All you can eat

God knows I've been trying, but it's really difficult to find anything positive about a pandemic that's already killed hundreds of thousands of people and crippled the economy, and - at the tiny, tweeting hands of the rancid man currently occupying the Oval Office - might well become the catalyst for the destruction of our country as we once knew it. 

I suppose you could say that it's bringing us all back to realizing what's essential in our lives, and that would be true. It's making us appreciate the little things that bring joy to a day. (The other day, I veered off a walkway on the Esplanade to smell the lilacs.) And it's turning us all - even me - into cooks. Let me tell you, when I went to figure out dinner the other night, I was beyond delighted that I had a freezer choice between home-cooked sesame chicken and home-cooked stuffed peppers. 

Of course, we're all cooking because we're not going out to eat, which is not necessarily anything to celebrate.

I don't dine out as often as I used to. Pre-lockdown, it was once or twice a week. But back in the day when I worked full time, my husband and I would eat out almost every evening. I made dinner on Saturdays, and that was about it.

And I do miss going out, even when it was only a couple of times a week. I miss the choice, the variety, the not having to worry about cooking, about whether I had all the right ingredients and whether it was going to come out okay. I miss not having to clean up afterwards. I miss the doggy bag. I miss being waited on.

What I do not miss is buffet dining.

Sure, there's choice and plenty of it. But in my experience, buffet food is seldom all that good, let alone great. It's lukewarm. It's soggy. It's overcooked. It's underdone. Over salted. Too sweet...

It all might look good and worth a try, but it isn't. Still, you give into temptation and you end up eating and/or wasting too much. 

There was a place in Rhode Island, Custy's - now long gone - that served an all you can eat buffet. And that all you can eat included lobster, shrimp, and prime rib. I went once, with a large group, a dozen or so of us, including my sister Kath and my friend Joyce. We were all in our early twenties. Kath and Joyce may not have been great cooks at the time, but they both went on to become stars in their kitchens. Was the boring and miserable food at Custy's the impetus? I wonder.

People came from miles around to Custy's - in buses, even - to line up for the full spread of waterlogged shrimp and lobster, for flavorless prime rib. The lines were separated by those velvet ropes that they used to have in theaters. The stanchions were capped by Delicious apples. Ah, the Delicious: pretty and shiny, but mealy and ghastly tasting. The perfect metaphor for eating at Custy's.

When I ate there, we all trooped back for a second round. Because that was the deal with Custy's. You kept coming back. (On our way out, my sister Kath and I went into the ladies room where there were women inducing vomiting so they could go back for more.) The guys in our group - remember, we were all in our twenties - were enjoying it. The women, less so. 

After my second trip, I announced that I wanted to go back for more. After all, I think we'd paid about $15, which was a lot of money for us back then. Yes, I wanted to go back for one more round. I just didn't want the more to be food. "I just want something small," I recall moaning, "A handkerchief. A little plastic toy."

Not every buffet is as terrible as Custy's was, but IMHO ain't none of them very good.

And now, thanks to the coronavirus, the buffet restaurant may be on its last legs. 

The first signs of despair came in mid-March, when the US Food and Drug Administration answered a social distancing question on its website: "How do I handle self-service food buffets such as salad bars in a retail setting related to COVID-19?"

While stating there was no evidence to support the transmission of the virus from food or food packaging, the FDA said it recommended "discontinuing self-service buffets and salad bars until these measures are lifted."

Then, on an April call with industry members to discuss the best practices, Frank Yiannas, the FDA's Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response, gave a more blunt directive.

Retailers should "discontinue operations such as salad bars, self-service buffets or beverage service stations that require customers to use common utensils or dispensers," he said. (Source: CNN)

An early casualty was Sweet Tomatoes/Souplantation, an all-you-can-eater that's now gone for good. The company's CEO cited research that "'clearly indicated that the majority of guests will not be comfortable with any type of salad bar or buffet for some time.'"

Golden Corral is going to be reopening in some of its locations, but will be switching from self-serve buffet to cafetaria style eating. Because nothing says enjoyable dining out like having a hair-netted catetaria lady plop a scoop full of mashed potatoes on your plastic tray. 

I've never actually had the Golden Corral experience. The nearest one is in Springfield, Massachusetts, about 100 miles down the pike. And I'm not drawn to buffets to begin with, let alone one featuring "everything from fried chicken to Gummy Bears." Although, come to think of it, if Custy's had offered Gummy Bears, that would have satisfied my desire for a handkerchief or small plastic toy.

All of the buffet-style restaurants are now regrouping, figuring out how, if and when to get back into business.

[Sweet Tomatoes' parent company CEO John] Haywood told CNN it's not just buffet-style restaurants that face challenges during the pandemic.

"The fact that we could not reopen is indicative of the incredible challenge the entire restaurant industry faces," he said. "I really do not believe that most really understand what is about to happen. As a buffet concept, we are just the 'canary in the mine shaft,' as the saying goes."

Well, here's one canary who'll be staying out of the coal mine for the forseeable future - and that holds whether it's a buffet establishment (where I wouldn't be heading anyway) or a "real" sit-down restaurant. 

I understand that I am an outrageous snob, but if the demise of the buffet restaurant is an end result of the pandemic, I wouldn't regard it as an entirely bad thing. All you can eat, no thanks. I can do that in my own kitchen.