You may also have noticed that the "good" plates and bowls nearly always have a fairly wide "decorative rim" to make the plate look big, but with a fairly small depression in the middle where you can actually put the food. SHE says it makes the stuff pretty. I say it just makes it harder to find space to keep the @#$% "prety stuff," and if you want a small plate you should just use a small plate.

The restaurant phenomenon probably relates to the trend that in the absence of productive employment (which has all been outsourced) all the bright young people have migrated to advertising, marketing, public relations, etc., where they have nothing to do but try to dream of "psychological conditioning" tricks to influence people to believe that they're getting something special when they take their money away from them.

The "decorators" who basically tell you nothing but "don't have ugly stuff if you don't like ugly," or "it's pretty and you should do it because I say it's pretty and I'm an expert," have touted the "wide rimmed utensils" as a way of making yourself feel that you've had a bigger meal than you really had. It's supposed to help you to not overeat. The value of this advice may be confirmed by observing the rarity of slender (not anorexic) persons in any public place.

The "full plates" at the cheaper places are a "marketing" ploy to disguise that the food isn't all that great, but to convince you that a bucket full of s....t is a bargain because it's full.

The tiny morsel in the middle of a massive plate is, supposed to "center your attention" on the very "special nature" of the tiny morsel (anything rare and special comes in tiny portions) and to make you actually believe that it's worth a "very special price." A side effect is that the large empty space is that you can actually see that, unlike cheap eating places, they actually used a clean plate.

Since only a very few people seem able to detect that they're being "manipulated," these tricks work on sufficient numbers of people (especially those with money) to make them worthwhile to those "selling" the stuff. Those of us who recognize what they're doing have no choice in the matter, because we're vastly outnumbered by those who think they're getting a good deal, so there are no choices available that are more appropriate to our(?) small minority.

John