Here's an article I wrote back when I was a freshman for
The Western Carolinian. Every issue, I wrote a column on what it was like to be a freshman at Western Carolina. I talked about the rain, getting bronchitis, and traveling home. This one, or "pound," touches on the ever controversial subject of the campus dining hall!
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| Cullowhee Creek |
"It was only a matter of time
before the Freshman Fifteen touched upon the infamous courtyard dining hall.
College food has been a topic of mass discussions from its conception. Is it
good? Is it bad? Is it tipped with laxatives? Where does it all come from?
Well, this is not an expose on Western’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner; it
is an opinion on and of all sorts.
First
there is breakfast. Breakfast is one of two meals that students are allowed to
eat by themselves and not get the “why are you all alone” stares. On weekdays,
breakfast is a quiet experience with your typical breakfast foods of eggs,
bagels, donuts, bacon, etc. On the weekends, however, breakfast time is a party
and begins when the dining hall opens two hours later than usual and ends at 1
p.m. that afternoon. Personally, I am not a partier or a late nighter. So,
walking into breakfast twice on both Saturday and Sunday once at 9 a.m. and
again at 12 p.m. does not make my weekend very enjoyable. I am a picky eater, but I like variety to my meals. Apparently, that makes me a bad college student
and I must accept the fate of eating my breakfast in the afternoon hours after
sleeping away half the day.
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| "The Freshman 15" logo in the paper... it never got a 15 |
Lunch
is a free-for-all of French fries, any kind of sandwich you could possibly
desire, pizza, or one of the many cultural dishes one can try at the Home Zone.
If none of these appeals to you, there is the 24/7 cereal canisters and salad
bar. On hot days, lunch is the perfect way to hit the rare sunshine with a cake
cone topped with soft serve ice cream and sprinkles without using half of your
DB points at Freshens downstairs. Lunch, like breakfast, is also a possible eat
alone meal because all of your friends could be in the middle of class or you
yourself are making a pit stop to refuel before shipping back off to Psychology
150 or Global Issues.
Let
me take a moment to praise the kitchen staff for their amazing hamburgers,
which are usually served at lunch! Let me say to the cooks at the Grill, your
burgers are awesome! I do not know how you cook them or what is in them
(probably better not to tell me the latter or else I might enjoy them less),
but never have I ever stumbled upon a restaurant, fast food joint, or
neighbor’s grill that matched the awesomeness of my mother’s burgers until I
came to Western, so you rock!
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| Really, really NASTY mashed potatoes |
Dinner
is family time. The group of friends you have found to be in your extended
family scream at each other over everyone else’s screams to decide which table
to head for then break off into pairs to the particular station with the best
food. One can always tell who has the best food because that is the longest
line. It makes me wonder whether the cooks have popularity contests on who can
get the longest lines based on what they are cooking. If you have a big group,
you are lucky to find a table for all as the Hall packs up fast, especially on
special dinner nights. Then like you would with your family back at home,
eating begins at the selected table with chatter about the day, getting to know
one another better, and drink mixing. Yes, drink mixing! Suddenly, the Dr.
Pepper you were drinking becomes Dr. Pepper/2% milk/Mountain Dew/orange juice
with a touch of salt and pepper. Well, back to the drink dispenser.
On
special nights with themed dinners like Seafood Night, the dining hall
staircase is overflowing with students. With Steak and Shrimp Night comes a
real treat: real knives! What could be seen as a possible weapon and is usually
locked up in a hidden drawer in the kitchen is now readily available for the
usually overcooked and over seasoned steak with a side of shrimp. A man in a
monkey suit, a suit I might add that has nothing to do with steak, shrimp, or
the school’s mascot, walks around and… well, yeah, he walks around. Oh look dinner
and a show!
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| Steak & Shrimp Night |
Mardi Gras was interesting and fun with coin-shaped bubble gum,
Mardi Gras beads, and colorful decorations. Dinner’s main course was cooked
crawdads, which my friends enjoyed hiding in my food so I nearly fell backwards
out of my chair as the lifeless eyes stared me down. A fun dining experience
though not my favorite meal!
The
dining hall is like a second dorm. You live there, why? Because there is
mountains of food, and there are two things every college student lives on:
sleep and food. Maybe the dining hall’s menu is not everything we students wish
it was. You can never replicate Ma’s home cooking, but at the end of the day,
the dining hall is a good place to get a hot meal and congregate with friends
after too many hours of school work. Whether or not there are laxatives in the
food, well, that is for the Rumor column!
