Fall 2001

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SNAPSHOT: Hampshire Dining Commons, June 20, 2001 Full whites and toques: whatever has happened to dorm food?

by Karen Skolfield '98G

KINDER TO BE CRUEL: Master chef David St. John-Grubb, left, helps a team "plate up." Photograph by Ben Barnhart. IT'S NOT EVERY DAY YOU see two chefs in full whites and toques, those glorious hats, cradling armfuls of fennel as they hustle across a parking lot. But this is day six of the third annual Collegiate Cuisine Conference at UMass, and over 120 chefs from 39 schools are mixing it up at the Hampshire Dining Commons. With speakers such as Mollie Katzen, author of The Moosewood Cookbook, and workshops on subjects from Pan-Asian cookery to "nutraceuticals," the chefs have had a lot on their plates. Throughout the week, however, the 16 teams in today’s "participating chef competition" been huddling over menu plans and diagrams, strategizing the harmony of taste and color, the particular arrangement of potatoes or green beans. Today the whirr of blenders and the chatter of metal spoons on metal bowls started well before dawn. Showtime for each team occurs during the 20 minutes allotted for final food prep and plate arrangement. "There’s no more slapping their food on the plate," says Kenneth Toong, director of dining at UMass and the event’s coordinator. He’s right – not only is there no slapping, Team One is carefully piping a garlic mashed-potato mixture onto its set of five plates. As each set is ready, it's whisked away by black-bow-tied wait-staff to woo the discriminating palates of five waiting judges. Each team's 20 minutes of "plating up" is overseen by David St. John-Grubb, master chef and former senior chef-instructor at the Culinary Institute of America. Though he’ll congratulate them warmly later, for now St. John-Grubb as much heckler as coach. "Cut it on a bias," he barks at a chef slicing smoked chicken-breasts. And "One minute left! C’mon, cheffie, customers are banging on the table, cheffie, where’s my food?" Turning to an onlooker he stage-whispers: "You’ve got to be cruel to be kind." TEAM ONE TAKES THE HEAT. When one of her artfully piped potato portions starts to lean, Sandra Drake, one of eight UMass chefs at the conference, deftly removes the misshapen mound and tries again. Her hands sometimes shook, Drake confides after she’s finished her mango-kiwi shortcake. "I kept thinking, I’ve got to get this mango straight!" It’s hard to imagine that the students for whom these dishes are designed will notice the angle at which the mango joins the shortcake. But times are changing, according to Toong: "Our students know quality," he says, and quality food is one more way to attract them here. All else being equal, why choose the school where the Tater Tot rules, over the one offering perfectly steamed asparagus bundled with a strand of chives? The judges definitely approve of the all-original recipes that come to them today, plate after plate, 16 full meals worth. They take only a bite or two of each dish and are silent for a few seconds after each bite: "Ooh, this one really hits you in the mouth," says one judge as he tries a shrimp-and-sausage gumbo. "You have to pace yourself," says another – our own Frank Lattuca ’64S, ’81G, head of the hotel, restaurant, and travel administration department on campus. "Some of it’s just so good." As the judging proceeds the still-full plates are taken to the trash cans and unceremoniously dumped. It’s especially hard to watch the pork tenderloin go. If last year's pattern is repeated, about a fifth of these new recipes will make it to the 10,000 UMass students on the meal plan. Toong insists that questionable food is no longer a collegiate rite of passage. There are more choices now; freshness is emphasized; "display cooking"– entrees prepared to order as students look on– is often featured. Whatever has happened to dorm food? What will they think of next? The answer should shock no one. "Next year," says Toong proudly, "the sushi bar."

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