Appetizers
The older I get, the more I start to suspect that "old person opinions", the beliefs made popular by figures like Andy Rooney and Grandpa Simpson, are actually opinions the person has held for a long time and felt like they weren't able to express, out of a desire to fit in and not be seen as abnornal. For example I, from when I first started eating at sit-down restaurants, have never understood the point of appetizers.
When I eat at a restaurant, I'm excited for the main course and want to be as hungry as possible when it arrives, for maximum enjoyment. Therefore I almost never want to order appetizers. The name implies that their function is to make you more hungry for the main course. The -ize suffix implies creating a condition or performing an action. So if something "appetizes", it should create or increase an appetite, i.e. a desire for food. But for me, I always find they have the opposite effect. This might be because appetizers are food, eating food makes me less hungry, and this is true whether it comes from the appetizer or entrée1 section of the menu.
Often, eating an appetizer can make me so much less hungry that I'm not able to finish dinner, but this seems to be an expected outcome, and servers are always quick to offer you a box to take home your leftovers. For me, this isn't ideal for a couple reasons: One, I don't want to carry a box of food around with me when I'm walking or on the bus to get home, and the containers are never airtight enough to put in my backpack. But two, the food is less appealing to me after it's been stored in a fridge and microwaved. It's still fine, it doesn't become bad by any means, but it's not worth the price you pay at a restaurant. The reason I eat at restaurants is so I can enjoy meals that are higher quality and better prepared than what I can make myself, and since I'm paying a premium, I want to eat it right after it's been freshly prepared, at its most appealing.
So why are appetizers a thing? Well, like a lot of things old people complain about, I suspect it's a trick by the restaurants to make more money. When you're out eating with friends, you want to appear open-minded and agreeable, and you don't want to look cheap, so there's perceived peer pressure baked into the offer. Ordering and sharing appetizers is a common pro-social trope, and you don't want to look antisocial, do you? You don't want to be the only one who didn't get an appetizer you can share, right? As soon as one person at the table orders an appetizer, the waves of anxiety and perceived expectation can cascade and cause everyone else to order one, and a dinner party can end up with a lot more food than anyone wants or can possibly eat in a single meal. Appetizers are typically simpler to prepare and a worse value than main course items, so it's in the restaurant's financial interest to promote this little psychodrama as much as possible. The servers are often trained to ask not whether the diners would like an appetizer, but ask something like "what can I start you off with?" In these moments, it might even seem rude not to order an appetizer, if it's presented as the natural expectation.
The cure for all this is to understand that your true friends will love you and want you to eat what makes you happy regardless of the game, and won't judge you for ordering whatever you want. If someone at the table does legitimately want an appetizer, you should be chill and not worry that other people are eating before you. Let's just be cool and love each other, ok? (This is the part that makes it more than just an old person rant, the part where I'm offering a solution instead of just complaining. I hope you find it convincing.)
in the US, we use "entrée" as a synonym for "main course" even though it should obviously refer to the appetizer. Idfk, I just live here 🤷♀️↩