The College Years-A New Food Experience

Going to college in the South and living in the dorms brought out a whole new arena of food to which I have to I was never really exposed. Institutional food. Agh. Kitchen Ladies cooking for thousands of students in massive quanities. It was food that met national nutritional guidelines but lacked seasoning, flavor or excitement. Even though the food met the guidelines, it was cooked in an unhealthy way, unsatisfying way.

This led to experimental “dorm cooking.” (I know, it sounds dangerous because it is.) Did you know you can make grilled cheese with an iron? Pasta in a hot pot? And of course there was always the slow cooker for warming things like store bought frozen meatballs. Oh my goodness. What were we thinking?

Then there were all the convenience meals. Fast food, frozen dinners, diet shakes. To say this was a time in my life when I didn’t cook much was an understatement. I longed to go home and cook for family and friends, but that time would come….

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In December of my Sophomore year, I had the priviledge of traveling to Peru for three weeks on a mission team. Peru is a beautiful country with beautiful people and amazing foods. It was here I had my first taste of unpasturized cheese. (It seemed so dangerous then!) I tried fruits I had only heard of but never seen (mango and plantain). Vegetables I had never even heard of (yuca and jimica), that now you can find in (sometimes, anyway) your regular market. It was an awakening. I was ready to try and taste everything. The flavors and textures were so different than what I was used to. It became a joke among our mission team to let me try things first, so they would know just what to expect. Our leaders warned us to be careful, but it didn’t phase me.

During part of our stay, we boarded with missionaries. The lady was so kind to me and allowed me to help her in the kitchen and learn about all these new foods and how she incorporated them into her family’s American diet. Her children were very young and had not been to the US, so Peruvian culture was their culture too. They also were very helpful in my persuit to learn Spanish.

One of my favorite things, and something I have tried to recreate (unsuccessfully) was our breakfast. In one hostel we stayed in, each morning we would have cafe con leche y pan. It was sweet milk with coffee and fresh bread. The coffee was strong, like espresso, and then about 4oz of warm sweet milk was added to it. Cafe con leche was then served with fresh bread and butter. Nothing has ever compared to this. Maybe it was the ambiance of our location, maybe it was the fresh milk and bread. Maybe it was the fact that I was coming down with a severe illness and wouldn’t realize it until we returned home. In any sort, it was the brightest point of my college career.

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After college, and when I say after-I don’t mean after I graduated, I decided to stay in the South. It is beautiful here, people are nice, the ecomony (even then), is much better than it is in Michigan, and I already had a job here. I worked for a real estate company as a gopher/office assistant during the day, and waited tables at night. (Glamorous, I know.) The broker for the real estate company said I could live with her until I got on my feet, as after living in the dorms for three years, I wasn’t really ready for what reality held. So she eased me into it.

She was a beautiful black Irish lady with a Polish background and the brightest blue eyes and happiest smile I have ever seen. She was from Ohio originally and had a huge family who welcomed me as if I had always been there. From her I learned practicality. How to save money, how to cook for A LOT of people. How to be happy and have fun with what you have. She also taught me a lot about preparing Polish food. Growing up in Michigan, Polish food is part of the normal diet. Perogies, kielbasa, saurcraut, and her beloved Gumpies. I had never had this before I met her. It is ground beef with peppers, onions and spices wrapped in huge cabbage leaves and then slow cooked in homemade tomato sauce. MMM MMM.