Once a year, for an obscenely paltry amount of money, the best food that is ever present on this campus--save the occasional inauguration hors d'oeuvreDis housed under one roof, there for the gorging.
From breakfast sausage to baked salmon, from pineapples to pickle slices, from cold cuts to chocolate chip cookies, it is all at the food show.
Dining and Special Events held its third annual food show in the Blue and White Room on Friday. It is an opportunity for Dining Services' distributors' to show their wares to students and to try to capture food contracts from the University.
Circling the long hall, one could see faces of glee as students grabbed their friends' hands to lead them to the new culinary delight they'd just discovered. Students garnered all their powers of persuasion to try to swindle a six-pack of blueberry muffins from a barraged food show worker. Most notably, students genuinely bonded together, if only for a fleeting moment, for a common purpose: eat more than you can, and take home more than you should.
Strangers who would not say two words to each other on the bus between East and West Campuses conversed easily here. Students approached their peers to ask where they got their food. At other times, students offered such help unsolicited. One student took a bite of a blueberry muffin at a pastry table, then turned around and announced in an exuberant southern drawl, "Everyone come up and taste these muffins!"
Students seemed to form a consensus on their food show favorites. The raspberry lemonade from Minute Maid was mentioned repeatedly as a highlight. Trinity junior Dave Smith called it "heavenly."
Trinity junior and Duke Student Government chief justice Brett Busby and DSG representative Atiba Ellis, a Trinity sophomore, were spotted perusing the offerings. Though initially reluctant to talk, Ellis finally explained why he had a huge crate of doughnuts.
"They were given to me," Ellis said emphatically. "I`m going to bring them to the next meeting of the intellectual life task force. We'll have them with coffee and wax intellectual."
Trinity freshman Miranda Chapman sung the praises of the potato teasers, which are small fried potato patties.
"They were an original and unique blend of herbs and spices," Chapman said.
In general, pastries and sweets received high praise. Cookies and muffins made most people's Top 10, and seemingly everyone discovered a new cake that made their mouths water.
John Ibach, who manned the cake table for Cafe, Inc., a division of Sysco, rattled off a list of cakes that went likeÉ well, hotcakes.
"Lemon, banana chocolate chip, red velvet, coconut, and chocolate yellow cake. That one was the favorite," Ibach said.
He said he was thrilled to put a smile on so many students' faces.
"I ran out of food. I've never fed this many people in my life. I feel great. I'm speechless," Ibach said.
Surprisingly, the fruit table, stationed in a corner of the Pits, was one of the most popular parts of the festival. Students offered a variety of explanations for this phenomenon.
Some said they were tired of all the fried food served on campus and were craving something more healthy. Some said they were attracted to the artistic arrangement of the fruits on the banquet table. Others pointed out that many of the fruits, such as strawberries and pineapples, were out of season and thus hard to find in local supermarkets.
Don Rice, who became known as the "Fruit Guy" during the course of the afternoon as he manned the table, agreed that students are trying to eat healthier foods.
Rice said the red delicious apples from Washington were the most popular fruit though the pineapples and the strawberries, which came from Florida, were close seconds.
A group of students from Cable 13 captured the event on film. Toward the end of the afternoon, they put down their equipment and offered some wise words about working the food show.
"People will give you things when you have a camera," said Trinity senior Evan Katz. As proof, he displayed the many items he and his friends had garnered there: a mooing cow from the Healthy Choice table, a framed poster-sized advertisement for Colombo yogurt, an inflatable, life-sized Tony the Tiger, a platter of chocolate chip cookies and a sack of carrot sticks.
The men also managed to acquire a pineapple, an item that eluded most students thanks to the Fruit Guy, Don Rice. So how did they get one?
"The camera," Katz replied.
Katz's friend, Trinity senior Rob Storrs, remarked, "Next time I go to a job interview, I'm going to take a camera."
The crew from Cable 13 highlighted the special aura that makes the food show so special. It's one thing to eat to your heart's content; such indulgence is decadent and almost childlike.
But the real thrill comes from what you take out of the food show. Or, more specifically, how much you take out of the food show.
Testament to this idea is the example of a student who was seen leaving the show with a five-pound bag of frozen french fries.
Someone called out from across the hall, "What are you going to do with those?"
The student raised his potato strings in triumph and said, "Hell if I know. But I got them."
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