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The Nation Restaurant News
On-Site Insights
Paul King
6/30/03
Onsite -- Harvard aims to give students a better read on food
(June 30) - One of the goals of such educational institutions as Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., is to change or enhance the way students look at the world.
This fall Harvard University Dining Services hopes to aid that process from a culinary perspective with a program HUDS is calling its Food Literacy Initiative. The program's goal, according to HUDS executive director, Ted Mayer, will be to "heighten student understanding and awareness about food, from its source to how it is prepared to how it fuels one's body to the psychological impact of our dining experience."
The teacher will be a "foodie" well known to the Harvard community. Mollie Katzen, chef, author and artist, is a charter member of the Harvard School of Public Health Nutrition Roundtable.
According to Mayer, Katzen, author of the "Moosewood Cookbook" and "The Enchanted Broccoli Forest," is credited with helping to move healthful cooking from the fringe to the mainstream of American society. She was named by Health magazine as one of "Five Women Who Changed The Way We Eat," and is a member of the Natural Health Hall of Fame.
Referring to her approach to dining as "a garden-and-orchard-based way of eating," Mayer said Katzen's recent efforts have been aimed at how to make healthful dining more enjoyable for both vegetarians and meat-eaters.
"Mollie is an energetic, enthusiastic cooking maven who recognizes what we who work so closely with students have known for a long time: that dining has to be fun," he said. "But at the same time, we have to make educated decisions about what we eat. So we need to bring that information literally to the table for our students. The habits they learn now will shape the rest of their lives."
Katzen's job will be twofold. She will work with students to teach them how, as she puts it, to "dine with pleasure." In the back-of-the-house, she will work with chefs on recipe development as well as train all staff in the art of healthful cooking.
"My food philosophy encourages people to find a balance around food, including the aesthetic and psychological factors," Katzen said. "Food is full of contradictions for many people. Most people associate a healthy diet with restrictions. I want to help people rediscover our great capacity for loving genuine, good food that not only tastes great but also increases our well-being and vitality."
Katzen added that one of her goals would be to teach students "to cut themselves some slack, to allow themselves some generosity while still eating well."
Katzen will have her work cut out for her. HUDS is the third-largest self-operated college foodservice in the country, serving 5 million meals a year in 13 residential dining halls, 10 campus restaurants and a kosher kitchen. The process will be complicated further by the fact that students today consider themselves to be more sophisticated and worldly than earlier generations and likely will have preset notions of what is healthful. But Mayer doesn't think that will be a problem.
"We've long considered ourselves to be an important part of the educational experience, and we play an integral role in drawing communities together," he said. "With this new program, HUDS will venture further into a more holistic approach to one's dining choices. Our work with Mollie should help us advance to the next level of excellence, in both taste and service."The Nstion
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