Le plus ca change . . .
If there's one law these days about college dining, it's got to be this: No matter how good the food gets, you'll always find someone who'll tell you loud enough for the whole cafeteria to hear just how bad it is. For college students, complaining about the food ranks right up there with cutting down the complexity some might say the indigestibility of some of William Faulkner's famous prose. The fellow who falls in love with the cafeteria's chicken cutlets let alone its tuna wiggle is apt to find himself the butt of many a bad joke.
Dartmouth dining is no different. Funny thing is, while weekend visitors have been spreading news about how good the food is at Dartmouth, we in Hanover have made a big point of correcting our friends by cutting our cafeteria folk down to shrimpbits. I don't know if Eleazar's hale and hearty guys brooded over bad rabbit stew, but the Hanover Plain has produced a lot of gripes over the years from bad pot roast in Freshman Commons to lead pancakes at Thayer.
Some alumni may be thinking back to the days when College eating meant either the cafeteria meal plan or an outof-pocket dinner downtown, say, at Lou's or Hal's or the Beefeater, which on occasion could prove just as disheartening. A family friend who once ordered pot roast at the former got nothing more than vegetables submerged under a swamp of gravy (and less than his money's worth in an argument with the chef). Some others may be thinking back a few years when the greasy Hopkins Center Snack Bar and the sprouty Collis Cafe were the only non-Thayer College alternatives.
Well, those days are gone. Things are shaping up for the Dartmouth stomach. Main Street boasts two spiffy new barrestaurants, and the College, after taking a long look at Dartmouth dining, has figured out that sometimes a facelift can accomplish as much as a new menu. The result: a classier Hopkins Center Snack Bar and more options at Thayer. The renovation of Collis is next.
The Hop used to serve some of the greasiest grill fare north of Brooklyn in settings that conjured a snack bar at Coney Island or Weirs Beach. Now, the place has a new name the Courtyard Cafe new fare, and a new image. With a cozy, enclosed layout and new waxedwood tables, the Cafe has sofas nearby for tea-sipping paper-browsers. While we can still call up any of a number of fat-fried standbys, the menu now boasts such fancy items as French Dip sandwiches, chicken teriyaki, and barbequed spare ribs, and there's a popular new ice cream bar adjacent to the grill. What used to be a kind of flies' nest is a spiffy little snack bar that doesn't look too sloppy when the lunch crowd swarms in full force.
The Collis Cafe started as "alternative" in every respect: alternative food and alternative ambience, just what one wouldn't find in the "mainstream" of the College community. (Read "sprouts and long hair.") Since mainstreamers have discovered a taste for quiche, omelets, and croissants, and since the cafe staff mostly students has broadened the menu to include Mexican and other cultural cuisine, the place now overflows at mealtimes, with many a group spilling out into the Common Ground lounge in search of a table. Complaints about food are rare almost unheard of for any college cafe but there are some gripes about prices; Collis is considerably more expensive than Thayer.
Even good old Thayer ain't what it used to be. In fact, it's changed so dramatically in three years that it's hard to reconstruct an image of the old all-youcan-eat lines with trays clanking to the dishroom on a conveyor belt. The allyou-can-eat section of the"New" Thayer is only one large room, with no conveyor belt and with a new arrangement that actually makes for some coziness. And for all of us who've argued for years that only defensive linemen want or need the three helpings of pancakes and double portions of scrambled eggs that make the cafeteria a bargain, at last there's a charge-to-your-collegeaccount a la carte section that saves money. You pay for what you pick, and there's quite a menu to pick from: a salad bar, a sandwich bar, and a grill that even offers 9 oz. steaks for $3.50. The Topside snack bar in Thayer has gone from a bare, dingy grill with all the ambience of a truckstop to a kind of one-stop shopping center selling everything from cold cuts to laundry detergent. No longer a place to make you groan if you miss the regular meal times.
All this has cost the College more than most administrators anticipated and more than most students despite detailed accounts of expenses in a recent Dartmouth article are willing to acknowledge. Even though we're happier about going to Thayer now that we have the option of an a la carte menu, the New Thayer and the Courtyard Cafe aren't bringing in enough money to pay back the renovations. So starting next fall, the College will require upperclassmen to pay a $50.00 Thayer membership fee. A requirement that upperclassmen eat at one of the College facilities, though voted down this winter, may be instituted in a few years. As you can imagine, that's brought out some sharp words.
One group of precocious freshmen the only ones now required to keep a contract with Thayer is having a good deal of fun with the issue. Calling them selves FAT (Freshmen Against Thayer), the bunch is putting out a regular joke copy of the weekly Thayer menu and pushing for an organizational shakeup that will make the place more efficient. Dorm and fraternity hallways bear evidence that upperclassmen are miffed at the imminent membership fee, are getting into the act in private.
What upperclassmen aren't admitting is that most of them eat regularly at one or more of the College facilities already. They simply object to any contract requirement. The College, they say, should have had the foresight to predict the draw of the new dining operations and should have spent accordingly. As parents and educators, the deans learned this lesson generations ago: You can't satisfy them completely, you can only change their gripes. Truth is, whatever they cost, and whatever they'll cost in terms of future requirements, the renovations were well worth it. The men in the white cook hats will never equal Mom, but they're coming closer; maybe that's all any of us can ask.
Someday, a few years from now, freshmen will arrive in Hanover facing four years of required College dining of some sort with less anxiety than I felt when faced with an exam to get out of Freshmen English. A few Corn Flakes and chicken cutlets won't faze them a bit. And you know, I'll bet we will then delight in telling them just how much better things are for them than they were for us, just as one of my uncles told my father time and time again throughout his Dartmouth career about snow drifts over the first floor windows of Butterfield and Sage. And I'll bet the new freshmen will find something lumpy gravy or tiny portions of shrimp to write home about in a plea for a care package or two. Le plus ga change. . .
