Berty the Hippie

Although the student center and dining services at my school are expanding and offering more than ever, I am pondering a change in eating habits for the fall semester of 2007.

For two years, the cafeteria has been my main source of food, and my greatest downfall. I over-eat, and eat the wrong things. Sure, I eat salads, and I eat grains, but salads are made of nutritious-less iceberg lettuce, there are no whole grains, and all other dishes are either fried or doused lovingly with thick sauces, cheeses, and gravies. I eat my protein too, but just the wrong kind--namely highly processed meat. I am learning how these things are brought to us rich private college students, and cooked in masses to serve hundreds of diners every day. The processing plants, the trucks, the freezers, the coolers--that's what we use for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally--we've gone through an entire crate of pre-baked buttermilk biscuits, and another of canned sausage gravy.

This summer I was offered a job on a fish processing barge in Alaska, which I refused partly because I am concerned about depleting the oceans, and depleting our bodies by feasting on fast foods. A guest at my Sturgis fast food job this week described pineapple processing in Hawaii--almost every Hawaiian teenager has a pineapple processing job at one point or another. Pineapples, salmon, carrots, pigs (Morrells), the process is too similar--assembly (or rather dis-assembly) lines, conveyor belts, cooking, packaging, and sweeping up the leftovers into some other product--the world of SPAM. The endeavor is an organizational wonder, but for every day, poisonous eating.

I want to be different this year. Henry David Thoreau gave me the idea, of course. (That guy and his book, "Walden," are full of dangerous ideas.) Thoreau suggests that we come to desire food that takes a great deal of work to acquire, which does indeed make us creatures of large appetites, since we work so hard for the food we think we need. He suggests that doing less work than we do will make us need less food, and our time will be freed up to do the things we love, in my case, reading, talking, playing, walking, sleeping. . . I think I will save a great deal of time and money if I do not purchase a meal plan this year.

What I need:

Mixing bowl
Mixing spoon
Baking sheet(s)
Two quart (minimum) pot with lid
Bowl
Spoon
Dish clothes
Paring knife
Chopping knife
Cutting board
Rice
Whole Wheat flour
Oatmeal
Rye flour
Other flours, for experimenting
Nuts of various kinds, also for experimenting
1 quart molasses (max)
1 quart honey (max)
Crisco
Weekly purchases of eggs, fresh fruit, and vegetables.

(Believe me, my list is already greater than Thoreau's--I'm not quite as minimalistic as him.)

The plan is to take several hours, one day a week, to bake a type of bread in one-meal portions, hard-boil some eggs, cook up a pan of rice, and chop vegetables into finger-food. Then, the eggs, rice, and veggies go into my fridge, the bread on the shelf. When come mealtime, I grab what I want, among this bland assortment, and graze. Only dishes once a week, except for the bowl and spoon when I get them dirty. That equals less mess and time than ramen noodles or macaroni and cheese in a hot-pot, even cleaner than peanut butter and jelly! Undoubtedly more nutritious.

If I successfully get into this routine, I know I could become the University Hippie. What can I say? My mother employed a trailer-home-living hippie midwife somewhere in the Kentucky woods, and I've always wanted a Volkswagen or motorcycle.

The company of cafeteria dining is what I will miss the most--sitting at great round tables, making jokes, procrastinating. I would probably begin to imitate my friend Dianna, who often carries her own meal into the dining room, for good company. I'll certainly eat plenty of "bad food." I imagine occasionally bumming a meal off a friend with a plan, eating pizza in the dorm, and pop-corn at the movies, and ice-cream at Cold Stone--I AM a college student, after all! When I sit down to a holiday meal, lovingly covered in sauces, cheeses, and gravies, I'm sure I'll think I've died and gone to heaven. It won't take much to make me a high happy hippie, just a little sugar.