Ratty Dinner Dining

For dinner we headed over to the Ratty where, once again, we stuck mainly to the roots n’ shoots section (in addition to it being completely vegetarian, there’s almost never a line!).  Kyle helped himself to margarita pizza and a spinach salad with cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and feta.  Again, because of the many options available to us, we both ate completely different meals (unlike when we ate and cooked locally). I had quinoa, whole-wheat pasta with garden tomato sauce, and snap peas.  The food was all perfectly fine (and filling), but again not terribly flavorful or delicious.  While the Ratty does a nice job providing a range of vegetables, they are often a bit over-cooked, meaning that much of the nutrients and flavor are missing.  This was the case with my snap peas, which were good, but pretty bland.

 As with lunch, neither of us cleared our plates completely.  As Kyle stated, when there is a seemingly endless quantity of food available, I think the tendency is to take without seriously considering how much you will actually eat (not to mention the added incentive of getting your money’s worth).  On the other hand, when eating locally (which can be a bit more labor intensive) I was more aware of eating all that I had made and making the right amount, because of the work I put into the meal and the personal attachment I felt.  It is certainly possible to cultivate such attachment and awareness with dining hall food; it just takes a little more effort.

Here I also need to mention that we did indulge in ratty desert: the infamous “magic bars”.  Made up of a combination of coconut, graham cracker, chocolate and many other mystery ingredients, we decided that for the purposes of this blog, the magic bar was best left a magical mystery.  We will not be tracking the ingredients of this desert, partly because we did not track a desert for the local food day, but also because its unknowable and mystical contents would be incredibly difficult to track.  One thing that differentiates local dining and cafeteria dining is that dining halls contain mystery foods like the “magic bar”; they’re delicious (believe us, we know), but it is good to be conscience of the fact that you don’t quite know what you’re putting into you’re body when you take a bite…