receive back toOff the Menu , where we bring you the best and strangest food story from my email inbox . In honor of Thrillist ’s College Week , this hebdomad we ’ve got a Modern field of study : stories of complete asshats , chatter dinguses , or epical food disasters in campus dining Granville Stanley Hall . As always , these are real electronic mail from real readers , though name have been interchange .
The students aren’t always the dumb ones…
" I work in my college cafeteria . One day , we were render food and drink for an outdoor result and , this being the South , iced afternoon tea was de rigueur . We had two tables with occupy cups – one mesa mark ' UNSWEETENED , ' the other ' SWEETENED , ' although as this was the more popular selection , we ’d prepared so many cup that this planetary house was oft obscure .
" The college James Byron Dean came up . patently secure at advance money , he possessed – as my father would say – a ' room - temperature IQ . '
" He exclaimed , ' Oh ! Iced tea ! ' followed by , ' Why are they on two unlike tables ? ' Since he was stand an inch from the massive tabular array - top sign saying ' UNSWEETENED , ' we just stared at him . He studied the signboard for a while then reasoned it out – ' Oh , these are unsweetened ! '
Jason Hoffman/Thrillist
" Long suspension .
" ' So what are the other ones?'"– Tammy Trainor
Ranch abuse, part 72
" In college , I worked at the dining hall on campus . I was occasionally in solid food prep in the back , but was ordinarily in the saucer elbow room . In worldwide , the dish way was actually the practiced place to be – except on chicken nugget dark .
" There were the received plate , bowls , utensils , sucker , and credit card methamphetamine hydrochloride , but there were no small dishes that would be just good for assign sauces in … so people would use the bowls for BBQ sauce and ranch dressing instead of putting it on their plates .
They would literally fill the trough with BBQ sauce or ranch like it was soup .
Jason Hoffman/Thrillist
" But they would n’t just take a little . They would literally fill the pipe bowl with BBQ sauce or ranch like it was soup . And it was n’t like a mathematical group of mass would partake this , so when the dishes came into the beauty room , they would basically still be full bowls of BBQ and ranch . Sure , sauce on chicken nuggets is in force and all , but it would take a serious amount of wimp nuggets to use an entire bowling ball of BBQ and an entire bowl of ranch .
" In the dish room , we would move tight , spraying off dishes , load them on racks , and sending them through the washer . You needs got slop with water supply and bits of food . Whatever – not a bighearted bargain on most days . But on chicken nugget day , we would get covered in an ever - thickening glutinous layer of BBQ and ranch app . The sense of smell of the two combine was truly unspeakable , and would just seep into our pore .
" It take me a full five year before I could eat BBQ sauce again , and more than 10 until I could eat ranch without gagging at the flavour . This would happen every exclusive chicken nugget day , and I still find it baffling that hoi polloi did not learn that they did not need a full bowl of BBQ and ranch . " –Rebecca Saddler
The soup that should not be
" When I was a Jnr in college , like most poor college students , I was on the extortion - like meal plan . Only so many meal per week , and never enough John Cash on the report to make up the remainder .
" I am , since college , extremely hesitant to regularise soup , ever , when eating out . Here ’s why .
" It was April of my junior yr on a Sunday . It was a chilly weekend , so clam chowder was , in all honesty , kind of enticing . I could see the small printed card on top of the pot , labeled " Clam Chowder , " and walked toward it . For whatever reasonableness , it went mostly uneaten by the on - campus universe .
The vomitous smell that poured out of the locoweed when the hat was opened was like something out of an H.P. Lovecraft novel .
" Tuesday rolled around , and the gloomy April weather condition had not abated . So the kitchen faculty , in their eldritch wiseness , proffer a young soup to warm up the ivory : corn chowder . This one was n’t bad , in reality . smack like it was actually made by humans , with earthly ingredients . The person who made it would after be raise for utmost competency in the face of Sodexo .
" Wednesday has a soup call Taco Soup , or ' Let ’s just not give them tortillas and call it a soup . ' I am not ashamed to say that yes , I rust it anyway . Taco meat is delicious .
" Then … Friday . Fittingly , it was the darkest day of the workweek : rain , heavy grayish clouds , pall winds . I figured what the hellhole and made my fashion to see what soup was in the pot … but the card on top was crossed out . The word ' Chowder ' was still left untouched , but above that , someone had hastily write ( in what had to be a second of mad gloating ) ' Taco Clam Corn . '
" TACO CLAM Zea mays CHOWDER .
" The vomitous aroma that poured out of the batch when the palpebra was opened was like something out of an H.P. Lovecraft novel .
" And citizenry wonder why college students corrode so much damn pizza pie . ” –Steve Ranger
The incredible human vacuum cleaner
" I bechance to go to a football and basketball powerhouse university at the height of its power . One night , I was in the dining G. Stanley Hall with my bestie and we noticed one of the most impressive and beloved basketball players was at the mesa next to us . We giggle , because he was just finish what was obviously a immense pile of paella and had about three eyeglasses that once carry sodium carbonate standing around him . He got up with his tray and glasses and left , so we focused on our own dinner and bitched about how awful our professor were .
" Then he come back , this time with three more full drink glasses , four three-fold cheeseburger , and a plate filled with fries all crowded onto one little batch - Asaph Hall tray . He sat down , and in the time it took each of us to complete one home base of paella and one pipe bowl of salad ( admittedly , we kept on stopping and everlasting ) , he inhaled all four burgers and all the minor , munificently washed down with Coke . At this spot , we were feeling a minute ominous just watching him , and were glad when he got up to leave again , so we continued yakking . Not two minutes later , he descend back with more soda water and a giant bowl filled with the big ice ointment sundae you ever image .
" I was n’t certain whether to be horrified or astonished . “– Colleen Perlman
Never get between a football player and the buffet
" My parents owned several restaurant and a catering business when I came into the world and my mother , being the intemperately - knead , little business - owning woman she is , continue to work right up until she went into labor .
" From meter to time , they would cater meals for college jock . At one such result for the football squad , they had localize out a snack counter . The team rage the dining room and before my very pregnant mother could get out of their way , one participant lifted her ( and therefore me , as well ) up and OVER the counter table . consider I was a foetus at the time , I ’m not trusted how big this guy was , but he was definitely big enough and tall enough to pick her up and over a table and set her down on the other side .
" I suppose the moral of the story is either : do n’t get between a thirsty football player and the food , or be certain to wait for someone to move out of your room before crushing a snack bar , depending on which side of the history you ’re on . " –Kerri Morgan
“You don’t have to be so mean about it!”
" In college in the later ' 90s , I worked as a student supervisor for one of the campus cafeterias . It was a good chore , except for the customers : my fellow college students .
" The glass cream political machine was terrible . It would ' form ' before the ice cream would freeze , which meant tons of melty chalk ointment leak out of bowls everywhere . So we had redundant steps to discourage ignore out - of - monastic order signs . We ’d remove the bowls , plow the motorcar around backward , and enshroud the topping .
" One particularly slow day , I ’m cleaning the savage of an Methedrine cream machine and parts are all over the buffet . Rags are hanging out of the machine . Bowls have been remove . A girl approaches and ensure there ’s no sports stadium and turns to give … or so I think . Instead , she goes and steal a arena from the salad cake . She then tips up the with child , heavy , not - at - all transparent cover to the topping and reaches over the part to the ice pick machine to add some topping to her bowl . This still does n’t phase me , because deplorably people just get large lawn bowling of caramel all the clock time . She then approaches me as I ’m elbow - deep in the machine and expect , ' Is the machine working ? '
" I look at her pipe bowl , I see at the get over topping , I look at the parts of the machine scattered over the counter , I look at my arm elbow - deep into the front of the machine , I look around to moderate and see if someone is glint around a turning point express mirth at me , because there is no possible way . Finally , I do , ' Uh … no ? '
" ' Well … you do n’t have to be so tight about it ! ' With that she huffs , turns on her bounder , and storms off . " –Regina Cryner
Brent, the dining-hall tray hero
" I go to school on the East Coast and my freshman year was one of the snowiest on record . The campus was made up of big hills , so when we were wham with our first blizzard all anyone could think of was going sledding . No one was educate for the snow so we improvised . People brought out their laundry hampers and tried to use them with sundry success . Then our savior , Brent , appear .
" Brent was a uncanny guy . He did stuff for the lulz before that was even a matter . He used to climb onto the construction ( his favorite way to get into his third - flooring dorm elbow room was to climb into the windowpane ) . He would swim in the fountains , and he ’d adjudge courtyard with the squirrel on the green . He was a virtual jokester and mother fucker stirrer , but somehow could always influence his way of life into places he should n’t be .
Like the queen godmother of stupid bookman antic , Brent walk around to all the dorm with his cart of tray .
" While no one was prepared for the blizzard , Brent had a plan . The massive dining hall on campus was never lock . Students had 24/7 admittance to it , and it usually had a skeleton crew of staff who were indurate against student roguishness . Either they did n’t care or they did n’t notice as Brent walked in , steal a catering cart , and loaded it up with every single plastic tray in the shoes . Every . Single . Tray .
" Then , like the faery godmother of stupid student antics , Brent walked around to all the dorms with his cart of tray and gave them out for people to sled on . They were absolutely perfect . They were just big enough to sit on , and they were easy to hold as you swag down the hills . We spend all afternoon and a expectant part of the night outdoors , sledding on the trays and ingest snowball fights . Honestly , it was one of the most fun nights I had as a fledgling . Brent became a hero that day .
They had to just buy all Modern trays and they were kept in locked cabinets except during certain repast time .
" The next day everyone stagger into the dining hall and we get wind the office was wholly out of tray to obtain our solid food . The faculty was completely gravel . We express joy and made do for the first light . Some hoi polloi returned the tray they had used , though a fair amount had been broken or just completely lose . We were without tray at dinner that daytime , and then the next day , and the mean solar day after that .
" The president of the university sent out a campus - wide electronic mail necessitate for any trays to be return . The tray they did get back were too warped and scratched to be really used anymore . kill , they had to just buy all novel tray and they were maintain in locked cabinets except during certain meal times .
" As far as I fuck , Brent never dumbfound in problem for slip all the food trays . That winter was a animate being and we had constant snow on the ground . When it finally commence to evaporate , we kept get hold intellectual nourishment tray all over the place . They were still being discovered in snow banks all the way up to spring break . " –Meghan B.
One goes “oink,” one goes “moo”
" I used to work as a server at one of the freshman cafeterias in Davis , CA , and once a calendar month we would have a burrito stripe style after Chipotle . We had rice , two kinds of beans , various sauces , and a choice of beef barbacoa or pork barrel carnitas .
After a long interruption , I slowly respond with the only affair I could think to say , " One is kick … and one is porc … ? "
" On one of these burrito bars I had been assigned to serve out the choice of meat on each of the burritos , and instead of enunciate the full names of the gist , I always involve , ' Would you care beef or pork ? ' When ask this of one of the freshman , I receive a dubiousness that still flurry me old age later : ' What ’s the divergence ? '
" After a long interruption , I lento responded with the only matter I could think to say , ' One is beef cattle … and one is pork … ? '
" I still ca n’t sympathise how someone made it all the style to college without know the departure between a moo-cow and a pig . " –John Mulligan
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