Which type are you?

I think life is made up of two kinds of people – those who love the buffet and its multitude of choices, and those who prefer to live “a la carte”, choosing one option at a time. There are of course, advantages to both lifestyles. At a time of year when food abounds I offer some commentary on how our food lifestyle represents the rest of our personalities, too. Maybe you will find a new kindred spirit at your next holiday gathering!

If you are a buffet person, you may have a hard time passing up any opportunity that comes along. On the buffet line, you can sample a plethora of tastes and flavours, allowing you to “surf” the menu and know that you did it all. Or you may enjoy the chance to test the water before you commit, tasting to determine your favourites. But then of course you have to be someone who is not deterred by the possible stigma in some group settings when you get up a second (or third) time. The buffet is also a place where you can indulge any number of eating idiosyncrasies, including that decadent pastime of eating dessert first. If you love the buffet, you have at least a bit of rebel spirit.

Being an a la carte type is not necessarily being a conformist. You may enjoy focusing your efforts on one project at a time, or perhaps you like specific details to be confirmed (meat done a certain way, sauce on the side, etc.). Maybe it’s not so much about the food but rather the service – you don’t like getting up from the table in the middle of the experience. You are prepared to commit right from the very beginning. You could mix the buffet experience into your meal by ordering multiple courses however, thus straddling the fence and increasing your options again.

You are probably thinking by now, as I did, that at home we rarely have a buffet setting. That is not entirely true, though. Our personalities come out at home as well. Any effort to host a picnic-type of meal, where everyone assembles their own crostinis, sandwiches or other nibbles counts on the buffet side. And, anyone who has ever stood in front of an open fridge door knows that a virtual buffet awaits them (the number of condiments on your fridge door is the true indicator of how far you lean towards being a total buffet lover). If you like to have one kind of jam on your toast today and another kind tomorrow, you have latent buffet tendencies. It’s okay, don’t fight it. Embrace your love for variety. If you live with someone who likes peanut butter every time they have toast, then appreciate their stability and enjoy the difference.

Whichever camp you fall into, I hope you make the most of it. Enjoy every morsel, savour every crumb. Whether you like one taste or many, life is too short not to make every meal a memory.

As a final note, during this season of giving, I hope we can all make a gesture and include a bit of something (maybe a favourite taste, even?) in the food bank bins. There is one at your grocery store and also at many holiday events supporting these worthy and necessary elements in our community. Everyone deserves to have a happy tummy, don’t you think? It helps make everything else a bit better, too.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.