Oversize

This is a picture of fritto misto served at Sofia's restaurant. Last night we went there again to celebrate our second granddaughter's birthday and, once again, it was a joyful and happy occasion. But this time some of the table ventured outside the pizza/pasta thing and one of our table had the calamari. Now I couldn't find a picture of it and forgot to take one, but it was very similar to the fritto misto. Just replace the other battered seafood with more calamari. It is an obscenely large portion I think you will agree - and it was shared around the table. A veal schnitzel and a smoked salmon salad were similarly vast. As the salad person said - there must be a whole lettuce in there!

Why do they do it one wonders? It is a sort of feature of the restaurant - a signature thing if you like. And if you are sensible you could order one of these dishes for perhaps four people and share. It would be pretty cheap. And probably, once you get used to going there this is what you would do. I had a small pizza, for example and that was fine. But going back to why. It must mean a huge amount of waste, or, equally bad, a huge amount of overeating. Surely it can't be economic.

And they are not alone. I sometimes find myself in a shopping centre around lunchtime looking for something to eat and wander around the food courts, which sometimes have some quite tasty and healthy looking food but the portions are so huge I don't bother. Why can't they do a smaller portion? I'm sure they could charge almost as much and therefore make more money. Virtually all of the sandwich, wrap kind of things are sufficient for two people at least.

Ditto for coffee and cake. The coffee is sometimes a bit mean but the servings of cake are huge. Mostly half of the quantity given would be more than sufficient.

And it is interesting is it not, that at the same time as having a huge amount of publicity about healthy food choices, diets and exercise, and the evils of being overweight, we get all of these huge portions of unhealthy stuff. I'm afraid I don't know what the portions are like in the true fast food franchises - Macdonalds, Hungry Jack's KFC, Subway etc. because I never go there now - though we did do Hungry Jack's a bit when the kids were younger. And to be fair I don't remember the portions as being overlarge.

Obesity, we are told, is an epidemic, and the evidence is all around us - and yet we are served these massive portions of food.

No doubt it began in America. I do remember back in the 60s when I visited there as a student - working and living in Philadelphia with very little money. We had difficulty buying small portions of food in the supermarket. The small size was already too large. We often used to wonder what a single person did. The same was true for the fast food that we bought. (We couldn't afford better.) And I do remember being invited to a barbecue and being served the hugest steaks I have ever seen. Small meant huge in terms of servings. And no doubt it's still the same.

Why, why, why?

At the other end of the spectrum, of course - in the fine dining establishments - the servings are minute - and you can leave hungry!

It's a crazy world.

And here is Sofia's famous huge ice-cream. We had one for the whole table and I think we all had some. There were fourteen of us there.