To put it nicely, I have become overly familiar with the culinary delights served in both Carmichael and Dewick−MacPhie Dining Halls. Don't get me wrong; the food here is usually more than palatable. It's just that when someone says "dining hall," I don't immediately think "exotic" or "innovative."
Naturally, this raises an important question: why an entire column about dining halls? Contrary to the currently banal state of our campus eateries, the culinary history of Tufts reflects many major social and political events of the last century.
Although Tufts initially had a central dining hall for all of its students, a radical faction developed in the early 1900s that called for exclusive dining clubs with membership fees. While it certainly sounded enticing — the Tufts Weekly noted that "good, plain, clean, and substantial food is promised" — the trend soon died out in favor of a more traditional and egalitarian dining hall system.
In light of the musical trends of the times, Tufts really spiced up its dining halls during the 1920s (no pun intended). A Tufts Weekly headline from 1923 screamed, "Cafeteria Sports an Orchestra!! Strains of Latest Jazz Mingle with Song of Soup!!" During the "noon meal," student orchestras played opera tunes and "the latest popular hits," as Tufts pushed the limits of collegiate dining further than ever before.
As the youthful innocence of the Jazz Age gave way to the harsh realities of World War II, Tufts reacted to the pressures of international politics with a new chapter in dining hall history: a cafeteria to accommodate all the reserve soldiers on Tufts' campus. The new cafeteria, creatively nicknamed "the caf," was constructed in Curtis Hall in 1943 for the 1,000 Navy men who normally dined in Cousens Cage, now known as Carzo Cage. Although a fire unfortunately ravaged the caf one month after its construction, the Tufts Weekly assured concerned Jumbos that "Naval students have not missed a meal" in its absence.
And what would a history of our dining halls be without the influence of the Women's Liberation Movement? Until the administration began to consider co−ed dining in the 1960s, Tufts had separate male and female dining halls. Tufts broke the news in 1963 with a plan "whereby men could, by signing up, take some of their meals in a women's dining hall, and vice versa."
Oh Tufts, such a progressive institution of higher education.
By far one of the greatest aspects of modern dining at Tufts is the ability to take a full meal and then go back for seconds (or thirds, or fourths). But during a global food crisis in the 1970s, Tufts' Dining Services implemented a strict "no seconds" policy and, to the dismay of many hard−core carnivores, informed students that "no steak will be served in the near future."
It gets worse. Even more shocking than the temporary T−bone shortage was the administration's decision in 1978 to create "no−smoking areas" in all the dining halls. Although the director of Dining Services at the time claimed, "We don't want to turn the dining halls into a police state," his actions spoke otherwise. Limiting our ability to gain the Freshman 15 AND taking away our cigarettes? What nerve!
All things considered, Dining Services does a pretty good job of keeping up with the social trends of the day and serving us fairly delicious food. I sometimes wonder, however, if they go too far in their attempts to appease us. On Halloween in 1978, for example, the Tufts Observer anticipated the "usual Night of Purposeful Anarchy in the dining rooms, where all who show up in costume will be eligible for a drawing [for] a case of beer and where most of the food will not be eaten but thrown."
Note: I will be suggesting this to Dining Services for Halloween 2011.
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