FEEDBACK

On June 1, little over a week from today, Ted A. Mayer will fill the now-vacant chair of the head of Harvard Dining Services. (HDS).

And on his desk, Mayer will find piles of student surveys and feedback cards, filled out by the likes of Alissa K. Wall '97 of Adams House, who fills out the yellow cards so often that her friends say that they call her the "Queen of Comment Cards."

Mayer, who pledged to be responsive to student needs in his new position, is ready to listen.

"You have to have a relationship with students to know what they want," he says.

While the majority of comment cards in some dining halls beg for the inclusion of favorite dry cereals, students also have a lot to say about what should stay and what should change in the next few years in their dining halls.

Students worry that the effort going into special theme meals is detracting from efforts to keep the food simple and good.

Others, like the couple sharing a romantic dinner prepared and served for them in Cabot House by HDS staffers, say they like the personal service and TLC dining workers offer, and don't want to lose that--no matter what.

"Food's a big thing," Mayer says. "It's got to be good. It's got to be nutritious, it's got to be what students want, within reason."

Menu Planning

Variety in dining is a perennial bone of contention wiht student diners.

"There are days when there are three good entrees and I have to choose. Then there are days when I come in and nothing looks appetizing," says a Cabot House senior who declined to give her name. "I just suggest that they even things out," she adds.

General Wong's chicken and Bell-Ringing beef were especially unpopular, as students called for less ambitious dishes.

"I'm Chinese, so I can see that the Chinese food they cook is not properly done. It's not very bad--I like it, but it could be done better. It's just not authentic," says Rong Mao '00.

Geoffrey A. Fowler '00, who is also a Crimson editor, says he agrees, adding that he thinks the Asian food is too gelatinous.

Other suggest that the sheer size of HDS makes it impossible to create ambitious entrees with any degree of success.

"This wannabe Chinese food, some of these random exotic dishes, the theme meals--I don't think a service like Annenberg can provide that kind of food," says Jeff Y. Kurashige '00. "You're not going to be able to make something that's really gourmet for this number of people and expect it to come out well."

George C. Fatheree '97 of Cabot House says that HDS tends to be too fancy across the board, not just in entrees.

Fatheree takes mustard as a case in point. The Cabot dining hall, he says serves only the fancy brown, dijon-style mustard.

"I like the plain yellow stuff, you know--French's Mustard. They have it in the little packets, but it's just not the same," he says.

Not everyone agrees that simplicity should rule, however.

Megan E. Henry '00 says she thinks that "there's not enough adventure in the food--they should use more spices and garlic. But first, they have to improve the quality, because if they put spices and garlic on now, the food would just be heinous."

Many students agreed that menu planning needs more attention.

"We need more variety over time. They've had the same six salad dressings ever since I came here. They're good salad dressings, but it's easy to get bored with them," said Ben J. Lima '98.

Lowfat Options

General variety is important to students, but no single area gets as much attention as beefing up the selection of vegetarian or healthy choice options.

"I would try to have more low fat, high protein meals. You can only live on pasta for so long, and as a wrestler it's really hard to get protein in a low fat medium," says Scott F. Malcolm '97.

"There should be less fat in the entrees, and they should be more mainstream," says Kelly A. Kinneen '99.

Vegetarians are particularly unhappy about the fat content of the vegetarian entrees.

Eric Nguyen '99 of Mather House says that he would like to be a vegetarian, but the offerings for vegetarian entrees are just not acceptable.

"The problem is that the vegetarian entrees have three times as much fat and they're bad also. They have a bad fat-to-taste ratio," says Nguyen.

Renata A. Scott-Ram '00 adds that the contents of the vegetarian entrees are also not acceptable.

"Vegetarian food is not just rice and potatoes. It should be more bean-based stuff," says Scott-Ram.

"We need more healthy vegetarian food at lunch," says Rachel B. Tiven '96-97, adding that she is generally happy with the food.

Food Quality

While vegetarians call for beans, student carnivores roast the meat options, nothing that meat quality and safety is a prime concern.

Alvin L. McCottry '00 says that he is concerned about how thoroughly the meat options are prepared.

"I've been here too many times times when the cheeseburgers haven't been cooked all the way," he says.

"I'm really sick of pink chicken. Occasionally you get a nice piece of chicken and it turns out to be pink and uncooked on the inside," says Kelly J. Stage '00. She adds that she finds pink chicken at least twice a month.

Stage also says that the steak can be over-cooked, often to the point that it is impossible to eat.

Other students say that the quality of the food--both the ingredients and the care with which it is prepared--needs attention.

"I'd tell them to improve the quality of the food from grade C to grade A," says Holly A. Foster '97.

Dayle B. Delancey '92, a resident tutor in Pforzheimer, says she has noticed a distinct decline in food quality at the end of this year.

Delancey said she was also an undergraduate at the College, adding that "I've never seen a year like this when it's so obvious that we're being fed scraps and leftovers. There'll be a meal in which the main entrees are items that obviously don't go together--like mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese and ham."

Grilled Chicken

While Stage is wary of the "pink chicken," the grilled chicken breast ruled the roost as far as Harvard students were concerned.

Surprisingly, the much-vaunted Chickwich, a main feature of the recent HDS survey, did not come up much in The Crimson's informal survey, overshadowed by its less processed cousin.

Students say they use the grilled chicken breasts to do a little cooking of their own--they slice it over salad, smother it in melted cheese, douse it in barbeque sauce.

"You can do a lot with grilled chicken--it's nice to have basic things like that," says Courtney Kress '97 of Mather House.

"You're really looking to create your meal, and it's important that there's room for creativity," says Mather resident Emma C. Cheuse '98.

Tattenbaum also says the dining hall should be more flexible in allowing students to make their own food, referring to the salad bar.

"The current trend of listening to students, of-adding grilled chicken twice a week should continue," says Michael H. Walfish '98.

Grilled chicken is also a favorite of the health-conscious crowd.

"There's not enough for health-conscious people. There's no way for you to eat healthful and well. They should do grilled chicken sandwiches every day," says Claudio A. Sauer '00.

Of course, no opinions about food are ever unanimous, and some just can't stomach more chicken.

"For the past three months, we've been getting plain grilled chicken. It's tasteless. It pisses me off," says Young Byun '97.

Service With a Smile

The dining service's administration and staff is the spoonful of sugar that makes all the food go down better, students say.

"I think that the most important thing is that there are such nice people [on the staff]. They add a lot to the Harvard community. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not," says Sarah N. Glass '97, who says the HDS are the best administrative group at Harvard. "The food is important but they make a good faith effort and it's as good as you can expect."

Cabot House residents, for example, are almost unanimously positive about their food service workers, pointing to dining hall staff/student events as promoting a good relationship.

"There's an event every year when the students wait on dining hall staff, and even make dinner for them. We use the masters' kitchen, and the masters help," says Mary S. Hatcher '98.

"Cabot is great about making sure you get what you need," says Kyle K. Walsh '99.

"If I had complaints about the food, I'd just tell the people here," says Ouanza A. Puplampu '97, gesturing toward the Cabot House kitchen. "I don't have complaints because these people are so wonderful," she adds.

"There should be more dining hall staff/student events," says Herman A. Sanchez '97, enjoying half of a romantic dinner prepared by Cabot Dining Hall worker Anabela K. Pappas.

Diners in other Houses praise the service with equal gusto.

"I really love the dining services people. They are incredibly nice," says Mather resident Grace K. L. Katabaruki '99. "When I had my wisdom teeth taken out they got me applesauce and soup in my room."

Lisa D. Graustein '97, who called Executive Chef Mike Miller the epitome of good student relations, said that "dining services has been the most student-friendly and responsive body in all of Harvard administration, including my concentration."