Harvest Meal Aims To Raise Sustainability Awareness

Harvard University Dining Services served a range of special dishes drawn form Harvard's backyard on Thursday evening during a special New England Harvest Festive Meal meant to raise awareness and appreciation for food and how it gets to dining hall plates.

“A lot of people see food today as a disconnected thing, just arriving on our plate,” said Margiana R. Petersen-Rockney, a Food Literacy Project coordinator. “But there’s the opportunity through efforts [such as the Harvest Meal] to have a deeper understanding of what it takes to distribute and process food.”

Thursday evening's meal brought together locally-grown foods in an effort to celebrate Harvard’s efforts at sustainability. Some of the menu items included Maine lobster bisque, tortellini with Massachusetts gleaned tomato marinara, and Massachusetts apples and apple cider.

By Sarah Reid

“[The meal] brings together lots of the local foods that you’re used to seeing on a daily basis,” said Crista Martin, the director of strategic initiatives and communication for HUDS.

While the meal was prepared primarily with local foods in advanced celebration of National Food Day on Oct. 24, the hope is that the focus on sustainability will continue beyond Thursday’s meal.

Jasmine P. Opie ’16, co-chair of the Environmental Action Committee, said that she thinks the food served on a daily basis in dining halls could be improved with regard to locality and sustainability.

“That being said, I think the awareness [meals like this bring] is hugely valuable,” Opie said. “[Because] we’re at Harvard, our dining services get a lot of national attention, [so] the fact that our dining hall is putting an emphasis on sustainability has a lot of value.”

Despite visible signage promoting the meal, others worried that the values the meal was celebrating may have been lost to busy diners at first.

“A lot of people saw [the meal] was different, but they didn’t realize [what it was really about],” said Connor A. Horton ’18, a representative on the HUDS Student Advisory Committee. “I found myself explaining it to people.”

Horton noted that many people ultimately commented on the effort.

Though Opie said there is much to commend in HUDS' efforts, she added that there is also much to work toward and look forward to. She said implementing sustainable dining is more difficult at Harvard than many comparable institutions because each individual dining hall presents slightly different circumstances, thus fragmenting the push.

“This is where student groups like EAC come in,” she said. “We’re here to say great job, keep going, and actually change the way food is being produced.”

—Kamara A. Swaby contributed to the reporting of this story.