While I am on the subject of things done in grade-school, what I am writing about tonight is an activity as old as the ages, a practice handed down by each nose-picking, throwing dirt at girls on the playground and daring each other to eat worms generation of children to the next: complaining about cafeterias.
Although to be fair, its really not just elementary school kids who do it. Adults are perfectly capable of doing it too. We may not grumble in line anymore while looking dismally down at our trays wondering whose idea was to require us to have 3 servings of vegetables on our plate (and why the draconian lunch overlords would choose broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower as those three vegetables). And we don't stare longingly anymore down at Terry at the end of the table, whose greedily clutching his chocolate pudding cup, determining that his mother must really love him unlike our mothers who sold us out to our mid-day-meal fate the evil food service masters who only give out flavors of pudding like banana or butterscotch (why would you even make pudding in flavors other than chocolate?) and who determined that ketchup is a vegetable. But think about it. We still complain about hospital food. And if your eating out, in a place with adults, a "grown-up" restaurant, and you get your food on a tray that has dividers for each part of your meal, you get nervous. Even the mustached lunch-lady who only seems to hand out ladles of slop has become a cultural icon, some sort of running joke on the misery that was our childhood lunches. Anyway, all of this is a long-winded justification for why I am going to complain about the cafeteria where I eat.
Now, another preface, shorter I promise: I like the cafeteria. I'm glad it cooks and cleans dishes for me. There is not a single mustached woman in the whole place. Only Eastern-European immigrants, (side note: there is an unexpectedly large Polish community in Edinburgh. The meat combinations made between the scottish and polish culinary cultures could be awesome. Frightening, dark, horrible, requiring UN-sanctions awesome) and the occasional Irishmen. No, I have only one complaint. And it is one word: potatoes. Every meal, it is possible to get at least 3 or 4 varieties of spud. Now I understand Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish (of both the Northern and Republican varieties) have a long standing culinary relationship with the humble potato. It is definitely a "staple". I also hypothesize it is the reason that we seem to have the same dishes over and over again. Because, a varied menu requires varied ingredients and a well stocked pantry, something impossible to achieve if half of the food budget of the cafeteria is spent bringing in potatoes by the shipping container-load. Now, I like french fries, and baked potatoes, and mashed potatoes. Unlike some of my Scottish and English peers, I do not put all three on my plate and call that dinner. Hopefully, the growing Indian culinary influence in Europe will help break this horrible habit. Maybe one day students will sit down in the Edinburgh cafeteria and have some good Dal. But until then, I am living in Dr. Atkins nightmare.
The Horror!
HAHAHAHAHA..... love it. as always.
ReplyDeleteALSO: I am TOTALLY a loyal reader. Have read every one. So there.