Buffet
Encyclopedia
- For the furniture of the same name, see SideboardSideboardA sideboard is an item of furniture traditionally used in the dining room for serving food, for displaying serving dishes such as silver, and for storage. It usually consists of a set of cabinets, or cupboards, and one or more drawers, all topped by a flat display surface for conveniently holding...
.
A buffet (ˈbʊfeɪ in UK, bəˈfeɪ in USA) is a system of serving meals in which food is placed in a public area where the diners generally serve themselves. Buffets are offered at various places including hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
s and many social events. Sideboard
Sideboard
A sideboard is an item of furniture traditionally used in the dining room for serving food, for displaying serving dishes such as silver, and for storage. It usually consists of a set of cabinets, or cupboards, and one or more drawers, all topped by a flat display surface for conveniently holding...
s are also known as buffets as they may be used to offer the dishes of a buffet meal to guests.
Types
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
; customers select plates containing whichever food items they want as they walk along. This form is most commonly seen in cafeteria
Cafeteria
A cafeteria is a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school; a school dining location is also referred to as a dining hall or canteen...
s. A variation occurs in a Dim sum
Dim sum
Dim sum refers to a style of Chinese food prepared as small bite-sized or individual portions of food traditionally served in small steamer baskets or on small plates...
house, where the patrons make their selections from a wheeled trolley containing the different plates of food that circulate 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 (sometimes based on the weight of the food).
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 hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
s.
A third type of buffet commonly offered in delicatessen
Delicatessen
Delicatessen is a term meaning "delicacies" or "fine foods". The word entered English via German,with the old German spelling , plural of Delikatesse "delicacy", ultimately from Latin delicatus....
s and supermarket
Supermarket
A supermarket, a form of grocery store, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...
s is a salad bar
Salad bar
A salad bar is a buffet-style table or counter at a restaurant or food market on which salad components are provided for customers to assemble their own salad plates...
, in which customers help themselves to lettuce
Lettuce
Lettuce is a temperate annual or biennial plant of the daisy family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable. It is eaten either raw, notably in salads, sandwiches, hamburgers, tacos, and many other dishes, or cooked, as in Chinese cuisine in which the stem becomes just as important...
and other salad
Salad
Salad is any of a wide variety of dishes, including vegetable salads; salads of pasta, legumes, eggs, or grains; mixed salads incorporating meat, poultry, or seafood; and fruit salads. They may include a mixture of cold and hot, often including raw vegetables or fruits.Green salads include leaf...
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
Smörgåsbord
Smörgåsbord is a type of Scandinavian meal served buffet-style with multiple dishes of various foods on a table, originating in Sweden. In Norway it is called koldtbord, in Denmark it is called det kolde bord, in Finland seisova pöytä and in Estonia rootsi laud...
, which literally means table of sandwiches.
Home buffets
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 foodFood
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
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 dinner
Dinner
Dinner is usually the name of the main meal of the day. Depending upon culture, dinner may be the second, third or fourth meal of the day. Originally, though, it referred to the first meal of the day, eaten around noon, and is still occasionally used for a noontime meal, if it is a large or main...
s are increasingly popular among hosts of home dinner parties, especially in homes where limited space complicates the serving of individual places.
History
The buffet table originates from the BrännvinBrännvin
Brännvin is a Swedish word for liquor distilled from potatoes, grain, or wood cellulose; it may be flavored or unflavored. The term includes vodka and akvavit, but akvavit is always flavored....
sbord - Swedish snaps (shot of alcoholic beverage) table from the middle of 16th century, and had its prime during the early 18th century, and was developed into the buffet we more know today not until the beginning of 19th century. The Smorgasbord buffet did not increase its popularity until the expansion of the railroads throughout Europe.
The smorgasbord table was a meal where guests gathered before dinner for a pre-dinner drink, and was not part of the formal dinner to be followed. The smorgasbord buffet was often held in separate room for men and women before the dinner was served.
Smörgåsbord became internationally known as Smorgasbord at the 1939 New York World's exhibition as the Swedes had to invent a new way of showcasing the best of Swedish food.
The term buffet originally referred to the French sideboard
Sideboard
A sideboard is an item of furniture traditionally used in the dining room for serving food, for displaying serving dishes such as silver, and for storage. It usually consists of a set of cabinets, or cupboards, and one or more drawers, all topped by a flat display surface for conveniently holding...
where the food was served, but eventually became applied to the form. The buffet became popular in the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
-speaking world in the second half of the 19th century after the Swedes had used the smorgasbord in New York. The word is still borrowed into the English language.
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
Conspicuous consumption
Conspicuous consumption is spending on goods and services acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth. In the mind of a conspicuous consumer, such display serves as a means of attaining or maintaining social status....
. 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
Duchy of Burgundy
The Duchy of Burgundy , was heir to an ancient and prestigious reputation and a large division of the lands of the Second Kingdom of Burgundy and in its own right was one of the geographically larger ducal territories in the emergence of Early Modern Europe from Medieval Europe.Even in that...
and adopted in France. The Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
displays of silver and gold that were affected by Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
were immortalized in paintings by Alexandre-François Desportes
Alexandre-François Desportes
Alexandre-François Desportes was a French painter and decorative designer who specialised in animals.Desportes was born in Champigneul, Marne. He studied in Paris, in the studio of the Flemish painter Nicasius Bernaerts, a pupil of Frans Snyders...
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
Self-service
Self service is the practice of serving oneself, usually when purchasing items. Common examples include many gas stations, where the customer pumps their own gas rather than have an attendant do it...
at breakfast-time appealing, even among those who could have had a footman behind each chair. In The Cabinet Dictionary of 1803 Thomas Sheraton
Thomas Sheraton
Thomas Sheraton was a furniture designer, one of the "big three" English furniture makers of the 18th century, along with Thomas Chippendale and George Hepplewhite.-Biography:...
gave a neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
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
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.
- 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 in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
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.
Popular buffets
In Australia, buffet chains such as SizzlerSizzler
Sizzler is a United States-based restaurant chain with headquarters in Culver City, California. The chain serves steak, seafood, and salad , as well as similar items.-History:...
serve a large number of patrons with carvery
Carvery
A carvery is a restaurant where cooked meat is freshly sliced to order for customers, sometimes offering unlimited servings for a fixed price...
, seafood, salads and desserts. Buffets are also common in Returned and Services League of Australia
Returned and Services League of Australia
The Returned and Services League of Australia is a support organisation for men and women who have served or are serving in the Australian Defence Force ....
(RSL) clubs and some motel restaurants.
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. Brazilian cuisine's rodízio
Rodizio
Rodízio and the waiters bring an offering of food to each customer at several times throughout the meal, until the customers signify that they have had enough. In churrascarias, servers come to the table with knives and a skewer, on which are speared various kinds of meat, most commonly local cuts...
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 (バイキング - baikingu). It is said that this originated from the restaurant "Imperial Viking" in the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, which was the first restaurant in Japan to serve buffet-style meals. Dessert vikings are very popular in Japan, where one can eat from a buffet full of desserts.
In Russia, the chain MooMoo (or МуМу
Moo Moo Restaurants Russia
Moo-Moo is a chain of buffet restaurants in Moscow, Russia.Moo-Moo operates as a cafeteria-style restaurant and as such can be considered a fast food restaurant. The entire menu is self-service, and includes a wide variety of meats , vegetables, soups, breads, and desserts. Several Moo-Moo...
in Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
) serves all its food buffet-style.
In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Buffets, Inc. is a large buffet chain corporation which owns Old Country Buffet, Country Buffet, Fire Mountain, Ryan's Steakhouse, 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 America's Incredible Pizza Company
America's Incredible Pizza Company
America's Incredible Pizza Company is an American pizza buffet, entertainment center and restaurant chain based in Springfield, Missouri. The first restaurant was opened in Springfield, Missouri in 2002...
, Chuck-A-Rama
Chuck-A-Rama
Chuck-A-Rama is a chain of buffet restaurants based in Salt Lake City, Utah with eight restaurants in Utah and two in Idaho. Many of the items are what one would consider "home cooking" types of recipes rather than fine dining offerings...
, Cici's Pizza
CiCi's Pizza
CiCi's Pizza is an American buffet restaurant chain based in Coppell, Texas, specializing in pizza. There are approximately 600 franchised and corporately owned restaurants in 35 states...
, Fresh Choice
Fresh Choice
Fresh Choice is a chain of buffet-style restaurants which operate in California, Washington, and Texas under the names Fresh Choice, Fresh Plus, Fresh Choice Express, and Zoopa. The first restaurant was opened in Sunnyvale, California in 1986, and as of 2010 there are 30 locations with two new...
(a West Coast competitor of Sweet Tomatoes), Furr's Family Dining, Gatti's Pizza
Gatti's Pizza
Gatti's Pizza is a Southeastern United States pizza-buffet chain. Gatti's Pizza, founded in 1964 is owned by Blue Sage Capital, a private equity investment firm. The corporate offices are in Austin, Texas.-History:...
, Golden Corral
Golden Corral
Golden Corral is an American family-style restaurant chain that features a large buffet and grill offering numerous hot and cold items, a carving station and their Brass Bell Bakery...
(which features food products presented in pans), Pancho's Mexican Buffet
Pancho's Mexican Buffet
Pancho's Mexican Buffet is a chain of Tex-Mex restaurants in the United States. The bulk of the restaurants are in Texas; a few restaurants are also located in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Mississippi...
, Ponderosa Steakhouse, Shakey's Pizza
Shakey's Pizza
Shakey's Pizza is a pizza restaurant chain based in the United States. The chain currently has about 500 stores globally, and about 60 in the United States.-History:...
, Sizzler
Sizzler
Sizzler is a United States-based restaurant chain with headquarters in Culver City, California. The chain serves steak, seafood, and salad , as well as similar items.-History:...
, and Sweet Tomatoes (known in particular for its soups and salads).
Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
is famous for its all-you-can-eat buffet (which are common in casinos) as depicted in the 2007 documentary film BUFFET: All You Can Eat Las Vegas.
See also
- Buffet carBuffet carA buffet car is a passenger car of a train, where snacks and beverages can be bought at a counter and consumed. Typically, passengers are not allowed to consume brought-along food and drinks in the car, and are therefore only able to eat in this area by buying their food in the car.- Further...
- CateringCateringCatering is the business of providing foodservice at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, public house , or other location.-Mobile catering:A mobile caterer serves food directly from a vehicle or cart that is designed for the purpose...
- Food safetyFood safetyFood safety is a scientific discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illness. This includes a number of routines that should be followed to avoid potentially severe health hazards....
- SmörgåsbordSmörgåsbordSmörgåsbord is a type of Scandinavian meal served buffet-style with multiple dishes of various foods on a table, originating in Sweden. In Norway it is called koldtbord, in Denmark it is called det kolde bord, in Finland seisova pöytä and in Estonia rootsi laud...