Thanksgiving Meal At My College During Pandemic

Hi everyone, for this article I decided to share my pre-Thanksgiving experience at my college dining hall. If you were wondering how college students can celebrate Thanksgiving, read on. Every year they do a pre-Thanksgiving meal for students on campus. Last year, it actually was a great meal, so I was wondering how it would go during the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, far fewer students are on campus, so the food lines were much shorter. Also, this year my dad came to campus and joined me for the meal.  After getting our food, we picked a table and sat down to enjoy the meal together. But how was it? This is my review of each of the dishes. Here we go!

The Main Dish – Turkey With Stuffing

On my first plate I got turkey with gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and green beans in a cream sauce.

Turkey

I enjoyed turkey a lot. It was nicely moist, not dry as can happen with poorly prepared turkey. So you have to give them a lot of credit for that! The gravy was a bit salty but not too much. The one criticism that I have is the crust around the edge of my turkey slice was a bit dry which I was not a huge fan of. Besides that it was really very good. 

Stuffing

The stuffing was moist and had a lot of flavor complementing the turkey. However, like the gravy it was a too salty but not inedible. Lose the salt!

Cranberry Sauce

This was my favorite part of the dinner. It was the perfect combination of bitter and sweet, just as you would expect from cranberry sauce. It was so good and made a perfect side dish for all of the other food I had. I loved it so much I got seconds on my next plate. Of course, this likely was from a can, as you could not expect the dining hall to prep something like cranberry sauce on their own. But still, they made a good choice.

Green Beans in Cream Sauce

I was not a huge fan of the green bean dish. Well, actually it was just bad. The green beans were completely lost in the cream sauce, and the flavor was almost unidentifiable, maybe mushrooms. In addition, the cream sauce dominated the dish, and made something that normally is very healthy – green beans – and made them high in calories and saturated fats. That was completely unnecessary.

Plate 2 – Mac & Cheese, Mashed Potatoes, Roll, Cranberry Sauce

Since this was Thanksgiving, of course I went back for seconds! For my second plate I got the macaroni and cheese, plus, a roll, mashed potatoes, and more of my favorite – cranberry sauce.

Mac and Cheese

I am a huge mac & cheese fan but this was not my favorite. It needed more cheese, and the overall flavor was bland and had way too little cheese. Perhaps it should more properly be called a macaroni casserole. Besides adding cheese, this dish could have been improved by adding a crunchy topping, making it a baked mac & cheese casserole.

Mashed Potatoes

These mashed potatoes were great. With a creamy texture, it was as if they melted in my mouth, a fitting complement to the turkey.

Bread

The roll was soft and melted in my mouth.  

Pecan Pie Dessert

My last course was a slice of pecan pie with whipped cream for dessert. Fortunately the pie line was short for me, but as we were leaving the dining commons, the line (appropriately socially distanced) was almost half way across the room.

I love pecan pie and this was one of my favorite parts of the meal. For a pecan pie, it It had the right amount of sweetness without being overbearing.

That concludes my thanksgiving food adventures at the college dining hall. I hope everyone enjoyed this article and had a wonderful Thanksgiving. See you next time.