[nabs-l] Serving Yourself Food

Wed Nov 12 18:48:06 UTC 2008

Hi all,

With serving food as a blind person there are two issues. The  first
is knowing what you're dishing out without seeing it, and the second
is properly maneuvering the food with the utensils from the serving
container to your  plate and ensuring that you are dishing up an
appropriate  amount.

To resolve the first issue, since touching is not really an option,
the best thing is to get information--either from people ahead of you
in the buffet line  or  from whomever is serving the food/setting up
the buffet. Obviously once you've learned the  order of the buffet
once,  it'll be easier to go back and serve  oneself independently the
 second time  around. When serving "family-style"  and passing dishes
around the table,  this problem is virtually nonexistent since it's
easy to find  out  what someone has passed  you before serving
yourself from it.

The second issue, though, is one that does take practice to overcome
especially for those of us who  were not expected to serve ourselves
growing  up. I wasn't really expected to do it at all until I was a
teenager, which  caused  me to struggle a bit with the mechanics of
maneuvering  the food and  gauging the portion size. I improved at
this  a lot when I was in training at  the Louisiana  Center where we
had to serve ourselves in a buffet line (with sleepshades  on)
whenever someone prepared their final cooking project (a meal for
forty). Like others  have said, operating the utensils correctly does
take practice and trial and error. A training center is a great place
to develop this skill because everyone else is practicing, too, and so
there's  not  as much pressure to do it exactly right or move quickly
through the line. You can also  practice by  cooking yourself
something and transferring some of it from one  container to  another
(even if  it's just Ramen or  Easy Mac).

To gauge portion sizes  I've used two techniques.  One is  to feel how
much weight I've added to  my  plate  or  bowl and how the weight is
distributed. The other,  if it's  hot or steaming food that  I'm
serving, is to hold my hand a little above the  plate/bowl and  feel
how much heat is rising from the food  and how far  it is spreading.
If I don't have enough food, there won't be much heat and it'll be
confined to one little spot instead of spreading across a wide area.

One more thing that hasn't come  up yet is the  proper way to serve
soup, stew, etc. with a ladel. I used to have the toughest time with
this  until I went to the center and figured  out what my problem was.
Because ladels have a sharp curve in the middle, when I was holding
the  handle straight, the bowl part of the ladel was actually  tipped
and I was spilling stuff before I could get it in the bowl. I had to
figure out how to angle the handle (so it felt crooked) but the bowl
was actually facing straight up. I think other  blind  people have
been fooled by this deceptive handle as well which is why I bring it
up. You can practice this by playing  with an  empty ladel (like while
you are doing dishes) and hold  the bowl in your non-dominant hand
while  you  angle the handle with your dominant one. Bend the handle
until you can feel that the  bowl is  facing straight up (even though
the handle will feel crooked) and then try to remember the angle when
you are serving things with the ladel.

HTH,
Arielle

On 11/12/08, Serena <serenacucco at verizon.net> wrote:
> I pretty much use the same type of bowl, what we Italians call a maccaroni
> bowl, so i usually just put as much maccaroni in there as will fit.  I love
> to eat! lol  Meat is trickier, but I usually have only one piece of that,
> anyhow.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Harry Hogue" <harryhogue at yahoo.com>
> To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 9:53 PM
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Serving Yourself Food
>
>
> Serena, this may sound like a slightly silly question, but do you learn what
> an appropriate portion size is by weight, etc, or by how many ladle-fulls,
> spoon-fulls, etc? I have never really wanted to do that because I didn't
> want to slowly anybody down or look awkward, etc. But I agree it is
> important...
> Harry
>
> --- On Sun, 11/9/08, Serena <serenacucco at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> From: Serena <serenacucco at verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Serving Yourself Food
> To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Date: Sunday, November 9, 2008, 6:47 PM
>
> Hi Harry
>
> I always serve my own food at home with immidate family.  I think it's
> important to learn that skill.  At family gatherings and on buffet lines,
> however, others do it for me cause we're all having pretty much the same
> things.  Even at State Convention this weekend, there was a survor serving
> the
> breakfast buffet to everyone.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harry Hogue"
> <harryhogue at yahoo.com>
> To: <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 5:39 PM
> Subject: [nabs-l] Serving Yourself Food
>
>
> Hello everyone,
> With the holidays coming up, here's an interesting point for discussion.
>
> At family gatherings, or perhaps even at home with immediate family, do you
> serve your own plate or do you have someone else serve the plate for you?
>
> As for me, I have always had someone else always serve my plate at family
> gatherings and at home with my family, for that matter, simply because it is
> quicker and there is less risk of spilling, etc. I am, however, reminded of
> the
> importance of being comfortable with this task by my Costa Rica experience.
> My
> host mother told me what was where and even made sure I knew where the
> serving
> spoon was--but I was not comfortable at 20 years old to serve my own plate
> and
> had to ask her to serve the plate for me. This, then, set up a precedent
> that as
> a blind person I needed help with getting food.
> 'm interested in hearing ohter thoughts. And if we serve ourselves at
> home/at family gatherings, I then have to ask what is so diferent about
> buffets,
> especially if you're with someone else and they're getting rice,
> chicken, potatoes, etc. and it's likely you would want some of the same
> things.
>
> Just some thoughts to consider.
>
> Harry
>
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