9 Nasty Truths About Your Favorite Foods
Famous Death Row Last Meals
The previous
post on Saveur's April 2006 issue highlighted a short article on how
college students are dismissing their standard dining halls, even if they're serving sustainable, free-range,
organically grown, slow food, and turning to things like taco trucks and food carts. Maybe they're cheaper,
faster, easier to get to than trekking all the way back up the hill to the dorm. College was a long time ago for me,
but the article still got me thinking about some of the great (dinners out in the Bay area), some of the not so great
(joints around Berkeley), and some of the downright horrific foods (stuff I "ate" at home) that made up
my diet, er rather gave me a reason to diet.
- Instant ramen -- not even the kind you have to boil water in a pot on the stove top: this was the stuff that you add hot water to from the Sparkletts water cooler, cover, and wait three minutes.
- Steamed white rice with canned tuna and soy sauce -- I have no words. It hurts me to think about it, too.
- Top Dog -- one bird dog = not so bad. Two bird dogs with everything, plus a bite of someone else's hot link at 2 am = very very bad.
- Fat Slice vs. Blondies -- with an occasional treat of Zachary's if I found someone with a car
- The baked potato cart parked at the edge of Sproul Plaza -- I think it was called Spud Brothers. A baked potato doesn't sound so bad, until you add butter, sour cream, mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses!
- A full day diet of pure sugar -- starting with a bear claw (Go Bears! that was the excuse) from King Donuts, a sugar shake disguised as a "smoothie" from Fresh Blend (the store was later replaced by Jamba Juice), and then more sugar! Ice cream from Double Rainbow
- Steve's Barbecue -- Wuan ordah numbah two! Dae-jee bulgogi when I really missed home, because steamed white rice with canned tuna doesn't remind me of home
- Chez Panisse -- made up for four years of crap.
Now don't let me be the only one. I know you didn't eat grilled mahi mahi with pineapple mango salsa at 3 am in college either!
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3-31-2006 @10:48PM Jenni said... My fav? Jan's Pizza in Montgomery AL, while I was at Huntingdon College. It was 5 dollars, free delivery, and you could scrape the money together for it by using your laundry change. Oh yeah, and lots of ice cream. Our freezers in our rooms weren't cold enough to keep them from melting so we had to eat the whole pint/half gallon right away! Thank god the Army took it off of me:).
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3-31-2006 @10:54PM Cameron Howard said... Tuna Fish
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3-31-2006 @11:01PM Eugenie said... I went to a Eastern college in the days when one had "room and board" not "meal plan" so we had 3 squares in the dorm dining room. I remember vividly something we called "white dinner" which consisted of a cream soup in a white bowl, sole or haddock with a potato and cauliflower on a white plate, vanilla ice cream in a white dish, and milk. Not even a shred of parsley. However, the cook in my dorm made an awesome black bottom pie (piecrust covered with bitter chocolate and custard).
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3-31-2006 @11:07PM Denise said... I remember moving to Arizona, recently married........to go to U of A. We were living off of family donations of HAM. Before getting part time jobs. As a joke, after we complained the only thing my mother had helped us with was a large ham,(yeah, ha ha ha) my stepmother sent us a ham for xmas........
We had 3 months of ham. Ham and eggs, ham and cheese, ham and mac, ham and beans, ham sandwiches, ham and potatoes, ham burritos, ham salad, baked ham (for which we bothered a fellow student to bother to use the oven)
To this day, ham is a forbidden word in and around the kitchen. Even bacon is difficult to find appetizing
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3-31-2006 @11:09PM Christina said... Went to school in Las Vegas, thank God for the steak and lobster for 3.99 at the Stardust and the all you could eat at Circus Circus, leftover lasted for days in the mini fridge, it usually resembled food and could be ordered 24 hours a day
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3-31-2006 @11:09PM Christina said... Went to school in Las Vegas, thank God for the steak and lobster for 3.99 at the Stardust and the all you could eat at Circus Circus, leftover lasted for days in the mini fridge, it usually resembled food and could be ordered 24 hours a day
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3-31-2006 @11:09PM Cindy said... I went to college in the 70's..could make 3 meals out of Kraft Mac&Cheese (have my standards) and chicken hotdogs. Tried puffed rice in chicken boullion...not one of my Food Network moments.
#1 favorite indulgence (other than ETOH) a sub salad, all the ingredients in a sub (no bread) in a cup. Yum!
Still love that Mac&Cheese.
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3-31-2006 @11:14PM DS said... Isn't anyone else old enough to remember greasy Chinese food at Robbie's? Late night shakes (almost every night) from Kips made up for the dorm food. After I had my own apartment dinner often consisted of a container of yoghurt from the Garbage Spot. Oscar's on Shattuck used to have the best hamburgers and steak sandwiches; it's still there, but it isn't the same.
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3-31-2006 @11:14PM ML said... I'm still in College, but as a senior, I've already survived the freshman 50. Now I try to eat at least some good meal a day, but its hard on the go. Sometimes in our caf, onion rings just look so much better than the mystery meatloaf.
A couple of years ago, I would make plenty of meals off of just pasta, and butter/garlic salt I took from the caf. I guess i've had it pretty well then eh?
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3-31-2006 @11:19PM Diane said... Like Claudia, above, I went to college in the 60s. I remember eating mostly nothing (yep, I was SKINNY - ahhh, those were the days). But, one of my regular "meals" was a mayonaise & mustard sandwich. Bread was soft and white, of course. The beauty of this recipe was that you didn't need any bologna! (Hey, Claudia, remember bologna?)
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3-31-2006 @11:20PM jenny said... easy mac, lunchables, and lots of beer!
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3-31-2006 @11:21PM Pam said... Yes, we did the Ramen noodles in a cup and the boxed mac -n- cheese made with water..add to that graham crackers with pb & jelly, a slice of baloney and a slice of cheese rolled up together and NACHOS!!! Just chips and shredded cheese...no salsa, no nothing. I think we ate them 4 or 5 times a week!
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3-31-2006 @11:21PM Holly said... I went to a private college with no microwaves, fridges, or hot plates allowed. We did have a george forman to cook burgers on. We also had a hot pot which could cook almost anything. . .soup, mac and cheese, fondue, applesauce. We also cooked grilled cheese on an iron! I pretty much lived on pizza though with ranch dressing.
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3-31-2006 @11:25PM Will said... I have a meal plan but the food they serve usually comes right back out about a half hour later. So, i would constantly be eating peanut butter sandwches, snacks from the vending machine, and some occasional snacks that my mom would send to me. It takes the snacks i while to get to me from home because im 1000 miles away so i ration my snacks from home. Also, when girl scout cookies were being sold i ate about three boxes a day.
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3-31-2006 @11:25PM Lynne said... In '69 I went to Western in Oxford, Ohio... huge Boar's Head hamburgers were the best...and hot Elephant ears at 4AM, fresh from the uptown bakery, will put the pounds on after awhile. The second year my roommate and I went on a diet of hot dogs fried in ketchup. I don't think it worked.
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3-31-2006 @11:28PM bette said... granola bars, cranberry juice,cheese & crackers from the cafeteria, white cheese (any kind) & bread from the cafeteria (sprinkle a little oregano in the bread, put cheese on top & melt in the microwave, ramen noodles, spaghettios, canned soup & ravioli. Ate leftovers from the cafeteria on the weekend. Homemade cookies from Mom. Microwave popcorn,nachos with cheese & salsa. One Chinese meal from the local restaurant for $7.00 would be two meals for me! Oh, and tuna mixed with mayo on crackers.
I was lucky--I got care packages from home! Mom supplied the homemade cookies, spag-os, ravioli, soup, tuna, Ramen noodles, microwave popcorn, corn chips & salsa! When sombody was hungry, they came to our room. We always had something!
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3-31-2006 @11:31PM Ron said... Usually to poor to go to the local Diary Queen, and like most of the guys in my dorm, suffering from meal card emptiness, I survived quite often on peanut butter and mayonaise "sammaches" (peanut butter and mayonaise were the only thing free in the dining commons and bread was only 2 cents per slice. If I ran up on a few bucks I could go to the campus run pizza joint called "The Subway" that served Tombstone pizza for about 3 bucks and Big K (Kroger brand) canned sodas for 25 cents a piece. Life was good....
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3-31-2006 @11:31PM me said... My favorite meal was Doritos and Oreos. Nothing beats it. Even now, once in a while I might snack on that combo for fun.
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3-31-2006 @11:33PM Betsy said... The best thing we ate at college was subs from the local sub shop. Dripping in oil and mayo, we put extra lettuce and tomatoes to make sure we got our veggies. Also remember mug-a-lunch. The best was after college and my roomate and I were on our own, we ate alot of macaroni, mac & cheese, mac & mayo, mac & sauce. We were going to write a book - Receipes to Handle when your High. But I can't remember any, gee I wonder why!
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3-31-2006 @11:34PM Deborah said... Waaaaay back, I used to use one of those small things that were really for just heating water...I cooked spaghetti and sauce in them and fed on that for a long while.
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