Amateur campus chefs get creative
By: Scott Carroll
Issue date: 2/6/10 Section: News
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"I made a pancake taco," said Chris Wagner, junior computer engineering major. "It's a pancake you fold like a taco shell. You put butter and syrup in there and eat it like a taco shell."
With toasters, George Foreman grills, frying pans and several other electrical and gas-cooking appliances banned from dorm rooms, students have had to improvise when it comes to cooking.
Chris Fowler, freshman criminal justice major living in Richardson Towers, invented the "syrup sandwich" made of two pieces of bread with nothing but syrup in the middle.
Fowler has also found ways to add flavor to one of the staples of his dorm room diet, Ramen noodles.
"You get some noodles, some cheese, ranch and ketchup," he said. "It's very good."
Brittany Adkins, junior psychology major who lives in Carpenter Complex, said she used to top off a Hershey's chocolate pie with cheese and potato chips in her dorm days.
Though he appreciates their ingenuity, Wagner said these Frankenstein-like culinary experiments can sometimes turn against their creator.
"It's only fun when it doesn't turn out bad," he said.
Freshman Chelsey Selheimer, also a Richardson Towers resident, felt the consequences of one such culinary abortion. With nothing but a box of macaroni and cheese and "really, really, really old butter," she created an original dish of her own.
"I basically threw everything in the microwave and mixed what I thought would taste good," she said. "It was macaroni and cheese soup. It was pretty much the nastiest thing I've eaten all year."
Students said they resort to these peculiar meals most often on the weekends, when the Tiger Den and the Blue Zone are the only available dining locations on campus.
"They close so early on the weekends, especially on Friday," Fowler said. "It really messes things up."
Peter Groenendyk, director of Residence Life and Dining Services, said dining options over the weekends were cut because The U of M is a commuter school.
"It has mainly to do with the number of people on campus," he said. "We can leave other locations open, but what that does is bring a lot of additional staff and there's a very small number of people that will actually eat on campus in a weekend."
Keeping more locations open on weekends would also be a problem financially, said Groenendyk.
"In the end, that would just drive up the cost for everybody," he said.
Groenendyk said it will be easier for students to get a proper meal on the weekend when the new University Center opens, though the eateries' hours of operation haven't been decided.
"Obviously, something will be open," he said. "We'll have new hours for all of our locations, but we're still finalizing those. We're going to want to utilize the new University Center as much as possible."
Even with more dining options in the near future, junior anthropology major Adrienne Hamm, who has eaten a jar of pickles as a meal, said she prefers homemade cuisine.
"I would still make the crazy food," she said.