The Multicultural Progressive

Telling you that I love free food seems as pointless as telling you I love puppies. Of course I do! What student doesn’t? However, it takes a certain suspension of shame to take advantage of free food the way Neva and I do. The mention of a freegan opportunity wrests our eye lids wide open with the same wonder-eyed look that came across my face when I first gazed upon Splash Mountain after getting my picture taken with Goofy.

So when we heard about the Ryle Hall multicultural progressive dinner held this past Sunday, our eyeballs almost fell out of their sockets. The event, put on by Ryle’s Residence Life team, consisted of Asian, Pan-African, and Latin American cuisine, all provided (for free!) along with short cultural presentations and performances. We followed our guide to different lounges in this residence building, where we piled our plates high and suffered through the often underdeveloped presentations.

The Asian station came first. We ate beef dumplings and crab Rangoon, both catered by an American-Chinese restaurant and home-made fried rice. The portion sizes were good, given that we still had two more plates of food awaiting us. “Chinese food is actually nothing like what you have on your plates,” the presenter began. I turned to Neva and chuckled. She leaned in and whispered, “Why don’t they just serve us authentic food.” I smiled, “Because they’re lazy, Neva!” We half-listened to the short presentation on Asian (well, mostly Chinese) culture and continued on to the next station, eager for a second plate-full.

At the Pan-African stop, we experienced home-made African dishes, several of which we had seen earlier at the African Student’s Association cultural show, Sights and Sounds. I filled my plate with scrumptiously spiced grilled chicken drum sticks, tender, moist beef medallions served in a thick, stew-like sauce, and sweet fried plantains. The ASA students then put on a shortened version of a Sights and Sounds sketch as we giddily broke into our second plate of freegan fare.

In our final stop, the Latin American students disappointed us with food catered by a mediocre Tex-Mex joint in town. Not surprisingly, most of the food had been gobbled away by the earlier two groups that had passed through this station. I resorted to make-shift nachos with chips, salsa cold refried beans and guacamole composed solely of avocado, sour cream and salt.

Besides the Pan-African fare, the food in this progressive dinner left much to be desired. However, it was free! And we came out of the event uncomfortably full. In my eyes, that’s the sign of a successful free meal.