Opinion
FACE OFF: Are the new dining hall arrangements a positive change for Hamilton?
By Lauren Magaziner '12 and Charlotte Hough '14
January 26, 2012
No, they’re unecessary and inefficient
By Lauren Magaziner '12
2012: year of the dining hall apocalypse.
Coming back from break to find yet another dining hall change was more of a disappointment than a surprise. The sandwich bar is askew, the salad bar is MIA (or very diminished), and there are enormous lines for everything.
The sandwich bar initiative is one that I’ll never understand. Why take a fast, quick, easy, convenient, grab-and-run deli bar and convert it into a glacially-paced sandwich bar? The problem with the sandwich bar that most people joke about is a valid point: I feel completely incompetent in making my own dinner. I’m attending a highly competitive college, but the dining hall no longer trusts me to make my own sandwiches.
Sandwiches used to be the fastest food option, but now I can’t find any meal that doesn’t have a ridiculously long line. I find the queue to be especially irritating, seeing as I almost always use the deli meats but hardly ever for sandwiches. Sometimes, I just want a piece of meat or cheese—and be able to go on my merry way. Now, I feel annoyed and absurd waiting in a ten-minute line for one piece of cheese, which I can’t get by myself because it is blocked off. Economically, this new system is unsound and illogical.
Another change that seems exciting in concept but less-than-stellar in practice is the themed nights in McEwen. While it seems fun and practical to have a cuisine-themed week, the choices are severely limiting for those of us who don’t like the theme of the week. I, for example, do not like barbeque foods, so I could hardly find anything I liked in McEwen during Carolina barbeque week. This week features Asian food, and while this is my favorite type of food, I do not wish to eat it five nights in a row. This is a complete assumption on my part, but it seems as though Bon Appétit was only considering how to save money on food costs, rather than considering the palates and balanced dietary needs of students.
These particular changes grind my gears, but what bothers me more is the sheer frequency of dining hall changes. In my four years at Hamilton, the dining hall set-up has changed no less than six times. For me, this is problematic because as soon as I learn where some food item is, it gets moved somewhere else. I struggle to locate the foods I want, and I roam around, resisting the flow of the meal line and clumsily knocking into people, in a fruitless attempt to locate mayo.
Consistency is often better than exploring every new layout idea. As we know from Facebook, change is not always a good thing. I would rather learn the layout of the dining hall, and have it be less “organized” and “innovative” after a year or so than constantly have to rework the map of the dining hall in my mind.
I know someone out there is responsible for these new ideas, and I don’t want to hurt any feelings, but my plea is that the dining hall layout person or persons think of the best way to serve food, implement the system, and then—most importantly—keep it like that for at least four years before rethinking the model.
Yes, they showcase Bon Appétit’s flexibility
By Charlotte Hough '14
I won’t lie that I came back to Hamilton not exactly looking forward to eating Bon Appétit again on a regular basis. While I often find things I like in the dining halls, it does get old after a couple of months. Food made on such a large scale will never be as good as a home-cooked meal made by your mom or a night out at an Ethiopian restaurant. Nevertheless, I was surprised to come back this semester to a modified and mouth-watering McEwen.
A sandwich-making station has been added in place of the old salad bar. Available at lunch and dinner, it is filled with a variety of freshly baked artisan breads that line the bottom shelf of the new wooden counter. Seeing as I am obsessed with bread (my family jokes that I inherited the “Hough bread gene”), I see this addition as a major improvement.
The new sandwich bar also seems to have broadened its lunchmeat offerings. You can now get your turkey oven-broiled or smoked, with smoked being the newest option. The offerings for spreads and dressings have expanded to include pesto and chipotle mayo, which up until now could only be found at Commons. Since my usual Commons sandwich included many of these ingredients, I am happy to now be able to get them at McEwen.
Some may complain that having one of the McEwen employees make your sandwich is inefficient and unnecessary. I definitely think I am capable of crafting my own culinary masterpieces, but I don’t mind having someone else do it. So far I have avoided the line problem by mostly eating in McEwen during off-hours, but I suppose that lines faced at 12 p.m. when one has a 1 p.m. class could get annoying. From my experience at Commons, the lines rarely prevent people from waiting in them to get their sandwiches; clearly people don’t care that much.
The creation of a sandwich station has meant that the salad bar has taken over stir-fry land. Since I rarely got stir-fry (also because of the line issue), I don’t really notice the change. I can see why stir-fry regulars may be disappointed, but since McEwen claims the change is “temporary,” we can all only hope that someday you’ll get your reason for living back.
The other major change has been the return of themed weeks for the dinner entrees. Though this started last year, it wasn’t really as common last semester. I welcome the new variety and have enjoyed offerings from both the first week, themed barbeque, and the second, themed Asian. Just a few nights ago a tangy General Gau’s chicken helped alleviate my homesickness for Brookline’s cheap Chinese food destination, Dragon Star, which was a regular stop for me and my friends back in high school.
In general, the themes encourage a variety that Commons never seems to achieve. Yeah, they will get old if you eat at McEwen Monday through Thursday, so don’t do that? Live on the edge! Darksiders should take the trek to Commons if they want some combination of mashed potatoes and chicken (something they strangely always seem to have…) as opposed to whatever “ethnic” option McEwen has concocted.
Though constant change can sometimes be confusing, I appreciate Bon Appétit’s constant flexibility and receptiveness to student input. My one qualm with college dining is that it can just get old. Since McEwen is so open to innovation, this issue is less prevalent. To Bon Appétit and the Student Assembly Food Committee, I say keep up the good work!