Innovative cuisine experience enriches student life

Maybe they’ve never tasted quinoa or lifted a forkful of salad nicoise with freshly grilled tuna. Maybe they prefer squirting ketchup over a burger to squeezing lemon over salmon on spring greens.

But at least Illinois State students now have a choice, one nonexistent years ago when campus dining meant steam tables and sneeze guards protecting stiff mashed potatoes scraped from metal pans.

You could only eat breakfast at breakfast. If you had a class over the lunch hour, you could pick up a sack lunch, but only if you called a day ahead and showed your class schedule. By the late 1980s and early 1990s salad bars arrived, along with taco bars, chicken nuggets, and soft serve ice cream.

But those weren’t the good ole days—these are. Days when students settle near a stone fireplace with a cup of coffee while slicing into warm Belgian waffles or waiting for their custom-made Panini chosen from a menu that rarely repeats in 28 days. There are hundreds of choices that range from wood-fired pizza to prime rib and lobster bisque. With anytime dining now the norm, students easily fit meals around their schedule and can eat those Belgian waffles for dinner if they want to.

Junior Meg Murphy lives off campus, which usually means macaroni and cheese for dinner. But at the Marketplace at Linkins Center, she recently filled her plate with rosemary roast beef, a potato medley, and fresh berries with whipped cream, describing it as “better than mom’s.”

Bringing better cooking to campus, along with restaurant-like settings that encourage students to socialize, is all part of today’s dining experience, said Arlene Hosea ’82, M.S. ’84. As assistant to the vice president for Student Affairs and director of Campus Dining Services, Hosea knows students expect a variety of cuisine at college. That’s why when choosing a school, food ranks third behind academics and location.

“They grew up eating out and ordering what they wanted,” she said. “They are savvy consumers.”

That puts the pressure on Executive Chef Tim Gump, who refers to ISU’s 7,600 meal plan holders as “guests.” He believes in scratch cooking, which means chicken nuggets are rolled in batter after they arrive.

Presentation is important to Gump. Chicken breasts and tuna steaks are grilled because he wants to see grill marks. There’s a standard for stacking deli tomato slices. Muffins must have a rolling crown, not a peak. The 7,200 pounds of bananas used monthly should be light green, with just a tinge of yellow.

“That’s how meticulous you have to be when you’re serving 14,000 meals a day,” Gump explained. “We want to achieve the finest dining service on a college campus in the industry, and we’re on our way.”

Working alongside him is Registered Dietitian Dianne Feasley, who helps create recipes, calculates nutritional information, and works with students who have special dietary needs. If a student wants a computerized diet analysis, she provides that too.

“Campus dining always has been and always will be about variety,” Feasley said. “We’ll always have cheeseburgers. We’ll always have pizza and we’ll always have fried chicken strips, but we don’t want students to feel like that’s all they have to choose from.”

Comfort foods haven’t changed much over the years. Macaroni and cheese is so popular it appears on the menu twice each month. There are 10,000 pizzas and 31,000 chocolate chip cookies devoured in a month. But staff also encourage students to sample black bean quesadillas, tortilla crusted tilapia, and Key West vegetables.

From flat screen TVs to a stone fireplace, students appreciate the ambiance created as a result of a $10 million renovation in Watterson Towers.

Teaching students how to cook sometimes becomes part of the job as well. Fire trucks have rolled more than once when a smoking Panini press triggered an alarm. One student quickly discovered you shouldn’t use the press to warm a chocolate chip cookie.

Recipes are taste-tested by students and tweaked. Once on the menu, they’re followed exactly “so we have quality and consistency throughout campus, and can assure students that the nutritional information is consistent,” Gump said. “The culinary staff really does a phenomenal job.”

The busiest dining center, Watterson Dining Commons, recently underwent a $10 million renovation. Students can click on a traffic cam to see how busy it is before they head over. A greeter directs students to 10 dining venues, from a pantry with 16 cereals to the grill; pasta bar; deli; salad station; a display cooking area; and a growing favorite, Fresh Bites, which has healthy choices.all

Students dine in several “neighborhoods,” from the quiet area by the stone fireplace to in front of plasma TVs. There is also plenty of school spirit apparent, from waffle irons with Reggie Redbird imprints to photos of the Quad foliage.

More of the cooking is being done in front of the students. “All of us take such an interest in our guests, and we’re very open to showing them exactly what they’re getting,” Gump said.

As the population of students with food allergies and dietary preferences grows, the menu adapts. There are gluten-free dishes, along with vegetarian and vegan choices. Senior Sarah Smetana was pouring soy milk over her Lucky Charms one morning.

“I’m lactose-intolerant,” she explained.

Feasley used to buy individual cartons of soy milk at a local health food store, but now has 5-gallon bags for the milk dispensers because of the demand. Dispensers also offer rice and almond milk.

Campus Dining will become even healthier when the Culinary Innovation Center in the John Green Food Service facility is complete. Planning is underway for a full-service bakery and central production facility with a cook-chill system and research and development center that will produce foods with fewer additives and fresher ingredients. Items like homemade soups and sauces will be chilled and packaged, much like in a manufacturing plant.

“We want the highest quality product. When you make it from scratch you’re able to take a look at the additives, the sodium, the fats,” Gump said.

Friends gathered for a good time over dinner at Linkins recently. Dining Services has restructured the entire residence hall meal experience to make it easier for students to eat across campus at times that fit their schedule.

Campus Dining also wants to continue to be known for being “green.” The department has won awards for sustainability efforts, including a revised meal plan that encourages dining in, reducing the use of bottled beverages and takeout containers. The centers also went to trayless dining to save water and energy. Food waste heads to the University Farm for composting.

“We are very conscientious of the role we can play in being a green campus and are committed to sustainability,” Hosea said.

Doing fewer dishes doesn’t just save the University money but is attractive to students like Tony Peronti, a junior who still eats on campus after moving into an apartment.

“I got a meal plan because I like being able to eat something right away when I’m hungry,” he said. “I save money on groceries and I don’t have to do the dishes.”

MIXING IN SOME ‘TLC’

The staff at Campus Dining have done more than focus on improving the traditional meal experience. Extra effort has been made to give students that home-away-from-home feeling by offering some special services, including the following:

Free meals for parents

Parents of meal plan holders can join their student for a free meal anytime they’re on campus by making a reservation seven days in advance through the Parents RSVP program. Go to www.Dining.ilstu.edu for more information or to make a reservation.

Recovery Meal Kits for ill students

Students who aren’t feeling well can have meals delivered to their residence hall room once a day for three days. Items available include water and juices, oatmeal, soup, crackers, pudding, fresh fruit, and sandwiches.

Sweet treats

Whether it’s for a birthday, holiday, a lift during finals week, or a special event, loved ones can send their student a surprise treat. Cakes, cookies, brownies, Rice Krispie treats, and a fruit basket can be ordered for delivery to the residence hall, or for pick-up if the recipient lives in off-campus housing. Go to Dining.IllinoisState.edu/treats for more information.

ALUMNI MEMORIES

Your alumni memories from campus dining over the years:

Ron Weingartner ’60

“My food story is getting the dining hall ready for the sophomore girls when I worked at Fell Hall. I think I got $1 and all the mashed potatoes I could eat.”

Susan Morrison ’69

“Warm glazed doughnuts is what I remember. I had early morning classes so I was up when the rest of the world was sleeping, and I was always delivering them to somebody else. You had to be dressed in dresses or skirts. The only time you could wear jeans was on Saturday and Sunday.”

Gary Tiffany ’74

“I remember the hamburgers, floaters we’d call them. We’d go down to the cafeteria in Watterson and they’d have these stainless steel pans with hamburger patties already cooked and they’d be sitting in warm water.They’d pick them out and throw them on a bun and then pour a ladle of melted cheese over them. That was your cheeseburger.”

Janessa Williams ’89

“The food was scary. We never knew what it was so we called it mystery meat. We had a salad bar and that was often the safest bet. You could only go through the line one time. Once a semester we’d have a steak and shrimp night and you’d spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to get a second helping.”

Bradley Hofferkamp ’00

“I would wake up on Saturday and Sunday mornings and go down to the cafeteria to have my waffles. I gained a lot of weight because of those waffle irons, but life was good!”