Culinary Bureaucracy

Not content with pleasing students as much as it already does, the Dining Halls Department is "exploring the possibility" of serving the same menu in all Houses next year. According to the Department head, the plan will probably be adopted.

The director claims that the proposed plan would aid in the purchase of food, since a single agency now does all the buying. This agency seems to perform well enough already, and there is no apparent reason why it should not continue to do so.

Single menus, the director argues further, would help to eliminate "the idea that one House has better food than another." How one so intimate with the House dining halls can claim not to recognize the often wide discrepancy between Central and independent kitchen food borders on naivete. His notion--that since one agency makes all the purchases, food quality does not differ from House to House--is blatantly false. There's many a slip twixt sale and lip.

The Dining Hall Department has specious justification for its policy in its plea that an independent kitchen serving an especially attractive meal usually attracts many students through Interhouse. However, since purchasing is done through a single agency, Interhouse sign-ins constitute only bookkeeping changes, and thus are not a valid excuse for instituting a standard menu.

The power the independent kitchens have to plan their own menu benefits not only those who dine in Adams or Dunster, but also other undergraduates. For the central kitchen crew is goaded to make its menus more varied and palatable than they might be otherwise if superior competition did not exist. The proposal for unified menus should not be adopted; it could result in tasteless conformity.