Eating like a student

Are you tired of Dewick? You think that our dining hall food isn't any good? Don't go crying to your parents, because college food used to be far more basic than it is now. The choices we have now -- from the reliable standards like deli sandwiches, pizza, pasta, salad, and cereal to the ever-changing daily dishes -- go far beyond the simple options that used to be the standard in college cafeterias. "Here's your meat, your vegetable, and your carbohydrate. Get a glass of whole milk on your way out."

No, you don't have to like it more just because your parents had it worse. Having grown up with a sprawling array of food choices, we have higher expectations. It's just worth realizing and appreciating that no matter how tired you may be of our institutional food, you'd be even more miserable if the good people at dining services didn't put their all into making the dining halls and the campus center food to our liking.

I'm not here to complain or to tell you to do things differently. I'm here to celebrate just how much great food is within our reach.

Though I'd like to note that I think bitching about the quality of the food is rude. These people do everything they can to accommodate the specific prissy demands of 5,000 students who all want something different and are used to having things their way. They have to deal with vegans and vegetarians, athletes and picky eaters, and a campus of generally critical, sarcastic students. Given that, I'm impressed with what they've pulled off.

And the campus center gives you some excellent lunchtime options, though I find myself eating the hot deli sandwiches religiously. They're a horrifying addiction. I started off with one per week sophomore year, and now I'm up to three. I might stick around at Tufts just so I don't have to quit.

I'm not on a dining plan, and I haven't been for years. Sure, I like the luxury and variety of the dining halls, but you can't help getting tired of the institutional menu and the overall cost. Cooking for yourself is always tasty (unless you waste time cooking things that you don't even like), and it's so much cheaper. Yes, an all-you-can-eat meal three times a day for $8 per meal is a good deal, and I had some good times in Carmichael, but I don't need that much food three times a day. Forget about it.

Talk to your parents. From dining halls to dining out, every edible aspect of college has improved in the past thirty years, and we're blind to it because we don't know anything different. Restaurants this varied and ubiquitous were unheard of. No one ever craved Thai noodles because there was nowhere to buy Thai noodles.

We're lucky to live in a time and a place that offer us untold varieties of food. For a specialized example, take out a stack of restaurant delivery menus and scan the types of food you could order. Do you want Indian? Thai? Italian? Are you looking for cr??pes? Wraps? Tabouli? And these menus represent only those restaurants that are willing to cook your custom order, package it, and drive it to your door for free. Despite that, they encompass an orgiastic range of food. If the British had ever invented anything worth eating, I'm sure we could get it delivered in the next hour.

(The most significant missing segment of the cuisine spectrum is French, and I think a large part of the French culinary experience is in the setting and service anyway. There's a culture gap between Styrofoam delivery containers on the floor of a rundown Somerville apartment and fine china on a tablecloth with a view of downtown Boston. I'll pay and travel for that privilege, thanks.)

There are limitless choices for you independent eaters out there. The two local cr??pe places are really good, though not appropriate for a voracious eater low on funds (I require two cr??pes to make a true meal). Nick's House of Pizza makes a much better calzone than does Espresso's -- a Nick's calzone is light and small and crispy and cheap. Farther down on Boston Ave., there's Tasty Gourmet, and really, if you haven't heard about it by now, you almost don't deserve to go there. Tasty makes the best sandwiches you'll find in the area. I won't go so far as to say that they're the best sandwiches in the world, but while you're at Tufts, they might as well be.

And hands down, the best cheap local eatery that you won't find Tufts students in: Bob's Imported Foods and Fine Catering on Main Street in Medford. Cheap and fast and delicious and full of the character that you'd expect from a local place that could care less about some university nearby. Great Italian sandwiches and pastas -- the veal parmigiana sub is absolute murder. Bob's doesn't need to impress anybody. The food speaks for itself.

What about cooking for yourself? I think cooking is a basic skill that we should be teaching long before kids reach Driver's Ed. I don't demand that you be able to hunt, kill, butcher, and prepare your own food, but you should be able to look at a piece of chicken and figure out something to do with it (hint: apply heat).

There's so much that could be said about college cooking, but I want to hit on one basic element of it and send you on your way for the week. People joke about college students living on macaroni and cheese. I say, good for you! It's a start. There are so many different kinds of macaroni and cheese that it's hard to get tired of it. The homemade variety (I'm talking actual cheese, actual macaroni, a stove, and an oven, not to mention cornstarch, milk, and dry mustard) can be ready in about half an hour, and you can feed several people (or yourself for several days) off of maybe $7 worth of ingredients.

For those lazier days, there's the Annie's line of boxed macaroni and cheese. The possibilities with Annie's are limitless. If you want something light, just make the box alone, adding salsa, hot sauce, extra cheese, pepper, MSG, or honey as you choose to change the flavor without weighing it down much. If you want to make a serious and delicious meal out of it, try cooking up some chicken, onions, and peppers and adding some fresh apple slices just before you eat it. Mix in some ground beef or spaghetti sauce or (for the bold of heart) a can of Spaghetti-Os. Fantastic.

And if you're feeling like a cheap thrill, go ahead and eat an entire blue box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. You wouldn't want that everyday, but I keep some of it around anyway. Convince your friends to eat it on tortilla chips. Ahhhh, good times.