The Politics of Food

Demonstrations for curricular change and a Living Wage haven’t always been popular. But strike students where their hearts—err, that is, stomachs—are, and they don’t just get mad. They get organized. Food politics have graduated to a whole new level here at Harvard, where students upset with unruly frozen yogurt machines and premature grille closures are demanding more from their dining halls.

Lowell-open exploded last week in more fury than it had since a controversy over race relations last spring. The reason for this eruption of emotions? The food just wasn’t cutting it, or as one student wrote, it resembled “some slop that could only be concentrated cat vomit.”

And students aren’t the only ones left frustrated after a sub-par meal. Apparently, several members of the dining hall staff had also been dismayed by recent changes in infrastructure at the Lowell House dining hall, adding to the controversy.

The typical student grumblings about the quality of their dining options climbed to a fever pitch when a much beloved manager, Don Leonard, left Lowell to take control of the kitchens in Mather and Dunster, two Houses that had expressed dissatisfaction with their dated facilities.

Aaron D. Chadbourne ’06, a Lowell House Undergraduate Council representative who has spearheaded the effort to improve the dining situation, explained the disaster that followed Leonard’s departure.

“When Don left, Lowell got a temporary manager and a new person put in charge of supply and ordering,” he explained. “But those people weren’t that well informed, and there was a breakdown in communication between the serving and supply staff.”

According to Chadbourne, Lowell was always running out of the entrées listed on the menu. “Turkey with mashed potatoes would turn into some kind of chicken with white rice, and soon only the rice would be leftover,” he said. And, apparently, many students who frequently check the Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) menus were not surprised when the roast beef with peppercorn sauce that they had been craving all day turned out to be nothing more than buttered noodles.

Yet as suppliers and servers neglected to consult each other, featured menu items continued to run out. “It got so bad that the veggie meal would be apple crisp,” Chadbourne quipped.

Slim Pickings

With the second largest student population and the smallest serving area of all twelve houses, Lowell already felt the pressure of students’ dining demands.

When students recognized the reasons for their slim pickings, they immediately sought to address the issue. Posts about poor food began to plague Lowell-open as students compared their options to squeamish slop of all sorts.

“[T]he damp, grey mass with sticky orange coating that I get in place of a cheeseburger bears no resemblance to the plump, juicy meal you get when you say the same word: ‘cheeseburger’ at Bartley’s,” one student wrote.

As Lowell House Committee Treasurer Mark J. Stanisz ’05 pointed out, “The posts resulted in an explosion of opinion because it was early in the term, and people didn’t have anything better to do.” Stanisz led the effort to convert idle emails into tangible improvements when he drafted a petition for dissatisfied students to sign. However, no sooner had the petition reached the house open list than Stanisz had retracted his demands in favor of a more peaceful approach. “We realized we really wanted to establish a dialogue,” he explained.

So rather than handing HUDS some sort of ultimatum, House Committee Co-Chairs Stphanie L. Safdi ’04 and Tod Van-Stolk Riley ’06 decided to change the system by workng with it, and they met with the new manager, Serie DeMelo. Representatives from HUDS also joined the meeting to evaluate student complaints.

According to Safdi, DeMelo had already been planning a series of changes for Lowell, allowing for “an extremely productive meeting.”

Once the problems had been laid on the table, so to speak, students and staffers began to brainstorm solutions. According to Chadbourne, dining hall staff members were distressed over competition with the adjacent Winthrop kitchen for pots and pans. Strained resources threw off the dynamic between the staff.

The meeting brought the tensions between workers and the complaints of students to the forefront and provided a framework within which DeMelo could implement changes she had already been considering.

Spicing it Up

Improvements for the dining hall include better brainbreaks with new toasters, more bagel condiments, more fruit and an effort to add more diverse options for night-time snackers. Omelettes will now be offered with several ingredient choices every morning, and the grille will never close before 7:15 p.m. at dinner.

Serie is also trying to accomodate student complaints about lack of variety by constantly rotating cereal selections, increasing the variety of fruits available at every meal, including grapes on Saturday mornings, and adding more sliced meats to lunch and dinner time options.

As she directed workers from her office underneath the dining hall during a Monday morning breakfast, she paused to tell FM about the brand new cereal bins being installed.

Upstairs, Serie’s efforts for rapid change did not go unnoticed. Tanya A. Thompson ’06 looked up from a plate full of eggs and toast to commend DeMelo’s work.

“One of my biggest complaints was no cereal variety,” she said. “They only had healthy cereals in ugly, dirty looking bins. Now I can get Honey Nut Cheerios from a nice looking dispenser.”

In addition to more cereals, favorites such as smoked salmon and broccoli chicken will be available for Sunday brunches, and frozen yogurt machines will offer two flavors from the beginning to end of each meal.

Other changes in the works include a switch to 11 rotating varieties of bottled, rather than ladled, salad dressings and a charcoal grill to be installed after spring break.

And Chadbourne said the grille wasn’t the only thing ready to be installed by the new managers. “They’re committed to cultivating good interstaff relationships, so this won’t happen in the future,” he said.

Apparently, dining hall success is a delicate recipe. Right now, Lowell students and staff are attempting to find the right ingredients.