As the end of August was drew near, my anticipation to return to Notre Dame grew greater as the excitement of sophomore year was right around the corner. Many thoughts, worries, and questions plagued my mind. I will only tell you one for the purpose of this post: will the items on the dining hall menu (aka the 14 day rotation schedule) be different? Do the recipes vary from year to year or will there still be lemon parmesan tilapia? Chicken Vesuvio? The roasted vegetable medley of squash, carrots, and potatoes?
As soon as my dining hall plan kicked into action, I opened my ND mobile menu to find that, alas, things had not changed. My tilapia will always be combined with lemon and parmesan.
Before I go any further let me say that the dining at Notre Dame is very good, as far as college dining goes. We have many options and the food is relatively fresh and flavorful. However, there are some simple things that I believe can be done to make our dining experience more exciting.
The first item I’d like to address is brunch. Personally on Saturday and Sunday mornings (or early afternoon depending on when I rise out of my loft), I want to eat breakfast foods. The dining hall does offer some breakfast foods (not all, which I will get to later) during brunch, but they also offer “real dinner” food. For example, the other day I saw shrimp spaghetti with mushrooms and herbs. Now, my question is why this item never shows up on the dinner menu. The dining hall clearly has the recipe and the resources to make it (since they did), so why not just serve it at another mealtime? Thus changing up the menu, so we don’t get sick of the same things over and over!
The same thing goes for lunch. Why not rotate the entree items that are served at lunch with the ones that are served at dinner? Since we are almost all on a two-meal-a-day plan, chances are that many of us have never seen the penne with zucchini herbs and lemon because we use our flex points for lunch. Instead of rotating the lunch menu items every 14 days and the dinner menu items every 14 days, let’s combine them! This way it will take longer for us students to get bored of the dining hall and turn to the classic “I don’t feel like anything tonight” grilled chicken and spinach salad.
The tray of someone who has become very bored with the dining hall…
Along this theme, I really would love it if they served pancakes at brunch. Maybe even French toast every once in awhile. I, personally, know how easy it is to mass-produce pancakes, even chocolate chip ones. I know what you are thinking, they do serve them. But think again, pancakes are only ever served if you go to breakfast during the week. Now again, many of us only have 14 meals a week, so it follows that some never eat in the dining hall for breakfast because we like to sleep longer and eat in our dorm room, rather than wake up earlier and trek to the dining hall. This means that there are students at Notre Dame who can go the whole year without eating pancakes (unless they go to Badin pancake mass of course). Personally, I think this is sad. If they serve it during the week, they can offer it on the weekends, too. I can guarantee people would love it. And no, waffles are not the same thing or, for that matter, any sort of substitute for pancakes.
What brunch on the weekends should look like, blueberries included…
While I am getting all the baffles of the dining hall out of my system, here are some final points. Canned fruit. Really? We all know it comes from a can and we all have been taught that it is extremely bad for us, what with the added sugar and syrup-y nonsense. Is the dining hall saving money because they don’t have to buy as many cans as they would fresh fruit or wasting it because no one actually eats the “fruit” they put out? The student body might cry tears of joy, if they ever put out REAL strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, or black berries. We know it’s possible (*cough* training tables)…
Fingers crossed that before sophomore year is over, the dining hall menu is changed up. Or else it is going to be a long couple of pancakeless years!
“Don’t forget to love yourself.” -Soren Kierkegaard
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