The Bowdoin Gourmet

Bowdoin’s Dining Services is featured in the May issue of Restaurants and Institutions as a winner of the magazine’s 2007 “Ivy Awards” for excellence in foodservice. The award is widely considered to be one of the most prestigious in the industry. According to R&I Editor-in-Chief Patricia Dailey,

“It is truly a privilege to spotlight [the Ivy Award winners]. These operations set standards of excellence the entire restaurant and foodservice community recognize and respect.”

I’m thrilled for Bowdoin’s Dining Services and I believe that the recognition is very well-deserved. R&I’s profile of Bowdoin also perfectly captures why the college’s foodservice is so great; its managed and staffed by excellent people.

The profile highlights how conscious Dining Services is of students’ input, which I agree is one of the great qualities of the program. Consider, for example, the ubiquitous comment cards that are posted outside of every dining operation on campus. The staff reads, responds to, and publicly display every single comment that students write; the staff’s openness and responsiveness dramatically improves the dining experience for students and invests us in the success of the operation.

The profile also discusses how involved the Dining Services staff is with the greater foodservice community. Dining Services invites local chefs to offer lessons at the college and to prepare guest meals, hosts other college foodservice managers so that they can learn more about Bowdoin’s operation, and encourages the staff to pursue external professional training and certification. As students we don’t directly experience these activities, but the well-trained staff that they help develop are the ultimate reason that the food here is so good.

I think that we will really see the capabilities of the Bowdoin Dining Services staff highlighted in the next few weeks, as we approach the end of the spring semester. The staff will be preparing and serving food for a lot of special end-of-year events; hopefully I’ll be able to share some of those events on this blog.

Congratulations again to Bowdoin, to Dining Services, and to all of the full-time and student employees on the 2007 Ivy Award.

A New England Cable News crew recently visited Bowdoin to report on the college’s nationally renowned dining services. You can see the full video on their website under the “Features” section.
The piece was both flattering of the college and well put together. I particularly appreciate that Elissa Burnell, the reporter on the feature, took the time to speak with some of the managers of the college’s dinning services. They deserve the recognition and credit, because it is ultimately their leadership that is responsible for the great food we enjoy here at Bowdoin.

The Portland Press Herald recently featured The Bowdoin Gourmet in an article about the rising quality of college food, exemplified in part by the food here at Bowdoin. I’m glad to see that more people are recognizing the importance of having quality food at college and the great job that Bowdoin’s dining serves does in meeting that need.

I said when I first started this blog that one of my goals was to encourage discussion about food on college campuses. To that end, I’d love to hear from any readers about their thoughts on college food. Do you consider it important? Why or why not? What defines good food on campus? Is good taste more or less important that healthy choices? How does your college’s food affect (or not affect) your day-to-day wellbeing? If you have graduated from college, how did your experience compare to the one I discuss on the blog? Is the change for better or for worse? What would you like to see different in college foodservice?

Feel free to post a comment or send me email: I look forward to hearing from you.

The Princeton Review has ranked Bowdoin as having the best campus food in the country for the second year in a row!

I hope to show through the Bowdoin Gourmet blog what makes Bowdoin’s food so special that it earns accolades like this one. Look for the first food post later today!