To find out where it all goes, one must first understand how my search for "boofay" started. I was introduced to the Old Country Buffet by my parents at the age of eight. I believe that it was a Valentines' Day dinner or perhaps an Easter brunch. My buffet obsession started off in a rather unremarkable way.
I began to warm to buffets after a few returns with my parents and some friends. A friend of mine would take advantage of "all you can eat" and turn it into the sinful "all you can waste." Although my parents had discouraged me from such behavior, this friend of mine would make strange creations with his food. On another occasion, my brother created the world's largest ice cream cone, and promptly spilled it over the floor, after the handle broke on the ice cream machine. Funny stuff. Perhaps this is the genesis of "Boofay."
I became a buffet-a-holic with a trip to an Old Country Buffet during a field trip from my freshman year in high school. On this particular day, I out-ate a teacher of mine who had a passion for food. A particular member of the Susner clan began to re-tell the story and imbellish it with every repeated narration. I still maintain that Mr. Gura, the G-Dog himself, was just having a bad day. Still, this establishmed me as a legend of the buffet.
If one person truly deserves the title of "Buffet King," it's Kris Davis. I've seen this man eat, and it's the ninth wonder of the world (after, or course, the late Andre the Giant.) And you could never tell it from looking at him. We would frequent buffets after cross country meets, and make a game of it. Every plate counted as a mile, with salad and desert as warmup and cooldown. Kris was a marathon runner. I discovered that my endurance did not live up to the "five miler" legend established my Susner. Kris is still the buffet king; he recently ate over 130 shrimp at the Red Lobster. He is very fortunate to have had a waiter to help him get up after the ordeal was done.
It was Kris who first formulated the idea of "Boofay." In order to truly be a "Boofay," the buffet has to be the most disorderly and ill-mannered buffet possible. Utensils should be shunned, and throwing food is a must. The sole purpose of Boofay is to engorge yourself with as much food as humanly possible, regardless of taste, quality, or nutrition.
There is a certain psychology to the buffet and the people who enjoy them. In the fall of 2000, I gained some better insifght into this by reading a passage from David Darlington's travelogue, Area 51: The Dreamland Chronicles. One of the UFO watchers profiled, Glen Campbell, is a huge fan of the Las Vegas buffet culture. He has begun to use the word "buffet" as a verb and noun. When a person "goes buffeting," he or she is eating the daily super-meal.
Another characteristic of Campbell's buffet philosophy is eating only one meal, at one of Las Vegas's many buffets, a day. He reasons that cavemen ate when food was prevalent, not by some pre-ordained schedule. He would buffet once a day, then tide himself over with soda and chips until tomorrow's buffet.
First off, buffets are enjoyable because they appeal to people who want to feel "full." Some people don't want taste, just a bloated stomach. I grew up in house wherre my mother, despite her Italian ancestry, could not cook a gourmet meal if her life depended on it. I had to get used to less-than-stellar food. Perhaps this prepared me for the lifestyle of a buffeter. And because it takes a while to fill up, a buffet can be a long and enjoyable experience.
Buffets are best when the element of competition is involved. If you walk into a buffet and look around, you'll see that it's a very family-friendly locale. Very few single people to speak of. And although these families are generally representative of the "trailer trash" culture, they are all enjoying themselves. Why? I think that some of it has to do with the aspect of friendly competiton. Obviously, someone will not be as mad over losing an eating matchup as they would after losing a basketball game or wrestling match. The eldest son must challenge the father for the title of eating supremacy. Once he defeats his father soundly, his rite of passage has been fulfilled. Alternately, a group of friends at a buffet is always, either consciously or subconsciously, trying to out-eat each other. But each of the friends understands that the eating contest is anyone's game. After the fun's been had, they can easily return to being friends instead of angered rivals.
Buffets are very physical activities, and they dispense with the pleasantries of Victorian etiquette. Nobody ever asks to be excused from the table; you just rise and hop back into line. This act of self-service is the best exercise that some buffeters get. Furthermore, the pracice of eating small portions is no longer valid. This sets the stage for dispensing all other rules of etiquette. It's now permissible, at this juncture, to be flatulent at the table, discuss one of the many "pitstops" one will make on the journey to eating all he or she could eat, and make raucous conversation. Tipping the bus boy is out of the question, because the pesky bastard hovers over your spot like a vulture, waiting to pick your plate up before you're finished. If you leave for a solitary moment, he will be back with a vengeance, and that half-eaten fish fillet you were working on will be gone. As soon as the utilsels disappear and the food starts to fly, we've made the transition from "buffet" to "boofay."
Of course, buffets do have their drawbacks. The food has to be produced in great quantities. As a result, the food's quality is generally poor. The only exception to this is the macaroni and cheese at the Old Country Buffet, but only because it isn't Kraft "Mac and Cheese" pasteurized horsedung. Silverware and dishes may be in short supply, and when they are wahsed, the cleansing is often insufficient. Cups can come broken, and handles tend to fly off self-serve machines. Only the hostess and the manager are able to speak English, but that isn't so much of a problem. After all, it's impossible to have conversation when your mouth is crammed with food. People often get indigestion from buffet food. It might be due to the hurried, cut-corners approach that the chefs take towards delivering mass quantities of food, or it might be the rapid eating rate that buffet-a-holics possess. All I can remember is that my stomach has never felt worse than the time I went to the all-you-can-eat Chinese joint during Spring Break.
The difference between a buffet and a regular restaurant can be seen with the conversion of the cafeteria in the Embry-Riddle student villaige. Last year, the cafeteria was a decent eatery that charged one meal plan for each vendor station. Now you get charged for walking in the door, but it's all you can eat. At first glance, that's the only change. But it all goes downhill after that. You've found that they're out of spoons, and your tray has a huge mayonnaise stain on it. The daily special usually consists of tortured baby cow or something else that can't be identified as chicken, pig, or bandicoot. The tables are dirty, and the ketchup dispenser hasn't been fixed since September. Service is slow, and the learning-disabled fellow who should be putting food on your plate is instead putting out grade-D hamburgers that nobody wants. The ice cream scoops have been sitting in some nasty ice cream water, and sour mlk is collecting under the tray which collects the runoff from the mild dispensers. The selection of food has actually decreased. Even southern staples, like chicken fried for so long that it tastes like tires, have been replaced by grade-D minus, shredded dark meat chicken. The most recent act of degeneration was the removal of trays from the buffet.
The Riddle cafeteria is the closest I've ever seen to "boofay." Once the food is airborne, the transition will be complete. Perhaps I'm not ready for a full-fledged boofay, and I want to cling to some vestiges of dignity when I eat. We all can enjoy buffets, if only when they're visited sparingly. If you want to feel full, or have a competiton for the fate of the world, the buffet's the place.