College Cafeterias: not your father's dorm food

[Gifted Gourmet]

the article

I don't know when or where you were a college student but I do know that the food at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana campus, circa the 70's, was none too spectacular in my dormitory. The choices were not particularly varied, nor, when selected, even particularly appealing. We had paid a room & board fee and, although we did show up for meals, wound up eating more in our rooms with take-out food becoming increasingly attractive, while not especially healthy... pizza, hot dogs, burgers, etc. .... Even worse luck and this was the coldest, snowiest campus in the country, when I was at Syracuse University in my freshman year, the food was horrific!

Soon, Syracuse University students will be able to order cookies, brownies and Ben & Jerry's ice cream at 3 a.m. and have it delivered directly to their residences. Insomnia Cookies, a business started by two University of Pennsylvania students, will be opening on Marshall Street next month.

My daughter went to Tulane Unviversity, New Orleans, in the 80's and, as a vegetarian, was consistently unhappy with the dorm food. She wound up buying food to eat in her room more and more frequently. Or even eating at the marvelous choice of New Orleans restaurants whenever possible.

Hardly a new problem .. my mother went to Skidmore College in the 30's and refused to eat dorm food, preferring that my grandfather keep a dining tab for her convenience at a local restaurant .. and this was during The Great Depression!

So, when I read this article, I was thrilled to see the new food courts opening and successful, in this case, Purdue University ...

"Our students are accustomed to eating out far more than their parents ever were, and they expect to be treated like customers. They also are more health conscious. Our new dining courts are overwhelmingly popular with them,"The five new dining courts -- a marketplace of as many as eight serving stations devoted to various genres of food -- will replace 11 old-style, straight-line cafeterias.Food selections also are more contemporary, with freshly prepared meals that cater to a wide variety of student tastes. The result is an upscale dining venue that is more like a restaurant than an institutional cafeteria.

What was your college food like?

Were you in such a state of bliss at being "on your own" and away from home for the first time, that you could have cared less about the dorm food?

Did you drink more than eat with the food taking a distant second place in your daily routine?

Talk to us!

[Cusina]

I have the strange situation of now living less than three blocks away from my old dorm cafeteria. I don't miss it. In fact I walk by and think how glad I am I don't have to eat there. Our food (required board at a small private university) was awful. I remember having a roommate who was raiseid in the Mexican tradition who just about wasted away. She existed on steamed vegetables covered in mustard because she couldn't bring herself to eat the upper midwestern yucky casseroles they made. She used to talk me to sleep describing the incredible food she and her female relatives would make for the holidays.

The women I volunteer with who still attend the college, report that not much has changed. They've tried all sorts of things in an attempt to make it better, the best of which is an ala carte line that has sandwiches and pizza. I have noticed that the students are a whole lot more likely to "cook" in their rooms than in my day. Most students bring a tremendous amount of stuff to slam into their tiny dorm rooms, including a lot of food and cooking gear. I can't believe how much stuff they live with. Their rooms literally overflow.

In the late 90's I worked for Northwestern University, the downtown Campus that houses the medical and law schools. Every now and then I ate in their cafeteria and it was much like the one described at Purdue. Different stations with different entrees. Pasta to order, hot dishes, "chinese", a grill for hamburgers and such, a sandwich bar, salads etc... Eh, it was o.k. There was more choice, and it was better than my alma matter, but it still tasted like mass produced cafeteria food. It was just re-arranged.

[JennyUptown]

I went to Cornell, graduated in '95. Sounds like they were ahead of their time because many of the dining halls were food court style already.

As a freshman, I believe you're required to have at least SOME meal plan. I was on 7-3 (three squares every day) for awhile, but I rarely made it to breakfast before class so I talked my parents into moving to a smaller plan. They feared I would starve...that would hardly be the case. In my first year, I gained probably 10-15 pounds (combination of late night pizza and beer, as well as a sudden stop to dance lessons five days per week).

For me the dining halls were the start of a lot of stomach trouble as well as bad habits. Whereas Mom always made sure I got some sort of vegetables in me during the course of the day, I now had the freedom to eat grilled cheese and blueberry pie for dinner every night, if I so chose. For some reason, the entree choices rarely appealed and I usually ordered from "The Grill" area.

Cornell's dining service has won all sorts of awards, but I was never all that impressed.

Oh, one thing that was cool: at least one time each semester, a big-name restauranteur would be responsible for the nights' offerings.

[Gifted Gourmet]

it still tasted like mass produced cafeteria food.  It was just re-arranged.

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thanks, Cusina, for your very insightful, honest take on this topic!!

[Gifted Gourmet]

Cornell's dining service has won all sorts of awards, but I was never all that impressed.

Oh, one thing that was cool:  at least one time each semester, a big-name restauranteur would be responsible for the nights' offerings.

←

My boyfriend went to Cornell in the 70's and decided that the food would be much nicer in a fraternity .. but the main thing I recall having there was liquor ... the food I can't recall at all!

I know that their School of Hotel Management at Cornell is spectacular and that they have incorporated much of that thinking into their food offerings on campus!

[chile_peppa]

Vassar had decent food when each dorm had its own kitchen. Our dorm had a chef who added his own Italian specialties to the official menu every now and then, and his hot chocolate pudding cake thing helped add to my freshman 15. Sometimes we would dine at Main Building, where the old Vassar china and silverware were used daily. And we had demitasse in the parlor after dinner. But during my junior year, the college shut down the individual kitchens and consolidated food service in the infamous All College Dining Center (ACDC). Quality and variety plummeted -- many of us subsisted on salad after that, and I moved to an apartment for senior year.

My sons' experience was different. Both of their schools had dismal food service. My older son moved to a frat house with a kitchen and then to his own apartment, partly so that he could cook for himself. My younger son's university had that food court plan, but his experience was similar to Cusina's. The food was so awful that he lived on the Subway sandwiches he could get in the lobby of his dorm. Now he too has his own apartment where he cooks for himself. My BF's son lives at home and commutes to a local school, so he doesn't have to deal with dorm food.

edited for additional comment

Edited October 7, 2004 by chile_peppa (log)

[NulloModo]

I graduated from the University of Delaware in 2003.

Anyone living in the dorms was required to purchase a meal plan (with the exception of the two apartment style buildings). The meal plans could be either dining hall based or 'Flex Point' based. If you chose meal points than it was all you could eat drips to any of the campus dining halls anyimte they were open, each trip took one meal point. If you chose flex points you could go to any of the fast-food style shops on campus and spend flex points just like dollars, including getting pizza delivered and tipping/paying entirely in flex. The more meals you chose per week, the less flex you got, and vice versa. All in all it was a pretty versatile and nice system.

The dining halls were all run by Sysco, or at least used Sysco products, someone else might have managed them. For breakfasts there was always french toast, pancakes, sausage, bacon, eggs, make your own omellete stations, juice, milk, cereal, all the usual candidates.

Lunch and dinner featured several featured entrees (anything from special sandwhiches and chicken nuggets to asian specialties, other ethnic foods, or even 'steak and lobster' night (blech, steam tray overdone nondescript parts of cow with something that appared to tbe faux lobster), as well as a burger/sausage/chicken sandwhich/hot dog line, a salad bar, a mexican station, a dessert/pastry line, and a pizza station. Certain dining halls also had permanant specials. One had a world pasta station with some actually very good options (I think they called it Pan Geos), one had a permant (3-meals a day) omelette and custom cheesesteak bar, one had a huge ice cream sunday setup (baskin robbinsesque) and one was open 24 hours a day.

The flex points could also go to a mall style foodcourt area in the student center that featured, amongst other things, standard pizza/sub/calzone stuff, cheesesteaks, fresh salads, ethnic-food-of-the-day, the world's crappiest Taco Bell Express, and an underwhelming Chik-Fil-A (maybe it was just this one, but I don't see what people see in this place, any number of the other chicken jionts on campus were far better).

All in all, the campus food was far better than I hear it is other places. Not haute cuisine by any means, but for college budgets and appetites it worked well.

[NulloModo]

Oh, and I almost forgot.

UD has a fairly larg HRIM program. The HRIM students run a restaurant on campus known as 'Vita Nova' where they can test out their skills in a real life situation. Lunch is served daily buffet style, and dinner is off of menu.

The atmosphere is classy, service professional, and food wonderful. The lunch buffet was/is the best deal on campus. I seem to remember it being either $7 or $11, and the food was super high quality, with very high quality ingredients, either french, high class italian, traditional american, or other really nice fare.

The dinner there was a significantly less good deal, it was traditional multi-course service, with traditional high end dining prices. I never went for dinner.

[Chef Shogun]

I've been at The George Washington University in DC for a couple years now, and the food has always been at least decent. As far as I can tell, the food system was overhauled just before I got there, and has been in flux ever since. The setup consisted of varying configurations and arrays of small, largely self-contained food locations inside a large two story segment of the main building. Our food overseer is Aramark, so many of the venues are provided by them. Others include outlets of chains such as Taco Bell, Chick-Fil-A, Starbucks (Second busiest in the country, I'm told), Einstein Bagels, Jamba Juice, Wendy's (this years big addition) and Subway. The third category of eatery availible are outposts of local restaurants. In the past, we've had sushi from Kaz Sushi Bistro, made on site (But still sadly of variable quality), and Asian food from Mayasia Kompitam (sp).

They just did a big renovation of the food area, and since I'm not really an active student anymore, and live off campus, I've only been in there once or twice since they remodeled. Now, they've got the Wendy's, two Starbucks (...on campus, and about six within a five minute walk), two Subways, a brick-oven pizza place, a burrito place, a stir-fry place, sushi, a grocery store in its third expansion, "The Home Zone" which has a varying menu of 'homemade', comfort food type stuff, which also plays host to "The Visiting Chef Series" which features chefs from area restaurants cooking a prix-fixe menu. Sadly, the Ben and Jerries, and the crepe place have gone...

I'm sure you can envision how this all goes down. Students flock to the chains and ignore the others. If you want to wait 15 minutes for Wendys or 20 or more for Starbucks*, they'll be more than happy to help out. Lines for those two are insane. Meanwhile you could swoop in and grab a fresh personal pizza, burrito, or something else freshly made and be gone in a second! My favorite was always the Kopitam 'Mongolian BBQ' (which was and wasn't...), but that took a bit longer due to the cooking involved. It was also a bit more expensive, but who cares! It tasted good and wasn't blatantly bad for you.

-- C.S.

* Alright, it wasn't always that bad, but I definately had this running theory that wait time was tied in with the ebb and flow of classes, and that an optimum point minimizing time could be found. Besides, the counter people were not, as far as I could tell, Starbucks employed or trained, and it was horribly inconsistant. Better to go to Capitol Grounds, or Cart Coffee Guy!

Edited October 7, 2004 by Chef Shogun (log)

[JennyUptown]

One cool feature at Cornell is the restaurant (can't remember the name right now and don't have time to search) within the Statler Hotel. During the school year, the restaurant is run top to bottom by students. It's a for-credit class for hotelies - they plan themes, the menu, decor, staff outfits, you name it. Some cook, some host, some wait tables. Food and service are obviously variable, but as a student, I thought it was pretty awesome. Every time a hotel school friend had "their night" I went.

Edited October 7, 2004 by JennyUptown (log)

[tejon]

I went to University of California at Irvine back in the 80s. Lived off campus the whole time, so my college food was whatever I managed to make in the tiny galley kitchen in my apartment. I often shared meals with the unfortunates who lived in the dorms - they always seemed so appreciative of anything that didn't come out of a can. My husband stayed in the dorms around the same time (we didn't meet until years later). His stories of the cafeteria food there are frightening. During his Sophomore year, the service contracted to provide cafeteria food was fired mid-year because the food was so far below standard. Instead of gaining the Freshman 15, many of the dorm residents lost weight. There were very few choices at any one meal, the dishes prepared were overcooked and tasteless, and the little produce available for salads was usually limp and/or canned. Most of the dorm residents took to eating off campus if they could afford it.

Edited October 7, 2004 by tejon (log)

[oneidaone]

I graduated from Northwestern in 1979, lived at Elder Hall. Fortunately - or not - the cafeteria was

downstairs, no way would I walk to eat food like that. I distinctly remember these god awful

cheeseburgers that my now husband would refer to as "cold grays." Salad such as it was was always

yucky iceberg lettuce that was fairly brown edged with red styrofoam posing as tomato. When they had

theme dinners they were horrific. The foodservice was by SAGA and what a sad tale it was. I to this

day remember heating Campbell's Chunky soups in a hot pot day after day and eating more tuna

fish than imagineable, my roommate ate hers with ketchup mixed in and cases of Tab to quench it

down with. At night this guy would come through the lobby with a sandwich cart and we'd eat some

of that or the sandwich truck would come by with those god awful pre-packed warm creations.

Although I do recall liking the poor boy sandwich hot from the truck. In those days there was this

girl - I still remember her name, don't know what happened to her after graduation - but she would

go down and buy me a poor boy just to watch me eat it, that was odd, everyone thought so, but

it was a free meal! I hear things have greatly changed for the better much like the other schools

so lucky for them! a hui ho.

[munchymom]

I went to UIUC in the early nineties and the food was dreadful. You were required to buy a 21-meal-a-week plan, and I rarely woke up for breakfast, so I always felt ripped off. (Except at finals time - I would get up for a power breakfast of a bowl of oatmeal and two hard-boiled eggs. I would reflect that the breakfast food was better than the other meals, and I really should make an effort since I was paying for it anyway, and then not do it as the next semester rolled around.) The hot food was gray, mushy, mystery meat, overcooked vegetables, limp oily pasta. I would try to get things that had the least amount of processing, like a baked potato or a whole chicken breast. Desserts were often frightening - I remember having a contest with lemon meringue pie where everyone at the table got a piece, placed it meringue side down on the plate, then held the plate upside down in the air to see how long the pie would stay there. I think the winner was somewhere around 2 minutes. They did have a salad bar, and I would often take a bowl full of raw broccoli or peas, top with butter and microwave for a couple minutes. They also had unlimited soft serve ice cream, and giant bins of cold cereal available at all meals. I would usually have a big bowl of ice cream topped with Cap'n Crunch. Despite these habits, I didn't manage to gain the "freshman 15" until I was a junior and moved off campus, with a Taco Bell in walking distance, a roommate who delivered for Domino's and brought home pizza all the time, and of course vast quantities of horrible beer.

[purplewiz]

I went to Cornell, graduated in '95.  Sounds like they were ahead of their time because many of the dining halls were food court style already.

Cornell, class of '86, and the cafeterias weren't food court style then, although most of them had more than one "station" - the usual entree station and a grill where you could get taquitos and burgers and eggplant parmigian sandwiches. Each one also had a reasonably stocked salad bar.

Oh, one thing that was cool:  at least one time each semester, a big-name restauranteur would be responsible for the nights' offerings.

←

I'm glad to hear that Cross Country Gourmet is still around, although it was twice a semester when I was there. The menu planned and taught by the chef would be executed at different cafeterias on different nights in one week. Even though you could only go to one night at one cafeteria, we always managed to do lunch the next day at whoever had it the night before, since they always served leftovers. That way I got caviar a couple times that week, or the lobster pasta....not to mention the desserts.

Once in awhile there would be a surprise special meal - one that leaps to mind was a "island theme" meal. They had salmon steaks, inch thick, with some kind of glaze, and NO ONE was taking them. I came back for seconds. The chef loved me after that :-).

Of course, not all the "specials" were good...the rubber duck breast comes to mind. It took me years after that to try duck again.

I also loved brunch...there were croissants every day, but on Sundays they were warm. Bagels every day, but a cheese board to go along with them at brunch. I loved bagels with the strawberry cream cheese.

I remember there was a sandwich bar out at lunch, where you could make your own sandwich, and sometimes they'd have warming dishes with fried "krab" legs (which would go quickly) and fried eggplant sticks (which wouldn't, but I love those, so I was just as happy.) A couple times a week, they'd have cream puffs for dessert. Or a huge tray of Ho Hos. Or a make your own sundae bar.

This was all paradise, since I transferred in from Georgetown, where the food was incomparably awful. I ate a lot of salad bar there, but even that didn't stop me from participating in the widespread day of food poisoning (we finally figured out it was either the hash browns or cross contamination).

By my senior year, I'd moved off campus, so I was on a limited meal plan where I had to cook for myself on the weekends. Which led to my asking for a decent cookbook for Christmas, which led to my subsequent love of cooking.

Marcia.

[Behemoth]

not much to add except

1) Thank you for clearing up the mystery of Insomnia Cookies. They seem to be opening a store nearby and I couldn't figure out what it might be. (I thought maybe a "wacky" name for a pot paraphenalia typa place...)

2) I don't know what the dorm food situation is at UIUC but the surrounding area has some pretty good dining options these days, even on a student budget and meal card. Nothing like UPenn's food trucks though, sigh.

[bloviatrix]

One cool feature at Cornell is the restaurant (can't remember the name right now and don't have time to search) within the Statler Hotel.  During the school year, the restaurant is run top to bottom by students.  It's a for-credit class for hotelies - they plan themes, the menu, decor, staff outfits, you name it.  Some cook, some host, some wait tables.  Food and service are obviously variable, but as a student, I thought it was pretty awesome.  Every time a hotel school friend had "their night" I went.

←

That class was fondly known as "Quantities." It was one of the final requirements for hotelies. I attended quite a number of them my junior and senior years to show support for my friends. I think the first time I ever tried balsamic vinegar was at one of my friend's meals. I charged an awful lot of those meals on my CornellCard.

I have to say my fondest memory of the Cornell meal plan was being introduced to Green Tea ice cream. It was 1986. Green Tea hadn't entered the collective conscience yet.

(I did meal plan freshman year. I remember breakfast being good -- there was cold or hot cereal, pancakes, french toast, omlettes, etc. The only ones who made it to breakfast were me and the football team.)

[NulloModo]

IIRC Rachel Perlow went to UD as well. I would love to hear her impressions on how the food was when she was a student there.

[MarketStEl]

(Author's note: This topic idea came to me after reading about Martha Stewart's culinary complaint over in Food Media and News.)

I have now spent nearly two decades toiling in the groves of academe, most of them at one of America's most prestigious universities. More recently, I've added a short stint at a wannabe top-tier technological school to the list. And before all this, I spent the requisite four years pursuing a college degree, in my case at America's most prestigious university, bar none.

I have a partner who teaches at our city's community college. A friend and former colleague runs the media-relations office at a Catholic university in the Olney section of town. And during my college days, I would visit friends at other schools up and down the East Coast.

All this is by way of establishing my credentials as a seasoned consumer of institutional cuisine, or at least the academic variant of it. Dining halls are at once a central part and the bane of just about every American college student's existence, and I make it a point to try the institutional fare at least once at every college where I spend more than a few hours.

One thing that surprises me about college dining hall food these days is this: It's not half bad.

Whether the operation is in-house, as it was at the University of Pennsylvania up until the mid-1990s, or contracted to one of the big service companies, as it is at Drexel, which uses Sodexho, it seems to me that the quality of collegiate cafeteria fare has improved since my undergraduate days.

Certainly the variety has increased. I can recall very few occasions when Harvard's dining services featured Mexican or Southwestern items on their menus in the late 1970s; now, it's hard to find a campus dining hall that doesn't have something spiked with salsa and covered in queso among its daily menu items. Asian fare also appears much more often than it did in my day. "Vegetarian" no longer means only tofu dressed up to act like meat. And when burgers are offered, they're no longer either too dry or too tough.

The salad bars have also improved somewhat, with fresher lettuce and varieties beyond iceberg. The tomatoes in the off-season, however, are still tasteless and almost rock-hard.

Some of these changes are driven by the increasingly market-oriented culture that has swept through American academe. When your students are no longer your charges, there to receive wisdom, but consumers of education with rights to good grades and that all-important sheepskin, you find that you have to retool every part of your operations to cater to their demands. In the culinary arena, that most often means goodbye mystery meat, hello pizza and tacos.

From where I sit, the quality of institutional cuisine has gotten a good bit better. And yet I wonder whether this opinion may not have something to do with my not eating it every day. Penn did have a very good in-house foodservice operation, and whenever I ate with a staffer, faculty member, student or their marketing person in a dining hall, I had decent food that tasted good and was served at the proper temperature. Yet the online campus discussion boards had a steady stream of posts from students complaining about the food--it was too hot, it was too cold, it didn't taste right, they never got to eat their favorite dishes, and oh, by the way, there wasn't enough choice.

So I wonder: If I only had to sit down once to eat what Martha Stewart's having for dinner tonight, would I find it as awful as she does? And would my opinion of campus fare change if it were all I ate, every day?

Any of you out there routinely ingest assembly-line fare? What's your take on the state of institutional dining these days? I'd especially like to hear from the company-cafeteria crowd. Any fans of Lettuce Entertain You out there? How 'bout Aramark junkies?

Edited December 29, 2004 by MarketStEl (log)

[Hest88]

I haven't been in an academic environment for a long time, but often eat in company cafeterias. I think food is better now than it was back then, in no small part because schools are no longer providing food but instead are bringing in outside companies who must make profits. Students (and employees) are mobile now and have the option of eating elsewhere if the food is horrendous, so these outside companies need to create palatable food.

[MarketStEl]

I graduated from the University of Delaware in 2003. 

Anyone living in the dorms was required to purchase a meal plan (with the exception of the two apartment style buildings).  The meal plans could be either dining hall based or 'Flex Point' based. [...]

The flex points could also go to a mall style foodcourt area in the student center that featured, amongst other things, standard pizza/sub/calzone stuff, cheesesteaks, fresh salads, ethnic-food-of-the-day, the world's crappiest Taco Bell Express, and an underwhelming Chik-Fil-A (maybe it was just this one, but I don't see what people see in this place, any number of the other chicken jionts on campus were far better).

←

That student center at the University of Delaware? Isn't that a Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates creation?

I guess the building is better than the food served there?

[Fresser]

(Author's note: This topic idea came to me after reading about Martha Stewart's culinary complaint over in Food Media and News.)

I have now spent nearly two decades toiling in the groves of academe, most of them at one of America's most prestigious universities.  More recently, I've added a short stint at a wannabe top-tier technological school to the list.  And before all this, I spent the requisite four years pursuing a college degree, in my case at America's most prestigious university, bar none.

←

That school would HAVE to be Harvey Mudd College.

[Yuki]

In my university, I would rather bring my own lunch than to eat there everyday. Certainly there are some decent restaurant but I can't imagine myself eating from those couple restaurants for four years. The business in the school is a monopoly and they can put out whatever they want. The Chinese food is gross even when comparing to other fast food style Chinese. There is an A&W, taco time, pasta & fried food place, Dairy queen, Teriyaki place, salad bar, and a coffee shop in the main cafeteria. It is like any food court that you would find in a mall, but with much longer line up. The students have to buy whatever is available if they don't bring their own lunch. Overall I would say students are buying food to fill their stomach and not because they are good food. You won't see anyone around here lining up in a restaurant because they have something really good............ Most of the time I would starve myself until school is over at around four o'clock and go to downtown to grab something.

[NulloModo]

I'm not sure about who designed it, I lived right across the street from it (in Sypherd hall, which used to have a beautiful yard with dogwoods, which was paved over for hockey courts, much to my chagrine), and I always thought it was hideous. As far as layout goes it was functional, but the food inside was underwhelming in general. It was no better, but not any worse really, than any run of the mill mall food-court.

Now, if you went upstairs and remembered to make lunch reservations at Vita Nova (the place run by the HRIM majors), well, then you were in for a treat.

[srhcb]

Nearly thirty years ago, due to a minor violation of California law and the inablity our my roommates to recover from a drunken stupor long enough to come bail us out, my friend Lightning and I once had the "pleasure" of dining in LA County Prison, whose most famous resident then, as now, was Charles Manson.

"We", assuming Charles, who nobody I spoke with had ever seen there, ate the same fare as less notorious inmates, had swiss steak with a tomato based sauce, corn, mashed potatos, bread and coffee. I recall the potatos and corn as being a bit watery, but otherwise the meal was completly acceptable. At least none of the several hundred diners in my party objected too strenuously.

I don't remember if there was a dessert or not, and we didn't stay long enough to check out the breakfast menu.

[reesek]

northwestern '97. saga (as oneidaone referred to) was replaced by marriott years before, but we still called the dining hall saga. (i lived across the quad from elder in Bobb McCulloch).

the food was still bad. i mostly lived on golden grahams and deli turkey sandwiches.

they tried the theme thing there too. i remember a whole roasted pig once - apple and all...not very appealing to a bunch of 18 year olds.

the worst though, were the hamburgers. nestled in their steam tray, they featured a thick layer of pooling munge on the edges and top. ugh.