Buffet or Sit down meal

[Teamedup]

This weekend we are having a soiree. Now I would love to have a party with a buffet, but it has never worked for us in France. When we've tried it, all our french friends grab a seat and only move from it to fill their plates or get another drink. None of them seem to have the notion of moving around and chatting to people that they don't know and actually standing for a good part of the evening....... and I've never seen a kitchen crowd here. If it had worked in the past, this weekend there would be at least 60 of us, as it is I am going to do a sit down meal for 30 as I am not equipped to cope with any more at home. And I'm feeling guilty about those I haven't invited and am sincerely hoping that it won't be badly taken.

So what has it been like for you, and if you have managed to get your french friends to go with the flow, how did you do it. LOL last time I felt like sort of doing musical chairs, as soon as someone got up, taking their chair away......but ofcourse I didn't.

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

I haven't tried it, but round here the concept is absolutely unacceptable except in the vin d'honneur situation - ie nibbles (extensive as they may be) to accompany apritifs. Oh no. An absolute no. Tant pis pour nous.
If this was 1 April I would think you were having a laugh?

[Alfa]

as
>it is I am going
>to do a sit down
>meal for 30 as I
>am not equipped to cope
>with any more at home.

Christ !
I thought we had a big table (seats 14 - 16 at a push but we struggle with the cutlery round about the 12 mark) .
I never knew people had 30 sets of cutlery.
Naive...or what ?
On the subject in hand:
Buffets, I think, are a peculiarly English thing.
Everyone else in the world eats by courses - the English see the buffet as an excuse for piggery and quite bizarre mixtures of food - witness the extraordinary site on (say) the MV Bretagne overnight crossing Portsmouth to St.Malo in Les Abers restaurant (quite good, as it happens !).
The French will decide whether their 'buffet' starter will be based on fish;meat;vegetables in much the same way as you would choose a starter in a restaurant.They will then put a half dozen prawns on their plate with, perhaps, a little salad and maybe an artichoke or two.
The English (on the other hand and, it must be said,by and large) end up with a plate groaning under the weight of every single item available, even though they wouldn't normally dream of ordering smoked salmon with roast beef with Greek salad with marinated artichokes with langoustines with pate with poached salmon with cheese with every available pasta, salad, dip, sauce, bread ...........
No wonder the French think the English version of 'buffet' is weird !

Alfa.

[letrangere]

>>None of them seem to
>have the notion of moving
>around and chatting to people
>that they don't know and
>actually standing for a good
>part of the evening....... and
>I've never seen a kitchen
>crowd here.

With the exception of Australia, I've never come across this anywhere else in the world. Personally, I find the idea of sitting down at the start of the evening and not meeting anyone else apart from those on my table bit of a bore but most other nationalities seem to disagree. And don't you find you always meet the most interesting people in the kitchen?

Margaret

[Val_2]

If you are feeling guilty about those you didn't invite this time, why not have another evening with those folks, perhaps just after xmas. In my ideal world I would have a circular dining table to seat a lot of people and that would need a very large dining area,but at least no one gets left out on the ends. I suppose a remedial solution for the present for anyone doing a sit down meal would be to borrow a couple of those round plastic patio tables that seat 6/8 people and cover with some nice cloths and decorations and place fairly close together. As regards a buffet in France, I have to say that it just isn't their way of doing things, everyone wants their own table place,plate,cutlery and glass and be able to natter to their friends. Anyway I hope you enjoy your evening and don't end up with too much work.

[cdorrell]

In our part of the world the way to do big invites is the Apero (how do you do the accents on English keyboards?), which means you can invite lots of people and serve them nibbles and copious amounts of alcohol. When we did our first big Apero last year at Christmas, I invited people 'a partir de 19 heures', thinking that it would all be over and done with by 9.30pm at the lastest. Well, I was wrong! We ended up with 50 people in the kitchen all talking at the same time and they were still there at 11.30pm. It was great!
We are going for the Christmas Apero again this year and I am already preparing myself mentally and physically....

Christiane

[Quillan]

We had a BBQ in May and were quite supprised that the French did not appear to understand the buffet system. Once the food was cooked and put out they looked at it and wondered what to do.

Since then we have followed the sit down and be served system after attending some of the village events. If they can wait on 100+ people we can do it for 20.

Q

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I asked a French friend of mine what she thought about this and her letter arrived this mornig. She says "Je suis pour les buffet aussi! L'ete je ne penserai pas faire un repas chaud, je prefere preparer un repas froid la veille. Plusieurs raisons a ce choix: Le fait de ne pas rester dans la cuisine quand je recois des invites et c'est plus pratique. Donc je fais des entrees, pizzas, quiches, des plats plus consistants, du poulet froid, roti de boeuf ou de porc, des salades varies, fromages, fruits, tarte ou glaces. Par contre nous restons a table. Je crois que la tradition de devoir manger assis parce que c'est mieux pour la sante, est bien ancree dans nos habitudes et c'est plus confortable que de placer son assiette sur ses genoux et se battre pour decouper sa cuisse de poulet!!!

She is from Oise region, so close to Paris, so her opinions are quite likely to differ from rural people. But it does show buffet type meals to be acceptable to French people PROVIDED THEY ARE EATEN AT TABLE.

The only problem I can see with this is that for many people it would mean asking guests to bring a table and chairs with them and then there is the problem of where to put them. Even in modern French houses this must be a problem, because they seem to be getting smaller. It's probably OK if you have a large house and many old houses in France do seem to be built on the basis of centralising everyone round a large table. In a way, it does seem more "sympa" for everyone to be brought together round a table - but if the table is large, you just don't get to talk to some people. Whereas English style we do get to mingle more.
Jill (99)