Roaring Stomach

Roaring Stomach

Like most vegetarian students at Wheaton College, I find myself frustrated and at times quite literally starving due to the lack of vegetarian food options available here on campus. I find myself getting extremely irritated and annoyed at the fact that my dietary concerns and needs are not prioritized (because according to an Emerson staff member who shall not be named, my given food lifestyle is “just now popular.” Now, instead of taking offense to her comment and telling them off like I’m pretty sure most would do in my situation, instead opted for a more peaceful option and simply walked away amazed at their ignorance. According to this obviously special staff member I was a vegetarian not because I had been most of my life but because it was a popular trend amongst peers within my generation. Their statement though ignorant struck a chord in me because I was able to conclude that her belief must have been a belief shared by most of the staff employed at our dining halls, which was why Wheaton offered such a crappy vegetarian menu. My encounter with this particular Emerson staff member has inspired me to protest the vegetarian menu at Wheaton College because it’s limited due to obvious restrictions in place because of ignorance. Because the majority favors meaty foods the minority is marginalized and discriminated against and that’s just simply unfair. How can I blog about food and give a proper critic of food when the food that I am meant to scrutinize is nonexistent?

The Salad Pizza

Image from http://piezonis.com

            Health is a very funny thing. Some days, one glass of wine is considered healthy, others three glasses of wine a day will give you heart healthy benefits, and some day; two glasses of wine a day will supposedly give you cancer. We as a society regard health as things that are green, natural, or taste like nothing. Often due to gas ripening processes, food products might be green, kind of natural, and taste like nothing all at the same time. We tend to rely quite heavily on science, funded by who knows, telling us such and such about things and stuff. When science seems too contradictive, we just add lettuce and call it a day. I work at a local pizza place in Easton, not ten minutes from Wheaton. This will be my third year working there, and tonight, I will probably make an average of seven “Mixed Greens Pizza’s”.  This is one of our specialties that are beloved by middle class white women who come in groups, and strictly dads in Patagonia jackets after a holiday or Bruins/Patriots games.            

The pizza itself is comprised of, pizza crust, parmesan peppercorn dressing, ‘mixed greens lettuce’, tomatoes, black olives, red onions, grilled chicken, feta cheese, and Greek dressing. It is literally a salad on a pizza, and Easton folks love it. As I have found in my experience, the sales of this pizza increase after certain holidays such as Halloween, Easter, Thanksgiving, and bigger local sports games. I understand this to be the attempt at leveling out an unhealthy diet, with a perceived healthy one.            

The correlation between unhealthy holiday and game foods, and the sales of the Mixed Greens Pizza, has not been recorded. However, I have come to the conclusion that people regard it as the compromised healthier option due to their attitude around it, and the mumbling people use when choosing it. Little known fact, many people talk to themselves before ordering food. Very often, I hear a long list of options they are considering before actually placing their order. And even more often, people choose this pizza after rattling off a list of “… loaded waffle fries, no, okay I don’t want a steak and cheese… maybe a pizza…. Okay, can I just have the salad pizza”. Another reason for the perceived health benefits of this pizza is the fact that people call it ‘the salad pizza’ or sometimes ‘the field of greens pizza’. These invented names, although quite similar to the actual name of the pizza, allude to the understanding that it is comprised of healthy products. However, the two dressings alone, including the Italian dressing that the chicken is cooked with, probably ranges to about 210-260 calories.  And according to their website, a small, 10-inch Mixed Greens Pizza is 1561 calories. Where as a small, 10-inch regular cheese pizza is 974 calories. Calories do not necessarily regard health, and the comprised ingredients within a food product hold more weight than the accumulation of calorie numbers. The Mixed Green pizza merely represents the confusion and solution we as consumers face when attempting to regulate diets, and consume perceived ‘healthy food’.

Fancy Indian Dinners in Emerson

Since Scott O’ Rourke started at Wheaton, he’s been making strides to add some flair to our day to day lives in Dining Services. While I admit that I’m not lucky in finding meals that satisfy my hunger due to being a picky eater and feeling that the options don’t fit my tastes all the time, this is not what this blog is about. It’s about the introduction of themed dinners through Dining Services, and how this dinner was a great way to change up the food we eat day to day with a special meal. There were two "fancy dinners" this semester, this first a French dinner and the second, an Indian dinner. Both dinners took place in Emerson Dining Hall in the Faculty Dining Room. Scott O'Rourke's plan is to have two per semester where students eat three course meals through reserving their spot with their Wheaton ID and paying a meal swipe and $5 in Lyons Bucks.

 

The Indian Dinner was something I looked forward to after attending the Fancy French Dinner which was also delicious and felt like I was in a restaurant. Students are escorted to seats after paying for their meal. Once seated, I looked at the menu on the table which had three choices of appetizers (Menu is above). I chose the Crispy Aloo Tikki (they spelled it tikka) with Coriander Mint Chutney which was essentially a thick potato and herb cutlet. It was good and filling. I moved onto the main course and chose Chicken Tikka Masala (pictured below) which was bigger than I expected and very filling and tasty. It reminded me of the Tikka Masala I make at home for my mother. The smells of this dinner made me feel comforted and at home because of the spices used and aroma of the food. I finished dinner with the Mint Lasse which is a cooling yogurt drink and it was really good that I had to take it take-away or to-go. I'd say that any student looking to do something different but not wanting to leave campus should try the Fancy Dinner at least once in their time at Wheaton. I think it's worth the swipe and Lyons bucks and is quite comforting just make sure to get there right at 5:30pm to relax and really enjoy your meal.

 

Multi-Cultural Dinner Events at Wheaton

Dining at Wheaton has seemed livelier this year than in the past. The multitude of events that have debuted this semester have included special multi-cultural dinner nights in the Emerson back dining area. A sign-up sheet at the entrance to Chase and limited people who can get in allows for a feeling of exclusivity to those who do make it.

These special dinner events are usually on Wednesday or Thursday nights and cost a meal swipe and $5 Lyons bucks to get in, which is worth it given what is served. Tables are all arranged and decorated when you get there, and is themed in some way. There was one night where it was themed for Paris, France, and another night it was for India.

At the end of the first dinner event, for France, the chefs and dining management stated that this was a new event series they hoped to implement permanently, depending on students’ response. The goal is to have them once a month, or two to three times per semester. The menu is to consist of food from major countries around the world, I would guess in an effort to introduce a wider array of food to students who wouldn’t normally be exposed to. In any event, this fancy multicultural dinner series was a well thought out idea from the start, with great food and atmosphere all around.

There’re multiple courses, and options for each one, not to mention the hor d'oeuvres already on the table. They probably understand that students’ schedules on week nights can be pretty tight, so the food doesn’t take long to arrive, so if need be someone could be done with everything between 1-2 hours. The food’s quality has been great both times, and I’m looking forward to more events of these in the future that signify an ever-improving dining services for Wheaton students.

ARAMARK: SHOULD WE NOT??

As many of y'all know Wheaton College's food comes form the company Aramark.  In the beginning of this year we had to re-sign our contract with the said company. This was also the time, we had different kinds of food everyday including and not limited to: Lobster, Korean food, Taco Tuesday etc.

Although many of us have enjoyed the fancy food we experienced the first two weeks of school, the food quality soon went back to the basics.  I don't know if many people know this, but Aramark is also the same company that feeds prison systems in the United States. My friends and I have made multiple jokes here and there about eating prison food however this post is not about the jokes.