Pigs to the trough

I'm sitting in the Air New Zealand lounge at Wellington Airport, finishing my second glass of orange juice as I start writing this. I've also had: some scrambled eggs with two little kransky sausages and dijon mustard, a baby croissant, a little bowl of granola with coconut and blackberry and apricot, and a small plunger of coffee because the instant coffee machine is out of order this morning. I'm debating a sour cherry Danish pastry. Or perhaps two more little kranskys for the road.

Perhaps I sound like a glutton. Indeed I am. But it pays to remember everything is, for the most part, bite sized in the Koru Lounge. Even the self-selected portion of scrambled eggs becomes bite sized, because they're not very good; a few mouthfuls is about all you can manage.

But this gluttonous behaviour, and the similar behaviour of every other person in this lounge right now, (even when the scrambled eggs are bad) has confirmed something I've always believed to be true: everyone loves a buffet, despite what they tell you. And everyone is a Buffet Glutton.

Everyone's guard comes down when there's a buffet. Even those in suits purporting to be very proper or professional, and those in Lululemon exercise gear, who look like the types who'd comment on having “soooooo much to eat” after one banana and turmeric shot. (One woman in the lounge right now is exactly one of those types and she's had three of said shots, and a small bowl of granola. No kranskys - no surprise).

I like that about a buffet. That it's a leveler. That regardless of who you are, when there's an assortment of food and drink to pick from - and whether we're paying for it or it's free - we are all pigs to the trough. When it's free everyone wants to take maximum advantage (not that anything is free, but I guess if your work pays for your Koru membership it feels free). And when you're paying you of course want absolute bang for your buck.

My dad grew up living in hotels and bars that his father managed. When he was a school kid living in Queenstown he'd go back to the hotel each day for smorgasbord lunch. We tease him for this "rich" childhood. He tells us he hated having to go back for the buffet because his school had a toasted sandwich maker that the kids could use and that was absolutely his preference.

In a funny way I think even Dad's experience of a buffet speaks to the leveling role they play. A kid could go home and have whatever the heck he wanted for lunch - hot food, cold cuts, soup and roll, pudding even - and instead he was pissed off he couldn't have a toastie with his mates.

When we were kids growing up in New Plymouth there were two buffet restaurants in town. One was Marbles Buffet, the restaurant at the Devon Hotel. The other, Sunworld, a Chinese smorgasbord restaurant. Marbles was always considered the flasher of the two. People claimed Sunworld served sweet and sour cat; something I knew even at age 7 was entirely untrue and complete racist bullshit.

I don't remember much about Sunworld, other than the peculiarity of being able to eat Chinese dishes with a selection from the salad bar and hot chips.

But I remember a lot about Marbles. It was THE place to have your birthday party, because there was a pool you could swim in before and after dinner, and you got helium balloons that you could suck all of the gas out of to make silly voices, and the wait staff all dressed like pirates and danced to that "Absolutely everybody, everybody in the whole wide world" song. Thinking about it now, the thought of small kids running around a restaurant with dripping wet pool hair and towels wrapped round their togs is odd. But we loved it.

And we loved the food. There was a salad bar and a seafood section and a carvery and always a selection of hot dishes. Unsurprisingly, in circa 1997 - 2002 the preferred hot dish options were chicken nuggets and chips. Nothing like paying $18.99 for a plate or two of deep fried shit.

But my absolute favourite section was the cold cuts section. Platters of cold meats and slices of cheese and pickles and chutneys and an assortment of crackers and breads. That was where I was my most Buffet Glutton. I made a beeline for that section, always. Probably before having even sat down to order a lemonade. I'd have two or three plates of goodies from that section. And then I'd have my chicken nuggets and chips, with a side of chow mein. 

There was of course a dessert section: black forest gateaux and bowls of jelly and fruit salad and brandy snaps. And there was a help yourself soft serve ice cream machine. But the thing everyone loved most was the jelly bean machine. You literally pushed a button and it would feed you as many jelly beans as you wanted. We'd all fill up napkins with them and take them home. You'd see staff refilling that machine with big bulk sized bags of jelly beans multiple times throughout the night.

But it was our gluttonous ways that got the better of us. Eventually the jelly bean machine disappeared and you were given a small, pre-packaged bag of about 5 or 6 jelly beans instead. A much more reasonable amount. But give people the chance to take as many as they want and they'll take them all.

That was what my mum did when she went to an Italian restaurant that had a help yourself salad bar as a university student. Apparently that salad bar had bowls of toasted pine nuts you could help yourself to, and so they became Mum's version of jelly beans, wrapped up in serviettes to take back to her flat for adding to salads. Again, in no great surprise to anyone, the pine nuts were a short lived feature of that salad bar.

I remember my first time going to the Koru Lounge. I couldn't believe the array of club sandwiches and the cheese platters and the fridges of booze you could just help yourself to. I loved it. Like everyone else. Because what struck me most that first time in the Koru Lounge was just how frequently people went up to get food and drink, and how much they got. And the sight of people making a run for the hot food when it emerges at 5pm - that is quite something. Especially given its hardly the best thing you'll ever eat for dinner, and it's certain to not be the only thing you eat for dinner that day.

I don't think there's anything wrong with a buffet. Nor people's tendency to go completely mad when faced with one. What I do think is wrong is people's attempts to deny their love for the buffet. Because if I've learnt anything in my time it's that when presented with trays of kransky sausages and barrels of orange juice, you realise we're not all that different.

Unless you're one of those Lululemon types.