I often get really confused with grammar involving counters. I'm having trouble parsing the bold part of this sentence:
夕食としてテーブルにのるのが一品であることの、むなしさ、さびしさ、...彼らには通用しない。
I think it should translate as "There is one dish placed on the table". This being the case I would expect the verb ある for "there is". But instead I see である the formal version of the copula.
So literally I translate the bold to "that which is placed on the table is one meal". In English that sounds really formal. How does it sound in Japanese?
Could I have just replaced the bold with:
テーブルに一品をのる
テーブルに一品がある
I know from a previous question that number+counter can act like a normal noun but I'm very suspicious of the が I've added in the latter sentence -- the original sentence had no particle. In general I'm not sure when number+counter should take a particle.