet", which refers to the layout of separate food pavilions. Other American restaurant chains well-known for their buffets include Golden Corral, which features food products presented in pans, Souplantation (known in particular for its soups and salads), Gatti's Pizza, Barnhill's Buffet, Cici's Pizza, Fresh Choice (a smaller competitor of Souplantation), Pancho's Mexican Buffet, and Ponderosa Steakhouse. Sizzler is another prominent restaurant offering a buffet.

In Australia, buffet chains like Sizzler serve a large number of patrons with Carvery, Seafood, Salads and Desserts. Buffets are also common in RSL clubs and some motel restaurants.

In 1990 Big Lukes in Newcastle Upon Tyne became the United Kingdom's first U.S.-style 'all you can eat' buffet restaurant.

In Russia, the chain MooMoo (or МуМу in Russian) serves all its food buffet-style.^[3]

In Brazil, comida a quilo or comida por quilo - literally, "food by the kilo" - restaurants are common. This is a cafeteria style buffet in which diners are billed by the weight of the food selected, excluding the weight of the plate. The Brazilian rodizio style is all-you-can-eat, having both non self-service and self-service variations.

In Japan, a buffet or smorgasbord is known as a Viking. Dessert Vikings are very popular in Japan where one can eat from a buffet full of desserts.

References

1. ^ *How to Prepare and Serve a Meal, Project Gutenberg etext of the 1922 book by Lillian B. Lansdown
2. ^ Pearson, William (1965). The Muses of Ruin. McGraw-Hill.
3. ^ Moo-Moo chain, Moscow - Restaurants - VirtualTourist.com

Buffet Table Setting Guidelines, http://www.divinedinnerparty.com/buffet-table-setting.html, retrieved on 2008-03-04 

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Buffet

Look up buffet in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Buffet car
• Smörgåsbord