Originally published by The Clifton Courier, September 22, 2021

There are few things that tap into the ugliest depths of humanity quite like a buffet. 

While I like to tell myself that I am a decent and rational person motivated by goodwill, I am aware this is something of an act. 

I mean, deep down, we’re all animals with biological needs, powered by ancient evolutionary forces. We could kill with our bare hands. We could let out piercing, guttural howls. We could grind the bones of our enemies down to make our bread (which not only is quite graphic for a children’s story, it would make for a very unpleasant texture).  

But we don’t – and that’s not just because there’s no amount of butter that could make a slice of bone-based sourdough enjoyable.

It’s because we’re also creatures of the mind. This consciousness means we can rise above the savagery that earned us our throne in the animal kingdom and style ourselves with some semblance of civility. This means our character is not just who we are naturally, but also the people we actively try to be. And I personally find that very comforting, because while naturally I can be quite awful, I can train myself to be… less awful. And that extra effort counts for something (well, in my convenient-for-me opinion, anyway).

I mean, it requires a lot of internal effort to fashion myself into the semi-decent person I present myself as. It takes work to be patient and pleasant and understanding. It’s not something I naturally do on instinct; it’s something I have to actively cultivate. 

Most of the time, I’m able to maintain that veneer of decency and rationality until I get to the privacy of my own car/home/soundproof capsule that prevents other people from hearing my pent-up rants. But there are certain situations when years of psychological coaching and self-discipline become undone.

For me, that’s at a buffet.

I went to one on the weekend and was confronted by a side of myself that had not been unleashed for years thanks to a combination of the pandemic, the collapse of the Sizzler empire and society’s general suspicion of mass-produced foods that sit under heatlamps for hours.  

I had forgotten how ugly I could become in front of a salad bar. 

I walked into an arena of bain-maries and realised I was the master of my own destiny… and that I should not have that kind of power. 

Because without the restraints of single-serve portions dished out to me by someone else, I use that freedom to load up my plate with vast quantities of food that go far beyond my nutritional needs. And when I’m able to mix and match food items, I slop entirely different cuisines together in ungodly combinations that have no business being in the same building, let alone on the same plate. 

I always end up eating too much and, often, I don’t even enjoy the food that much. 

So I’m trying to understand why I do this.

The problem with buffets is not so much to do with the vast amount of choice because, when you think about it, there are often just as many choices in a line of bain-maries as there are on a menu. 

I think it’s the lack of consequences that undoes me. 

Because when you order something from a menu, you’re stuck with it. But if you put something on your plate at a buffet, you just can leave it sitting somewhere and a staff member will whisk it away. You don’t have to think about whether you’d actually enjoy the food, so you turn down the volume on the part of your brain in charge of critical thinking. And when you pair that with the fact you’ve paid to eat all you can eat, you feel a desperation to make the most of it. 

When you’re not used to this kind of freedom, it hypnotises you – and it doesn’t help that the clattering of knifes, forks and tongs is so loud that it drowns out your voice of reason.   

And like a shark who has picked up the sent of blood, your pupils dilate and you become a mindless eating machine. It turns into a gluttonous, hedonistic free-for-all and you don’t realise you’ve lost yourself until you’re contemplating your second run at the dessert bar. And then you look down in horror that the half-cleaned bones, the jelly cups and the dregs of clashing sauces in front of you. You think about how hard you’ve worked to morph yourself into a decent human and are appalled to learn that all it takes to undo all that work is an array of salads.  

Or is that just me?