You Are What You Eat

Whether they hail from the land of beets and borscht, knockwurst and Heineken, bark and betel nuts, or milk and honey, there is one issue on which foreign students at Harvard unanimously and vociferously agree: American food is greasy, bland and tasteless.

"The food reflects the culture," says Susana Desola, an anthropology major from El Salvador. "Like the American people," she says, "everything is very fast-moving, mobile' and carelessly thrown together."

Asked about her response to American food, Italian Giovanna Vitelli doesn't pause even a second before blurting: "I avoid it like--Wait, I take that back. Once in a while, when I walk with my friends and we pass a typical American restaurant, I turn to them and say 'Hey, let's go in and have a greasy, disgusting, slimy meal."' If Vitelli doesn't seem to mind the grease, it's only because, she says, "There's a lot to be gained from the cultural experience alone."

It's not as if foreign students' chauvinism has biased their palates. Most students, after all, have left their families and friends at home, determined to try Western ways, to adopt Western habits. But affinities for certain foods and repulsion to others are so much a part of you by the time you're in college, several students suggest, it's difficult to alter them. "I came here to meet Westerners," Indian Rekha Nimgade says, and she feels so strongly about their companionship that the presence of Westerners is about the only thing that could drive her into a pizza parlor.

The limited menu offered by Harvard food services, has understandably caused problems for foreign students who have not yet adjusted to American institutional cooking. Ngozo Okonjo, a Nigerian who lives in Dunster, complains that most of the time she "can't eat the stuff." As a result, Okonjo says, she's been to the dining hall only six times this semester--and then only because her roommates reported that the menu included hamburgers, which she'll eat seasoned with butter and pepper.

For many like Vitelli, the number of consecutive meals of yogurt and salad reached nightmarish proportions, driving them off-campus, where they now live and cook native dishes to their hearts' content. There they are able to team up with friends of the same heritage to exploit the culinary skills they sharpened in the old country. Vitelli feels she is particularly fortunate because she and her compatriots share such a predilection for edibles. "When two or more Italians--be they men, women or children--get together, just as long as they're within 50 miles of a stove, the main topic of discussion is food.

The other foreigners at Harvard have learned to make do with greasy and bland dining hall food, just because, as Korean Ok-Hoo Hanes says, "Convenience is important." They have learned exactly which ingredients to season their salads with, and in what proportions. And to spice their daily routine even further, they occasionally eat out.

Curiously, foreigners prefer restaurants that specialize in food from other than their own country. Indians are generally disappointed with Indian food, but relish Mid-Eastern cuisine. One Puerto Rican says there are no good Puerto Rican restaurants around--besides, she would rather dine on seafood, which she adores. A student from Kenya can't find restaurants that serve African food so instead he eats Indian foods that have a familiar flavor. Everyone salivates over Chinese food--except for the Chinese.

Explaining this phenomenon, one student says: "We know what the real stuff is like, and we resent what they present to us in disguise." Happily for most, three short months will find them back' in their homeland, where they will be able to have their cake and eat it too.