You know the old saying, “Strike while the iron’s hot?” I thought that meant a clothes iron. Why would you hit an iron? And why would you do it while it’s hot? What could an iron possibly do that would merit a beating?
It’s like my mom always said, “You’re not very smart, are you?”
Clothes irons have absolutely nothing to do with what’s really on my mind, which is ⬇️
SALAD BARS
After The Covid struck (that’s how my boss always refers to it — “The Covid,” which makes me insane) giant troughs of food exposed to the open air seemed to fall out of favor.
But apparently, it depends on the political leanings of the establishment’s owner, because the tiny grocery store where I live has reinstated the salad bar where you can catch your disease of choice—listeria, E. coli., botulism, dealer’s choice—from the vats of food laid out for God and man.
Americans got the idea for the salad bar when they saw their first smörgåsbord at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The smörgåsbord (I love that word— why doesn’t English have any cool things like the umlaut?) was an invention of the Swedish upper class during the 17th century when they found themselves a bit peckish, with dinner still several hours away.
The spread of bread, butter, cheese, and meats was even segregated by gender with the teams eating in different rooms, presumably so they could complain about each other.
It also gave them something to do while they waited around for the servants to prepare their meals. Salad bars were quickly adopted by American restauranteurs for that very reason, especially at steakhouses where meat and potatoes took a little longer to prepare.
They were also a godsend to casino owners who needed to feed the herds of degenerates roaming their twilight realm so they didn’t have an excuse to leave, or see the sun, or know how long they’d been playing Texas Hold’Em.
Salad bars of course morphed into the more lavish spread we know as the “All-You-Can-Eat Buffet”. My local grocery store has a “wing bar” (I mean, they’re not good wings, but they are, technically, wings). And of course, in the fancier markets, there are olive bars, and dessert bars, and on and on and on…
Put it in bar form and they will come.
Look, I get it. I too used to love me some salad bar. But the key is not thinking too hard about it. Because once you start thinking about it, it’s all over.
Here are some of the problems with salad bars:
Salad bars (and buffets in general) give you a false sense of value. Look at all that food you’re getting for one price!! Of course, you’re only eating a small portion of that food because your eyes are much bigger than your stomach, and you’re wildly overpaying for a base of lettuce and maybe some Jello salad at the end if you have room for it. Unless the bar offers crab legs, it’s not worth your money. And salad bars that charge you by weight are insanity. Please, just walk away. Stop the madness.
Salad bars encourage overeating. Like, duh.
Salad bars encourage waste. Where do you think all the untouched (or worse, touched) food goes at the end of the day? Right into the garbage can.
Salad bars can kill you. And I don’t just mean from heart disease.
Salad bars were never your best bet for cleanliness and hygiene. And with the pandemic raging all around, they were the first thing to go—and they may never come back. In the words of this article in CNN Business, “There’s not a huge amount of customer comfort from a sanitary perspective.”
But as I’ve already mentioned, salad bars are making a comeback, at least in my neck of the woods, which is heavily red in more ways than one.
What I love most about salad bars is that they’re a big “Fuck you!” to human nature. Human beings can’t be trusted not to do the wrong thing that benefits only themselves at the best of times, let alone when they’re hungry.
As you can read in this article from The New York Times (and I’m sorry if you’ve already used up your free articles for the month. Make a note and come back in 30 days) “the chances of getting food that is not clean or fresh may be greater than people think.”
No, I’m pretty sure a salad bar or buffet is just as gross as I think it is.
And it’s not just “temperature abuse” that worries me—it’s Tammy Happy Tongs over there poking through the feed while the rest of the herd mills cluelessly around her with besmirched plates in hand despite the admonition to USE A CLEAN PLATE FOR EACH TRIP.
And don’t even get me started on children.
Maybe I’m overly sensitive. Maybe I have OCD. Maybe I should lighten up a little. (Yes, yes, and yes.) But in my opinion, anything that’s good for the establishment (in all the varied meanings of that word) is bad for you, the individual.
Who’s up for a big heaping plate of slithy toves?
I'm awarding you a B+ (or if you prefer an A-) on this fun foodgasm story delight. Yum!
I remember the Good Old Days (GOD) of smorgasbords 😛-ugh!-😛 Out here in Wisconsin the proverbial supper clubs, which local PBS affiliates are desperately trying to cash in on, would serve gigantic lazy susans to your table loaded with creamed herring, pickles galore, relishes, bread sticks, veggies galore, and on and on mostly embedded in shaved ice. Yeah, sometimes there were auxiliary salad bars or full blown ones, but most of the trick or treats were right there on the susan. I could go on about supper clubs but DYO research, or ask.
Yeah, the chain franchisers and other one-offs that sport salad and food bars can and usually are quality suspects. The old 'get what you pay for' fits right in here. Funny, don't want to lump a group together but IMO amusingly Asian expats here might not eat anywhere else as a rule? Of course that's not true, it just looks like that happens. Also, Asian tourists seem to love shopping only at factory outlet malls as another observed rule of Asian tourist thumb, maybe they prefer buying marked up production items they produced at their one time day jobs? That's a little bit of a roar too.
Oh yeah, I was writing about food, yep, it's too big of a subject for me without getting into a book preface. Yes I remember the GOD of food plenty, right into the modern era of portion control, which is a nice way to report the now decades old trend of profit control. 🍤🍺🍉🧀🥐🍧🍧🍧🍴 oh yeah and one more or so of these...🍤
Definitey NOT oversensitive, Bev! Its wise to be wary of food offered beneath "sneeze guards"! THANK YOU for writing this rant, so I don't have to ;)