Respect Flik
By WILLA DUBOIS '20
Next school year, Milton will replace Flik with a new food service: SAGE Dining Services. The entrance of a new food provider presents the Milton community with the opportunity to reevaluate our culture surrounding cafeteria food. No matter where, when, or why, Milton students and faculty members are always quick to comment on how awful Flik is, even when it’s entirely irrelevant. Some members of the Milton community goes so far as to loudly complain about Flik food several feet away from the people who worked hard to prepare it. It’s time for the Milton community to reconsider our behavior surrounding dining hall food.
Cooking food in large quantities is incredibly hard. It takes a huge amount of time to plan, prepare, and clean up three meals for several hundred people, and legal restrictions on dining hall food intended to prevent food poisoning make cooking things like meat even more difficult. Additionally, quality control of large amounts being cooked together is challenging - that’s why most high-end restaurants cook food to order. Due to risks of food poisoning, Milton simply can’t serve undercooked meat to students, so Flik meat may end up slightly overcooked. This isn’t Flik’s fault; it’s just a reality of eating cafeteria food.
Similarly, the vegetables and rice probably won’t be as perfectly done as your mother’s, since monitoring a kitchen cooking enough food for several hundred people is a far more challenging and daunting task than cooking for only four. It simply isn’t possible to make sure that each individual piece of broccoli is perfectly done.
Even though is it nearly impossible to prepare perfectly cooked and flavored food for Milton’s large numbers, Flik does come close. Almost every day, the hot food is cooked for an appropriate amount of time and is reasonably spiced. It generally tastes pretty good. Additionally, there are always other reliable options. At breakfast, there is always hot food, as well as yogurt, oatmeal or cream of wheat, several cereal options, bagels, bread, and a waffle machine available. Even if the hot food doesn’t appeal to you, you can have another choice likely similar to something you have at home - toast and cereal are examples of fairly universal options. There are so many choices at lunch that I often wonder how day students find anything about Flik to complain about. We have a sandwich, salad, soup, rice, pasta, and noodle bar, and most of these are simple foods that one can find anywhere. Dinner might be the meal with the most limited alternate options, and yet there is still a salad bar and white rice from which it is easy to assemble a decent meal. Flik provides the best possible hot food under the conditions which they have to operate, and, even if you don’t like it, they have a plethora of other choices.
Considering the quality of food served at other schools, how hard the Flik workers try to make great meals for us, and how good a job they do, complaining about Flik is inconsiderate and rude. Compared to the food served in most schools in America, Flik is michelin-star cuisine. As there are millions of people in America and around the world who can’t afford to eat any lunch, we should recognize the huge privilege in being able to eat three meals a day from the dining hall, especially as those meals are cooked with real ingredients. Additionally, Flik workers work incredibly hard to serve us these meals. They are here several hours before we wake up preparing breakfast for us, and stay several hours after we finish dinner to clean up and prepare for the next day.
Complaining about Flik food in the face of the people who serve us represents an awful look. It’s about time that we started appreciating what we have, instead of complaining that it isn’t good enough. Flik has done a really great job serving us, and, as we welcome a new dining service, it’s time to start treating the cafeteria food and employees with more respect. Several easy fixes to welcome Sage Dining Services next year include: 1. Stop complaining about dining hall food every day. Instead, recognize that our food is far better than the options many people have, and try to cut the complaining down to once a week, or once a month, or never. 2. Stop complaining about dining hall food in front of dining hall staff. The dining hall staff work incredibly hard to prepare food for us, and they do a great job. Complaining about it right in front of them is straight-up mean. Try saying thank you instead. 3. Acknowledge that the dining hall has to serve more people than just you. It won’t always have exactly what you want, how you want it, and when you want it, and that’s okay. Next fall marks a new year, a new dining service, and, hopefully, a new attitude.