Is Saving Food From the Hotel Buffet Theft?
15th September 2024
Last week, on a Swedish train somewhere between Linkoping and Mjolby, as I struggled to open a bag of cheesy snacks that was to serve as my lunch, my travel companions began unwrapping their own picnics. Some, like me, had made hasty and unappetizing purchases at the station. Others had carefully curated lunches, assembled earlier in the day from our hotel’s lavish breakfast buffet. Well-filled rolls, pieces of fruit, pastries. In they tucked.
I was suddenly aware of a frisson of stance-taking rippling through our group. There were those who regarded buffet plundering as theft and those who defended it as plain common sense. Women were more likely to have taken food, but then women are generally more likely to make advance preparations for lunch. I noticed schisms even within families and between close friends. And then there was me, who had never before given the matter any thought, nor realized it was a thing people did.
It is, apparently, a very British habit. The Germans may be on the march at dawn, annexing sun loungers, and Italians may not have the faintest idea about queuing, but it’s the Brits who secrete breakfast goods about their person and spirit them away in order to economize on lunch.