Before I started college, my cousins assured me that I would definitely get fat and gain 20 pounds my freshman year if I wasn’t careful.
“You’re going to get an unlimited supply of all the food you love,” they said, “so you better watch what you eat.”
But how naïve I was.
While yes, the dining hall always had ice cream, French fries, and pizza waiting for me, there was only so many times that I could eat it before feeling like a walking bag of lard. And besides, compared to New York, the pizza in the dining hall doesn’t even stand a chance.
So if veggie burgers, fries, or anything that wouldn’t give me high cholesterol within the next five years was not an option, I was now really left with four options after that: pasta/the vegan option, the Asian station, salad, and sandwich. In all honesty, despite having the same options in front me day after day, semester after semester, I have to admit, it’s better than what I would get at any other college, so I’m not really complaining about that. But the taste (or lack thereof) is the real killjoy.
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As someone who comes from an Indian family and one that makes it a point to shower all food with salt, pepper, and three spices at minimum, it was a real culture shock to come to BU and see that even an “adequate” amount of salt in food was too much to ask for. Plus, on top of the lack of spice, the Asian station tends to have noodles that taste rather sweet, which is 100,000 times worse than food that’s bland.
Whenever I mention this to my mom, she always says the same thing:
“Why can’t you just order Indian food from outside once in a while?!”
If only…
What my mom doesn’t understand is that Indian food in Boston isn’t nothing like Indian food in New York or Indian food at home. Punjab Palace and India Quality are mediocre at best, and while the rice and noodles in the dinning hall are bearable, bland, bland Indian food is ABSOLUTELY NOT.
So here I am, stuck with eating the same cereal for breakfast, the same salad for lunch, and the same vegan option for dinner. Every. Single. Day.
And as for all undervalued things in this world, I’ve only now come to appreciate my mom’s cooking when I don’t have it.
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