My meal at the Skidmore dining hall.
For the past few weeks I’ve been eating lunch at the Murray-Aikins Dining Hall at Skidmore College. It’s organized in the same way as the dining halls at UMass Amherst, which I loved when my son was in college, though on a more modest scale. Let’s take a look.
Dish drop-off station near the entrance.
In both cases, there’s a big dirty dish drop off area right at the entrance so you have to pass through it (almost—in both cases it’s slightly offset behind a wall) to get to the food stations. Considering that we are dealing with 18-21 year olds, like the one I still have at home, this makes sense. Make it easier to recycle than not and they just might do it.
Today’s menu.
Once inside, the dining hall is divided into stations and you can visit as many stations and eat as much as you want. For someone who’s tried to game the Las Vegas buffets at the Bellagio, this is important. How does a dining hall like this plan to defeat me? For one thing, no trays, so I’m limited to what I can carry. But I can always go back for more.
Corner Deli.
You can review a daily menu on a board as you enter and make preliminary plans. The most popular station seems to be The Corner Deli where you can get a sandwich made to order (like mom would do if you were at home?) and I discovered the pro trick of ordering your sandwich, then going to other stations like the salad bar to round out your meal while it is being prepped. I also liked the Back to Basics station, which provided me with a perfectly roasted and seasoned chicken thigh one day.
The food has won a number of awards.
So, how is this food? Pretty good but not as good as UMass, and I know why. The latter offers up a number of creative recipes which can be prepared on an institutional scale (like the Subbaswamy family squash curry I experienced in 2015, recipe unfortunately unavailable), while Skidmore is ad hoc. Students work most of the stations and their preps are formulaic, not creative.
The good news is that the ingredients are of good quality and the students like the experience. The dining hall has been packed, every time I’ve been there.
Exterior of the Skidmore dining hall.
