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Pomona College Magazine is published three times a year by Pomona College
550 N. College Ave, Claremont, CA 91711
Online Editor: Mark Kendall
For editorial matters:
Editor: Mark Wood
Phone: (909) 621-8158
Fax: (909) 621-8203
PCM Editorial Guidelines
Contact Alumni Records for changes of address, class notes, or notice
of births or deaths.
Phone: (909) 621-8635
Fax: (909) 621-8535
Email: alumni@pomona.edu
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Eating Memory
Betty Fussell ’48, author of Masters of American Cookery, I
Hear America Cooking and Home Bistro, came home to Pomona
recently to spend a week exploring the modern world of campus food.
By Betty Fussell '48
It’s Sunday brunch, around noon, in 2006. I’m watching a Mudder in
pajamas and robe carry his custom-made omelette from the Main Event
counter to the Douwe Egberts Espresso machine to get a decaf cappuccino
before sitting at a table under the skylight of the Hoch-Shanahan Dining
Commons of Harvey Mudd College. I’m trying not to stare. I’m trying
not to feel like an alien, not just from outer space but from recently
demoted Pluto. In fact, though, I am an alien, having graduated from
Pomona College in 1948, long before Mudd existed, not to mention all the
other colleges except for Scripps, Claremont College (as the graduate
school was then called) and newly born CMC. And nothing could make me
feel
more alien in this phenomenal accretion of colleges than my present
assigned mission, to eat my way through the lot of them.
 Originally I thought, what a lark. I’ll cruise the eateries as a
restaurant “reviewer,” doling out opinions and stars as if I were
on-staff for the Los Angeles Times or The New York Times. I had, after
all, done time in the late ’70s as a restaurant reviewer for The New
York Times. My beat was New Jersey when Mimi Sheraton ruled the food
critic roost in Manhattan. She demanded that stars be awarded solely for
food and that Manhattan’s food set the standard. That sent New Jersey,
all of it, down the tubes. I found much to love in many of the restaurants I covered, from Greek diners to mafia-styled mansions, but
almost never the food. From this I learned an important life lesson:
eating is never just about food.
Since eating is at once our most personal and most communal experience,
whether we’re eating fresh carrots or canned Dinty Moore beef stew,
context is far more important than food
chemistry or even culinary manipulation. Such thoughts whack me in the
face as I walk across Marston Quad on a September afternoon as of old,
with the sun shaking flakes of light across the green, strips of bark
denuding the eucalyptus trunks, gnarled oak branches stretching canopies
of shade. My heart thumps as suddenly I’m a bobby-soxed frosh running
from Carnegie Libe to Harwood Court to get dressed for dinner. No matter
that Carnegie is now a classroom building nor that Harwood is now
obscured by surrounding buildings nor that scruffy lawns arenow
verdantly lush and exoticized by Crape Myrtle and Tiger Claw trees in
full red bloom. All that my gut remembers is the profound urgency of
dinner, but not for the food. Dinner was no small matter in 1944 when
its essence was spelled out by Dean Jessie Gibson’s Freshman Handbook as
gracious living and well-groomed legs. It wasn’t just that dresses and
dress-up shoes were required, but hosiery also. Stockings were hard to
come by in wartime years, so we had to allot valuable time to paint our
legs with tan makeup and draw a seam up the back of each leg. Once in
the dining room, we had to stand
behind our chairs until “Miss La,” our Dorm Mum arrived, and we could
all sit at once at our candlelit tables equipped with cloth napkins and
salad forks and dessert spoons. Nor could any of us leave until the DM
rose and signaled departure. For someone like me who’d never eaten in a
restaurant other than one of Clifton’s Cafeterias, who’d never been
served meat textured enough to need a knife, whose lips had never
touched the caffeine of coffee or even of Coke, dinner at Harwood was a
civilizing rather than a culinary experience.
 Food had little to do with it, but I do remember “mystery meat,” which
must have been some sort of pressure-cooked Swiss steak, also
ketchup-topped meat loaf, dried roast turkey, chicken pot pie, canned
string beans, iceberg lettuce wedges with a choice of orange dressing
(French) or pink dressing (Thousand-Island), canned fruit embalmed in
Jell-O, tapioca pudding at lunch and at dinner a choice between pie and
ice cream, never
both. The ice cream was heaven sent, the gift in perpetuity of some
far-seeing and benevolent family whose daughters perhaps had survived
Harwood food. It was at any rate the gift that initiated us into the
famous Freshman 15 and made us fat. Although come to think of it, we did
also consume quantities of Ritz crackers spread with Skippy peanut
butter in our dorm rooms while perusing the naughty pages of Forever
Amber. Then as now, I remember crossing from South Campus to North
Campus in search of better food. Frary was a guiding light for food—and life—because Frary was for guys only and that taught
us gals that life wasn’t fair. Yes, there was a war on and yes, we
gladly gave up butter and bacon, beef and sugar, for our boys overseas.
And yes, we knew that our football team required meat in order
to beat Oxy, but shucks, our guys were 4-F and they still got all the
gravy. They didn’t have to dress up for their roast beef dinners, served
by many of us South Campus girls who hired out as waitresses. The guys
didn’t have to wait for a Dorm Mum to enact rules of decorum. They
didn’t get reprimanded for turning their water glasses upside down so
that we waitresses would splash water all over when we poured. They
could have full-scale food fights, bouncing blobs of spinach or
spaghetti off the walls, without fear of expulsion. They could even have
second helpings— and thirds.
Frary, my current student informants agree, still has the status, no
longer from gender but from grandeur. There’s all that space, all that
wood paneling: “like a medievalgreat hall where you drink a goblet of
mead,” says one student. There’s the great god Prometheus, squeezed
forever into a space too small for his censured thighs. Now as then, I
marvel at the ambivalence of his neutering and at the anguish of his
punishment for civilizing man’s hunger by fire, making cooking the first
small step of a man and a giant leap for mankind. Frary has also got
Snack, the 10:30 p.m. convening of students hungering for a break from
late-night studies, hungering for fellow communicants as well as for a
little something tasty—like pretzels, peanut butter and crackers,
cereals, their favorite corn dogs and (the night I was
there) a mystery dish. “What is this?” one student asks another.
“Leftover shrimp salad,” he replies. None of this accounts for the line
in front of Frary’s massive doors by 10:15 nor for a hall that by 11:00
is jammed and jumping. No wonder first-year candidates for class
president ran on the platform, “Bring Snack to Frank.”
 The night I hit Frary for dinner is Tostadas Night. I can load real
homemade corn tortillas with guacamole, chicken, beef, beans, tomatoes,
onions, lettuce and anomalous Parmesan
cheese. I’m told that students are avid for Taco Days and Burrito
Nights, where they order on a slip of paper all the ingredients they
want for quesadillas, tacos, burritos, etc. This is a change from the
time we had to hit the highway to get to Lupe’s Shack for hot tripe soup
and cold Dos Equis. When I ask students why Mexican food is so popular,
they give me three reasons: 1) guacamole, 2) you compose your own, 3)
guacamole. They also suggest
that because there are so many Latino employees, Mexican food tends to
be well prepared. As a corollary, because there are so few Chinese
employees, Chinese food is less so. When I ask what major student
complaints are, I’m told the
peanut butter is processed (forever
Jiffy), instead of freshly ground.
Management, paying heed, did once
order freshly ground peanut butter,
but the kitchen staff didn’t know
how to mix the oil back in, so they
poured it off. Now it’s back to Jiffy.
Mind-blowing for an alien like
me are the ubiquitous salad and deli
bars in every dining hall, where
fresh produce spills from the bins,
along with fresh cut-up fruit, a variety
of lunch meats and of dressings—
six or seven of them, plus separate
bottles of oil and vinegar—
plus a variety of breads and bagels
and all kinds of spreads. In addition,
there seems always to be a Pizza Bar
with a couple of different toppings
and two or three salads, including
Caesar, on the side. Often there is a
Hamburger Bar, which includes the
dutiful sad soy burger, where you
assemble your own fixings, such as
bacon and guacamole, sautéed onions and mushrooms, to make
a real California burger. And there are always dishes labeled
“vegan,” ranging from an awful “Tofu Garden Scramble” to
hearty bean and vegetable dishes and sophisticated ones like
“Orange Garlic Tofu.” There is always a Fruit Smoothie Bar with
lots of fresh and frozen fruit and low-fat yogurts awaiting
blenders. There are always a couple of soups, like chicken noodle
or three-bean, but from what I sampled I’d have to agree with a
student I overheard saying, “Don’t bother, they’re never any
good.” The Dessert Bar everywhere goes in heavily for cookies
and fruit bars, but sometimes there’s a pumpkin or a sour cherry
or a strawberry mousse pie, and once I found a pyramidal chocolate ganache cake so upscale it was probably fallout from some
catered event. And of course there’s always frozen non-fat or lowfat
yogurt balanced by four kinds of ice cream to make you fat.
 Beverage counters in all the dining halls are bewildering to
an alien because there’s so much choice it’s hard to find anything
as simple as coffee or even a coffee cup. There’s regular
milk, low-fat and fat-free milk, soy milk and chocolate milk, hot
chocolate, decaf and regular coffee, fruit punches, iced tea,
frozen lemonade, processed fruit juices and the usual array of
Coke and Sprite and similar fattening sodas. There’s even hot
and cold water.
Still, for all the cornucopia of fresh produce and unbelievable
abundance, serving a total of 7,000 students three meals a day
can’t help but mean assembly-line cooking and serving. Routine
brings boredom, but dining services works hard to dispel the
inevitable by special food events such as Sushi Night, with visiting
sushi chefs. Or seasonal events like the October Fest with würsten and sauerkraut. Or special dishes like Bananas Foster at
Frary or freshly baked cookies at Scripps. Or student-inspired
special meals like one I saw advertised on a bulletin board,
“Screw Your Roommate Dinner, with Costumes” at Frank.
The most innovative way to increase variety is the college
policy of making student meal cards good for any dining room
in any of The Claremont Colleges. Suddenly the four eateries at
Pomona College are increased by at least five more on other
campuses. Students can purchase different amounts, such as
meal cards worth 16, 12 or 8 meals a week, plus Flex dollars,
which can be used to buy food anyplace on any campus. If you
pay for guests, the cost varies slightly from place to place, but
usually breakfast is around $4, lunch $5, dinner $7. Each college
has its own kitchen and makes up its own budget, with an
average cost per meal somewhere around $3.50 to $4.50.
But the most astonishing feature for a wartime deprived alum
is that whatever the method of payment, you can eat all you
want AND all you can carry. When I asked Dining Services
Manager Cory Cosio at Frank what foods students want most,
he answered, “They eat everything equally, and they eat so much
of everything that there are never any leftovers.” But what do
students ask for? I persist. “Organic, fat-free, vegan.” Cosio
assures me that all their coffee is fair trade and organic, they
always have fat-free milk and yogurts, and four years ago they
instituted vegan tastings, where students can taste different dishes
and pick the best.
An even bigger factor in variety is the use of two different
companies for the five colleges: Sodexho runs three—Pomona,
Scripps and Harvey Mudd; Bon Appétit runs Pitzer and CMC.
Sodexho Alliance is awesomely global in scale. Created in
Marseilles in 1966 to service luxury cruise lines, Sodexho today
services 26,700 sites in 76 countries, with revenues of $6.3 billion
a year. In the U.S. alone, it manages food for 1,000 universities
and colleges and feeds over 10 million people a day. The company
prides itself on good employee relations and this year won a diversity
award for Equal Employment and Affirmative Action.
This is meaningful to students of The Claremont Colleges
who in 1998 ended the 22-year reign of Marriott, a company
students felt no longer responded to their needs and suggestions,
and in droves they begged to be let off the meal plan.
Two years later, however, under the new management of Aramark, matters got worse with two salmonella outbreaks and
the accusation of unfair labor practices. In 2000, student protestors,
in sympathy with food service workers, took action by fasting,
occupying an administration building at Pitzer and chaining
themselves with bicycle U-locks to the doors of Alexander Hall.
The colleges listened and brought in new management and new
protocols. Now each college hires its own food service employees
as part of its work force, guaranteeing wages and benefits.
I found wide agreement among Pomona students that the
best food today is at CMC, serviced by Bon Appètit.
(Apparently many CMC students claim that Pomona food is
superior, which may simply prove the old adage about the
greenness of grass). Bon Appètit focuses on local foods and sustainable
agriculture, which may not translate directly into taste
but it certainly heightens the “aura.” Collins Dining Hall is a
large pleasant room in an Arts and Crafts-style building, with
picture windows framing green lawns and oaks. The kitchen
prides itself on greater variety, more Asian fusion, more sophisticated
and exciting dishes. The Exhibition counter (cooking on
the spot) may deliver a Thai stir-fry of chicken or pork pad seew,
the Grill may deliver custom-made burgers and fries and
grilled cheese sandwiches, the Farm to Fork counter may offer
hot vegetable dal, along with stuffed zucchini and cold vegan
dishes like arugula and jicama salad. The Home counter may
include fried chicken and Korean beef and kung pao chicken.
 Student interest in the organic and in the farm-to-fork connection
led me to visit Pomona’s Organic Farm. It’s down the
road behind Big Bridges, a little desert garden carved into the
Wash. Under the aegis of Pomona’s Environmental Analysis
Program, the place is run by volunteers whose hortatory signs
urge one to “Resist much, obey little” or to “Please discard your
waste mindfully.” Here in small stone-lined enclosures, a squash
vine entwines a lemon tree next to a tomato plant. In the middle
sits the Earth Dome, a whitewashed cement structure with
holes for windows and doors, chairs and bookcases tucked
inside, somewhat like a tree house that’s been grounded. An
earlier dome was confiscated by the city fathers because students
had no permit to erect a “structure.” Enthusiasm for the organic
movement is also exhibited in OreoRun, a student-owned delivery
service that delivers food to your dorm door.
Since the Smith Campus Center is under renovation, I find
myself disoriented from the days I worked the fountain at the
Coop, dispensing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and malted
milk shakes. Now the Kinsmith Coop Fountain is its own eatery,
enlivened with electronic games and a billiard table. When I
arrive for breakfast, its Daily Board offers “New” Green Tea
Smoothies, also Extreme Peach or Intense Green Apple. But
today it lacks the students’ all-time favorite: “Sorry, no chicken
sticks.” I choose a Breakfast Burrito of scrambled eggs,
Monterey cheese, salsa and, for an extra buck, bacon strips. The
burrito is as big as a small purse.
For me, the best breakfast is at Frank, with quantities of fresh
fruit and an Exhibition counter of hot pancakes with maple or
boysenberry syrup, made-to-order fried and poached eggs,
scrambled eggs, French toast, hot oatmeal, a vegan “malt and
meal” cereal, sausage patties and vegan sausages. On the other
hand, at Harvey Mudd I’m tempted to make my own waffles
with chocolate syrup and squeeze my own fresh orange juice
and scoop my own hot fudge ice cream sundae with nut topping.
At Mudd, however, the espresso machine is out of order,
so I’m limited to a machine that offers coffee and strong coffee,
which may explain why the espresso machine is worn out.
I find excellent coffee, however, at the Motley Coffee House
on Scripps’ campus, nicely crowded from 8 p.m. to midnight,
when live music accompanies the espresso offerings and special
drinks like Italian cream soda with almond/lavender flavoring.
Sitting on a sofa beneath industrial warehouse beams and pipes,
I might be sitting in a Greenwich Village joint, especially since
the music is a Kletzmer four-piece band from Argentina, playing
beneath a banner that reads, “If you like equality, you’ll
love feminism.”
I can’t pretend I got to sample every dining opportunity.
There are too many of them. I did manage to squeeze in a
lunch at Oldenborg, which serves the usual comestibles but in a
diverse linguistic setting. Every table bears a different national
flag and eaters are required to speak the appropriate language. If
you’re feeling smug about your French or German, polish up on
your Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Bengali,
Slovak, Nepali or Urdu, for instance. I even manage a dinner at
the Sagehen Café, which is leased and managed by a private firm
as a business. Run for several years or so by the Harvard Square
Café, the Sagehen is now under new management in a refurbished
high-ceilinged room with a curved bar licensed for beer
and wine (I remember when the entire town of Claremont was
legally dry and drinking on campus got you expelled). The
Sagehen provides served meals by waiters who knock themselves
out, and while prices are close to off-campus restaurants, the
value is good. After an appetizer of Mediterranean mezes, I dig
into a roasted beef tri-tip and a mountain of mashed potatoes
with truffled gravy. At least it smells of truffles, and the total is a
moderate $47 for three people.
My most unusual meal is at Pitzer, where I stumble onto the
Grove House, formerly the Zetterburg House, an Arts and
Crafts gem built in 1902 and moved from Harrison Avenue to
Pitzer in 1977 by cutting the house in half. I order my lunch at
one kitchen window and pick it up at another. With my chicken
salad sandwich on toasted Indian bread, plus fresh limeade, I get
a free homemade oatmeal cookie. Everything about the place—
dark wooden beams and dados, stone fireplace, Mission furniture,
leather and oak armchairs, authentic ceiling lights—makes
this alien feel right at home. And never more so than on the terrace
outside, where I eat my sandwich under a leafy arcade on
an old-fashioned porch swing, looking out on a desert garden of
yucca and agave, cacti and mesquite. I welcome reminders that
today’s green and leafy Claremont was once a desert.
There are other reminders that, despite radical surface
change, some elements are constant and native to our species.
The CMC Athenaeum dinners, for example, where students
lucky enough to get a ticket for the evening’s speaker, and the
special served dinner cooked by its own staff chef, dress up for
the occasion. One reminder floors me. Even though a student
confides that she believes campus meals in general are less about
food than about socializing, still, I’m startled to see on a bulletin
board a notice for an “Etiquette Dinner” in the Frank Blue
Room, advertising a fully served and catered meal for the cost of
one meal card plus five Flex dollars. In its civilizing mission, I
hear the ghost of Gibson Dining Hall Past: “Gain social graces
and protocol to successfully make it through any dining situation.”
The only thing missing is well-groomed legs.
Acknowledgements: Many thanks for the opinions and memories of fellow
’48ers Saralei Morgan Farner, Margaret Siler Faust, Nancy Moon
Weingartner, Enid Hart Douglass and thanks also to recent and current
Sagehens Allison Fussell-Louie ’04, David Fussell-Louie ’07, Allison
Bailey
’07, Lea Hartog ’07 and Anne Shulock ’08. |
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