What are the worst crimes you have seen committed at a buffet? Or any communal food situation.

[Sparklingbrook]

Following on from people who stand too close when queuing.

Also any top tips for buffet etiquette on an AI holiday?

Crimes for me-

Picking up food and putting it back
Using incorrect spoons and cross contaminating different foodstuffs

It was just a load of assorted sandwiches*, like you'd have horizontally in a buffet, but piled up and slathered in mayo.

*But fish featured A LOT. I hate fish. When the thing was cut into, it smelt like fish paste, to my not very discerning nose.

"So, they like sandwiches, do they? I'll give them sandwiches!!!! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaahh!!"

So you cut down into it like a cake and got a mixture of different sandwiches? Were you then meant to separate them and eat them apart, or just eat them together? Who thought this was a good idea? Rank.

Oh god. A sandwich cake. The DSes would love it.

That sandwich cake is an abomination. And not in a good way!

Even worse that it features a lot of fish paste. What's the icing? Cream cheese? Mayo? something worse?

It also defeats the point of a sandwich buffet because it would be hard to serve and eat, and everyone would need cutlery (and somewhere to sit down).

Sharing this with you on this thread is catharsis for my sandwich cake horror. I thank you.

It was just slopped out onto a place (exactly like Tiramisu, as Kate said. She knows a buffet, that one...) and we were expected to eat it with forks. All the flavours were mixed up together so you couldn't pick and choose. Except we did choose. We mostly chose to have had a (fictional) big breakfast that morning.

It's a thing, honestly! We did google, as we thought it was either a joke, or a very passive aggressive response to the British Buffet.

Apparently it's called Smörgåstårta

I've found a recipe for a fruit and liverwurst smörgåstårta... And also a fruit and ham one.

Boak.

There are recipes for that shit ?

shock

So fishpaste was if anything a lucky escape?

SO shocked that I could not even manage a proper face.

Who would have thought that fishpaste tiramisu tower (with added crudites) was luck?

And yet it was.

FYI the 'icing' generally appears to be cream cheese. Here's a recipe in English should you feel the need to create your own fishy abomination.

Holy shit. I thought I was unshockable. But that has boggled my mind. Out of all the atrocities on this thread that sandwich cake has to take the prize. I know it's bad when I find myself off my tea and biscuits and am sitting here muttering 'but, but, why?' I may dream about this tonight. I feel I need therapy now and I didn't even have to fucking see it. WHY? Just WHHYYYYYY?

Or a mixture of cream cheese, mayo and sour cream. Just what you want your pieces and fish slathered in. And then some fruit and ham arranged on top.

Wikipedia says it often has lemon slices in it. My favourite food - unexpected hidden whole slices of lemon.

There are YouTube videos (many) about how to assemble and decorate your sandwich cake. They may give you nightmares, however.

'For the best results assemble the cake the day before and refrigerate overnight'. I assume by 'best' they mean soggiest.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I have just had a biscuit and a swig of tea and they tasted of fish paste. You'd better not have ruined tea and biscuits for me now you sandwich cake fish paste layering cream cheese bastards.

Last thing I googled was on Sparklings other thread (frotting) and got infected with gay porn. I actually think that is preferable to seeing that thing. How can anyone think that is nice. Surely as human beings we all share the same sense of flavour.

We most certainly do not share the same taste of flavour. Have you tried rotting whale meat? They love that in Iceland.

I had to very politely choke down some fufu prepared for me in Ghana. It was not pleasant. Banku was even worse. The Ghanaians love it though.

I'm pretty sure people from other cultures think a lot of the stuff I like is totally rank and would read the 'what are you having for dinner tonight?' type threads on here with horror.

Anyone with normal White British levels of chilli tolerance (all the way from "no spicier than Coronation Chicken, please" up to "I'll have the prawn phaal with extra chilli") cannot remain under the impression that all human cultures share a sense of taste, once they've tried Mr Naga, a Bangladeshi chilli chutney that I've seen people of
Bangladeshi origin use by the tablespoonful. It's hot enough to take your tongue off if you just smear a knife-tipful onto your sandwich cake.

Instant fufu flour is the best thing for flouring chicken, liver, etc. as it's superfine and sticks very well.

No sorry, I can't accept that texture of soggy fishy paste tiramisu can ever be appealing to any other fellow human being. To do so would shake the foundations of my fundamental beliefs. No no NO!