Quality vs Quantity

I am a food lover.  Let me just put that on out there, 'k?  I have even gone so far as to refer to myself a food snob.   I grew up poor and didn't really know good food quality until I got much older.  I have grown into an appreciation of food that I didn't always have.  Now, don't get me wrong, I am willing to try new things. I even had squirrel gumbo once!  

Over the years, though, I have come to realize that the majority of folks i talk to love buffets.  They are all about the buffet.  I, on the other hand, have always loathed the buffet, in just about any capacity.  I hate everything about buffets; I can't stand paying a set price for food that I will never eat enough of for it to have been worth the price I paid, I don't like going to a place to eat where I am paying to serve myself  (it defeats the purpose of going out, doesn't it?), using the same nasty dirty food scoopers that everyone and their child has had their unwashed hands all over before I got there and most of all, I can't stand the idea that I am supposed to over look the lack of quality in favor of the mass quantity that is laid out in front of me.  However, I am no longer going to make apologies for being a food snob.  Because I am right.  Period. 

Tonight was a typical example of what I am talking about.  Officer's club.  Mongolian BBQ buffet.  I am there specifically because there is a going away dinner taking place for three coworkers.  You pay a set price, grab a bowl, scoop out the meat (in this case, beef, chicken, and shrimp) take as many veggies as you want, give it to a guy who takes the bowl to the kitchen, cooks it up and brings you the food you scooped into your bowl and you eat it.  All around me there were people with their bowls over flowing with food (all you can eat, after all) and here I am, with a little bit of chicken, a little bit of shrimp, a little bit of meat and some veggies.  And it sucked.  All of it.  There is nothing wrong with chicken, beef or shrimp.  It was THIS beef, chicken and shrimp.  Poor quality, small rubbery chicken andshrimp.  Meat that was so lousy that it could barely be chewed.  And folks were just eating it up.  Like they were starving on a desert island. I just don't understand it.  I will pay whatever price I must pay for a decent meal and would rather eat nothing then have nothing worth eating.

Now somebody bring me a ladder so I can climb down off my soapbox.