Remember the devolution of cafeteria food in college? Well, a lot of you went to nice colleges with fairly good food service. I went to St. Bonaventure University, which rated at the top of the Princeton Review's "Is It Food?" list about five years running.
This was the progression over a period of 72 hours:
1. Chicken fingers. Edible.
2. General Xiao's chicken (chicken fingers plus gooey spicy overly sweetened soy sauce). Edible if you found pieces without sauce.
3. Chicken parm. Edible with LOTS of sauce and extra cheese microwaved into a gloppy mess.
4. Chicken soup. Suspect.
Now, I don't have proof that these were the same fingers all the way through. I didn't get them fingerprinted. HAHAHAhahaha... Oh my god I'm so freakin' funny! ... Anyway, can't be certain it was the exact same product, but it became obvious over a period of time that no trucking company wanted to come to the Back O' Beyond, New York to deliver fresh food to us. More importantly, our tuition dollars had to go toward the essentials - fresh paint on the basketball court every season, frinstance.
Either way, I noticed that the food service seemed to order all food by the metric ton, and would not try to hide that fact by altering their offerings on a daily basis. NO, if they had canned peaches, by GOD, no Bonaventure student would go an hour without seeing a canned peach, at least peripherally.
Day 1 of peaches:
"Yay, I looove peaches! In pure corn syrup! Yum!"
Day 2:
"Think I'll put some cinnamon on 'em. There, that's different and still quite yummy."
Day 3:
"Hmm. The syrup is congealing. The peaches are still tender, though..."
Day 4:
"Isn't that yellow color a little startling? Anyone?"
Day 5:
"I... just... can't... Hey, whipped cream, guys!"
Day 6:
"Sorry, professor, I'm late because there was a peach-slide of apocalyptic proportions, the syrup and peaches making the dining hall a veritable slip n' slide of terror. Our lawyers have advised my parents to sue."
Day 7:
"PEACH FIGHT!"
"Dude, I wish peaches had better aerodynamics."
Day 10:
"That little piece of cottage cheese was in there yesterday. Grody."
Day 14:
"I wonder if they biodegrade?"
Day 21:
"Hey kids, guess what's for dinner at the bomb shelter? Clue: it comes out of a can..."
Day 37:
"PEARS! I looove pears...."
All this is to say that I'm beginning to admire our food service and wonder how they got so clever. I'm trying to be economical and clever myself, trying to think of the ways my mother disquised leftovers (ineffectually) and my babysitters got us to eat "good" food (by heaping it with sugar, salt and/or grease).
Here's my quandary: How do I make my italian sausage, red and green pepper, onion, cheese, tomatoes and garlic interesting for one. more. night. I've done the obvious sausage, p&o sandwich. I've done pizza today using frozen naan. Tomorrow I might get out the blender and make a peppery garlicky version of V-8. The sausage I'll stick in my ears.
Having griped so long, I have to admit, I never, EVOR passed up the canned pineapple. Even when I had canker sores. Pineapples are good, man.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Food glorious...
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3 comments:
Chili?
Jealous of frozen naan, man.
Serve over pasta?
Don't mind the political diatribe, but I believe the real reason the food sucked so badly at Bonaventure was that they farmed the food service out to a private contractor with no competition. I'm sure the boondocks thing didn't help, but the TOPS a couple of miles down the road had stuff that was at least okay.
The cottage cheese in the peaches thing made me laugh though. I can't believe I survived four years there with my organs intact.
I totally agree with both of you--it was hellish. How I survived there for four years as a vegan is beyond me. I think I was the skinniest I've ever been in my life during my junior year. It was like living under wartime conditions: even the veggie burgers were non-vegan, and the cafeteria ladies would often deceive me into putting something containing meat into my mouth. They finally got soymilk sometime around senior year, but there was never any tofu. Six years later, I'm still waiting for the osteoporosis to kick in.
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