Photo by Carmen Mickelson '24. The annual Gracious Dinner tradition celebrated at Mount Holyoke College every semester has, according to Nemirovsky, become a reflection of student insensitivity towards dining staff and food waste.
By Lily Nemirovsky ’24
Contributing Writer
On Thursday, Nov. 10, 2022, a small sign was put up in front of the swipe-in counter in the Dining Commons announcing that Gracious Dinner would start that night at 5 p.m. It was almost inconspicuous, and perhaps first-years and new transfer students paid it little attention. But word spread quickly among those who had experienced it before, and group chats flooded with plans to meet up for Mount Holyoke’s annual Friendsgiving-type celebration, complete with fall-themed decorations, special menu items like gyros, a berry bar, pumpkin pie and even a turkey-shaped bread display.
Gracious Dinner should be a heartwarming tradition during which students cherish their friends, their access to quality food and the dedication and thoughtfulness of dining hall staff. Instead, as seen on Thursday’s celebration, it has become one of the most divisive and undervalued events at Mount Holyoke.
The chaos began before the Dining Commons opened for dinner. Around 4:30 p.m., students started to line up outside the entrance, the line growing and weaving through the first floor of Blanchard Hall by 4:45 p.m. The excitement and restlessness of people in line was palpable, and the process of waiting itself was a valuable time to spend with friends. However, the pleasant ambience seemed to vanish as soon as people were let into the Dining Commons. Suddenly, everyone began to rush to food stations, and, within minutes, lines of 20 people or more had formed. Soon, almost all of the tables were claimed by seven or eight plates full of food, marking the territory of people who had already gotten back in line at a different station. Students were acting as if this was to be the last meal of the year, and that all of the food would run out within 10 minutes. Most people were grabbing way more food than they would normally, and I wondered how much of it was really being eaten. A survey I took of 46 students’ experiences from Thursday’s Gracious Dinner showed that 78 percent of respondents used three or more plates, and 46 percent used four or more. 67 percent of students reported throwing away at least one full Blanch soup bowl’s worth of food.
Shawn Kelsey, the assistant director of culinary operations at Dining Services, discussed food waste at Blanch with Mount Holyoke News. I was impressed by the front-end effort that the staff make to reduce food waste on a regular basis. The school partners with a company called Leanpath to measure and categorize the waste produced during food preparation, according to Kelsey. All of the kitchen scraps are composted, and by-products of one recipe are redirected for use in another way as much as possible.
It was clear that pre-consumer waste is certainly being thought about and acted upon; it is post-consumer waste — food that people take but do not eat — that goes unaddressed. However, it is not the dining hall staff’s responsibility — or even right — to police what students put on their plates. “We have to treat the student body like adults, and … we don’t want to get involved in policing the students. … There [are] all sorts of personal things that equate to what somebody needs in their diet, and we’re in no place to start trying to [police] that,” Kelsey stated. The responsibility, therefore, lies with the student body itself. We must undertake this task, not of policing other students’ consumption, but rather of raising awareness for the amount of time, energy and resources devoted to each dish, so that students can serve themselves consciously. This starts with a recognition of the long journey food takes before it reaches our plates. Kelsey traced the process starting with, “The resources it took for the farmer [to grow it], and the time, energy and water. … Then it was put on a truck and delivered to a facility, and then it was taken from that facility [and] delivered to us. There’s all the gasoline and time and energy that went into that.” But it does not end there. “Then, we have to store it. Then, we have to prepare it — and that’s everybody here’s time and energy and resources. And then maybe we’re adding more to it, and then we have to cook it and put it out on the line. … So you’re not just throwing some cauliflower away; you’re throwing away all of the resources it took to get that cauliflower into that line,” Kelsey continued. It is easy to forget these layers of time, energy and material when the end product is sitting there nicely, waiting for us each day — never mind when a special tradition distracts and excites our attention.
“The responsibility, therefore, lies with the student body itself. We must undertake this task, not of policing other students’ consumption, but rather of raising awareness for the amount of time, energy and resources devoted to each dish, so that students can serve themselves consciously. This starts with a recognition of the long journey food takes before it reaches our plates.”
As I wandered around the dining hall the night of Gracious Dinner this year, I got swept away, letting myself feel exasperated and impatient with the lines without connecting them to the quality of food on the other end. But when I sat down with my friends and had to stack half-full yet already finished plates to make room for the dishes I myself had collected, I felt a sense of shame and guilt at the thoughtless grabbing that I was witnessing and had just participated in. Only the week before, food insecurity had been brought up in two of my classes, and during both discussions, students displayed genuine concern and frustration with it. The contrast between this sensitivity and the atmosphere I felt surrounded by at Gracious Dinner was unsettling. It is not enough to have thoughtful conversations in the classroom; even within our college campus bubble, the effects of our daily actions ripple out into the world, and our role as change-makers is realized while we are still students.
This is not to say that gratitude was completely absent from the student body. Students expressed irritation with the survival-mode atmosphere, but made sure to acknowledge and appreciate the hard work that the dining staff invests in putting together such a special meal. Caroline Odlin-Brewer ’24 said, “I think that Gracious Dinner can be a really great opportunity to come together with friends and appreciate all the work that the Blanch staff puts into our meals.” However, she wonders “whether or not one meal is worth the amount of time and energy it takes and the amount of waste that is produced.”
Like with the issue of food waste, an increase in gratitude must start from the students. For those who might have missed the opportunity at Gracious Dinner, it does not have to wait until next year. We can all pause and savor how fortunate we are to be provided with such a wide variety of high-quality food at every meal. Yes, there are justified complaints, but those should not overshadow the positive aspects of dining at Mount Holyoke. We all owe the dining hall staff a gracious thank you.