Nothing from college - not that the food was bad, just not memorable.

Now, creamed chipped beef on toast is another thing altogether! I plan to buy some dried beef in PA when I go up there the end of the month. Have cooler....will travel!

Oh, college food - now that goes back a few years -

Memorable? One night a month that I *HATED* - when the choice was either liver and onions, or polish sausage. Since I disliked both of those, I either ate off-campus that night, brought up a TV dinner from town and heated it in the sorority house oven, or stuck to the "salad barge" that night.

Memorable that was GOOD? The college did a mean fried chicken that most students showed up for. They also made some really good pies. (A few years later, when I joined the Navy, I found out that female boot camp in Orlando beat out the college for blueberry pie, though.) We also enjoyed it when the ice cream soft serve machine actually WORKED (most of the time it froze up on everybody) so that we could have pie a-la-mode. Yeah, Freshman 15 - and Sophomore 15 - etc.

DonnaR/CA

Oh Gawd! I didn't live on campus, and worked full time as I went to school full time, so I was always running. Breakfast was often a Cadbury chocolate bar and a Tab from the vending machines, and lunch a quickly grabbed Char Siu Bao (a Chinese steamed bread bun stuffed with sweet roast pork) or Falafel "sandwich" (Indian garbanzo bean fritters and salad in a Pita with a roasted sesame dressing), or a fruit smoothie, all picked up cheaply at little carts set up near the main plaza of the school.

Actually, these "fast foods" were all fairly healthy (barring the vending machine breakfasts) and inexpensive, probably more tasty than the dorm fair as well.

There was also an inexpensive pizza place that sold a large slice of NY style pizza for a dollar, but I rarely ate there because there was always a line and I was always in a hurry. When I had enough time to stand in line I ate at a place that gave you a huge bowl of salad full of mixed lettuces, veggies and nuts or sunflower seeds and a generous hunk of home made whole grain honey brushed bread for a very reasonable price.

Nowadays, I make falafel, char siu bao, and fruit smoothies. I also make killer salads. But my bread has not yet measured up to that hunk that came with the salad, nor have I figured out how to make decent milk chocolate bars...of course, I haven't really tried to make the bars...

:D

Owen Grad Center had all the malt vinegar I could eat! A big plate of cod and fries all soaked down with vinegar. After a short stay I had to move off campus because I didn't have the money for a dorm room.

: )
lyra

I lived off campus during college and worked at a mall...was into clothes more than food then...and cars....seems I remember most of my eating was at the local drive-in resturant.

Nancy

I lived on campus for 2 years and one thing I miss is the holiday dinners, they went all out for the holidays, prime rib for Christmas and lots of goodies. Another favorite, not very healthy night was once every couple of weeks they would have what we called deep fat fried night. Pretty much all appitizer, mozzerella sticks, mini tacos, chicken nugets, onion rings, tater tots, cheese curds. Loved all that fattening food, but would always make sure to take some tums before we even went to the cafeteria to eat. Hate to think of the arteries clogging on those nights.

Stacie

Linda, I think you and I went to the same college! I remember that, to earn extra cash, some girls went out in the pre-dawn hours to cut the asparagus on the nearby farms. Now, that's FRESH! My Mom had always served us canned asparagus, and I hated it until I had the "real thing." I think they called the sauce "Hollandaise," but it was very cheesy (I mean that in a GOOD way).

What else? I remember "Sally Lunn," banana/cream cheese salad, beef glop AKA mystery meat in brown gravy, chicken marengo, seafood Newburg, cheese souffle, gingerbread with sugar on the bottom, rectangular slabs of ice cream, demitasse coffee after "Gracious Living" dinners on Wednesday nights and Sundays, and M & C's (milk and the BEST chocolate chip cookies) every night at 10 p.m. In those days, we ate in the dorm dining room, and there was no other option, except to eat at the local inn/coffee house or drug store, the only two establishments within walking distance. If you didn't like the dinner entree and didn't have the time or money to eat out, you survived on the vegetables and desserts.

Our alumnae magazine recently published the recipe for Deacon Porter's Hat, which was served to us annually on the anniversary of the college's founding (or was it the founder's birthday?); this recipe must date from the mid-1800s:

Deacon Porters Hat

Ingredients for pudding:

1/2 cup shortening
1 cup molasses
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t ground cloves
1/4 cup of raisins

Ingredients for hard sauce:
2 thickly beaten egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup brandy

Baking instructions:

Melt the shortening; add molasses and buttermilk. Sift together flour, soda, and spices. Combine with molasses mixture. Add raisins. The resulting batter should be stiff. If it is not, add more flour, 1 T at a time. Turn into buttered one- quart mold. (You may also use a one-pound coffee can, or double the recipe and use a two-pound can. For individual servings, use six- or eight-ounce frozen-fruit-juice cans and fill 2/3 full). Fill mold half full. Cover tightly. (A double layer of aluminum foil tied with string may be used.) Set on rack in a large kettle and pour boiling water to half the depth of the mold. Cover kettle tightly. Bring to boil on top of the stove. When steam begins to escape, reduce heat to low and steam for two hours. Serve with hard sauce.

(To make hard sauce, slowly beat sugar and brandy into egg yolks. Just before serving whip the cream and fold it into the egg mixture.)

Sue

What I remember is yekk!!! Oh, it was awful.

What I remember most is that you had to wear a dress to dinner. (That shows how old I am!)I had my mom make me a couple zip up the back loose cotton shifts that everyone wanted to borrow! i only lived in the dorm my freshman year and don't really remember the food, but I did gain weight.

At the sorority house the cook made puddles, which of course were actually dulce de leche, the kind boiled in the can. I never did figure out how she got them out of the can; they really were slices of the caramelized sweetened condensed milk. And she made great fried chicken.

I remember my dad making cream chipped beef. I still love it.

College...hmmm...I lived on campus all but one semester (I actually preferred living on campus), but the only food that I really remember is that we always had good breakfasts. They had good biscuits (made there) and country ham, grits, etc. I worked 11 PM to 6 AM, so I got to the cafeteria early when everything was just being prepared. Usually I had the salad or potato bar for dinner, so maybe that's why I don't remember much about the other food.

Oh, and desserts. They had a good german chocolate pie and something called a strawberry pretzel -- about the only thing with Jello in it I've ever liked. It was a layer of buttered pretzel crumbs with layers of creamcheese and strawberries, then strawberry jello. Something about the salty/sweet/fruity balance I really liked.

Like Rachelellen, I lived off campus and worked so my food memories from college were always the fast food carts/trucks. Though there were several that were pretty good, my absolute favorite was the Good Food Bus which served my very favorite breakfast/lunch.

It was a Whole Wheat bagel split, cream cheese on both sides, then each half topped with shredded carrots, raisins, sunflower seeds, wheat germ and honey. That and a large black coffee and I was good to go!

Alexa

I lived off campus with three other girls in an apartment but went often into the cafeteria on breaks between classes at University of B.C. for a cup of coffee and one of their famous cinnamon buns. Rather than being square, as cinnamon buns are today, these were round, tall and wider at the top....sort of a paper cup shape and the cinnamon spiraled all the way up from the bottom. They were made by one woman and were a legendary treat for those who knew about them! Ann T. kindly provided me with the recipe and now I see it is all over the web and can be found with Google.

UBC CINNAMON BUNS
=================

(Those famous cinnamon buns from the cafeteria at the University of British Columbia)

3 cup milk
6 Tbsp margarine
6 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 /2 cup warm water
2 envelopes a ctive dry yeast
2 large eggs
9 cup s all-purpose flour
1 cup melted margarine, divided
1-1/4 cups sugar
2 Tbsp cinnamon

Scald milk. Stir in margarine, the 6 T. sugar, and salt. Cool to lukewarm.
Dissolve 1 tsp. sugar in warm water. Sprinkle yeast over water mixture. Let
stand in a warm place for 10 minutes. In large mixing bowl combine lukewarm
milk mixture and eggs. Stir in dissolved yeast. Add 4-5 cups of the flour
and beat well for 10 minutes. With a wooden spoon, gradually add enough of
the remaining flour to make a soft dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured
surface and knead until smooth and elastic, adding additional flour as
needed. Place in well greased bowl and roll over to grease the top. Cover
with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until dough doubles in size,
about one hour. Punch down and turn out on lightly floured surface. Divide
dough in half. To fill, roll out each piece of dough into a 9 X 18 inch
rectangle. Sprinkle on filling (last 3 ingredients - made from melted
margarine, sugar and cinnamon - but keep some of the margarine aside). Roll
dough up like a jelly roll, starting from the long side. Cut into 2 inch
slices. Place remaining melted margarine in bottom of 16.5 X 11.5 X 2.5 inch
pan. Arrange slices in pan and cover loosely with greased waxed paper. Let
rise in pan until double in size, about 45 to 60 minutes. Bake in 350 degree
oven for 30-40 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately invert onto serving
try. Makes 18 large cinnamon buns.

NOTE: These cinnamon buns are very popular at the UBC (University of British
Columbia) cafeteria. They were first made in 1954 by a Hungarian baker named
Grace Hasz. The bake shop produces 120 dozen buns every day!

*******************************

SharonCb

All I remember from the dining hall on campus was they had ice cream available with lunch and dinner. Instead of the "freshman fifteen", I gained 30 pounds my first year.

With my 6th grade education this topic is way over my head.

Before the hogs ate my brother I remember the shaving cream pies at the Clown College he attended. Tasted awful.

Duane

Oh my!! Deacon Porter's hat!! Another "uncommon woman!"
I think you are younger than I...that hamburger mystery meat...I think was called "French Hamburger" on the menu...and then there was Train Wreck...called on the menu I think cheese souffle. I loved it...it was cheese strata with a layer of tomato...
And lettuce at every meal. The word was that someone had deplored the lack of fresh greens and left an endowment with the proceeds to be used for fresh greens!
Linda C

Pastafazool - cheap and fed a huge crowd. Elbow macaroni, canned chili with beans, cheddar cheese sauce. Baked untl bubbling and browned on top.

Am not particularly nostalgic for it, however. Too much salt, fat, and I later found I'm allergic to wheat and rice products - gives me mild asthma.

Where I went to university (Rice, in Houston), we had residential colleges, like Harvard and Yale, and the freshmen were require to sign up to serve tables for dinner, generally on alternating weeks, depending on how many freshmen there were to go around. We had seated dinners with white tablecloths, and the waiter-freshmen would go to the food service kitchen with a huge tray to pick up the plates of food for the tables they were serving. Everyone was required to wear a tie for dinner, and on Sundays a coat and tie. If people at the table wanted seconds, the freshman server would go back to the kitchen to get them. At the end of the meal, we would clear the table, take orders for coffee or tea and come back with dessert and the coffees and teas required. I hated the food service food, and the meat they served helped me to decide to remain vegetarian at that time. The tea was terrible too, and so I would bring my own tea bags to dinner, which a few people thought was a tiny bit strange, but most thought it was a good idea, and it caught on. At dessert, I would have to ask for "hot water" instead of "tea" to make sure that my cup did not come back with a tea bag already in it.

I used to have tea parties in my college room, and I would serve cake from one of the local delicatessens - usually Alfred's in The Village, which is no longer there. I had an electric kettle and a Bavarian porcelain tea pot and cups. I also had sterling silver sugar tongs, to use with sugar cubes. If any guest picked up sugar cubes with his fingers instead of with the tongs, he didn't get invited back.

Fortunately Houston had good restaurants, and Alfred's was a good alternative to university food - plus it was walking distance.

Also as a freshman during the first month, we were supposed to wear stupid beanies and vests (only Hanszen College required this, and I happened to be in Hanszen), and we also had to learn each upperclassman in our section (Hanszen had five sections) by name and greet him by name if we passed each in the quadrangle. If we failed to do this and were caught, we were then forced to do "shack runs", which meant that we had to go to all the rooms in our section and take orders (and money) for take out food from the local "Chicken Shack" restaurant on the other side of Main Street from the university. This part of freshman orientation had become voluntary by the time I was a freshman, and so I volunteered not to participate. Later in the year, I was elected to the freshman council and got some of the more (to me) humiliating traditions abolished, in order to bring Hanszen up to date with the other colleges - all of which had already abolished those traditions. I didn't oppose freshman orientation, but I did oppose the "Shack Runs". I also did not oppose having freshman wait tables, which of course lasting beyond freshman week.

The worst tradition at Rice was the water balloon fights. I was lucky enough never to get hit, but I had some close calls. Also at Rice, despite a male/female ratio of about 3/2, there were no panty raids on the female colleges (housing was segregated back then, although visitor of both sexes were allowed in rooms). Instead, the female residents had jock raids on the male colleges, in an effort to get attention. All they got instead was a bombardment of water balloons.

Lars