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2004 National College Media Convention
Next Generation Radio Project
Nashville, Tennessee
November 2-6, 2004
Allison Hertz's Script
 Hear Allison's piece
A gourmet eatery opened last fall in New Haven, Connecticut. Its wholesome recipes quickly captured the attention of its patrons.
Montage: Jess: spinach, burgers, organic brownies-Albert-chicken, organic breads-Gwendolyn-Soup-"wow, is this really a college dining hall?"
Two years after its launch, the Yale Sustainable Food Project is at a pivotal moment. Next Generation Radio's Allison Hertz reports on the university's struggle to change the way institutions think about food... from the garden to the table.
(dining hall natural sound fading into garden sound, birds chirping) Intro: (Track 4: 1:15-1:34)
(Lucas: "Normally people would never come out and would never really have tomatoes this late in the season, but these ones are so good, like they lose flavor in the cold, but these ones are so good that they're still pretty tasty...")
A few years ago a group of environmentally-minded students approached the head of Yale dining services with a bold idea. They wanted to introduce organic and locally produced food into the college dining halls. At the beginning of his freshman year Lucas Dreir signed on to be a part of this food revolution.
(Track 4: "We started having meetings with dining services and they were sort of very open to it and they were sort of like well if we can make it work if we can do it financially, we're happy to try something out.")
Luckily, renowned chef, food activist, and Yale parent Alice Waters also had an ambitious agenda for the school's dining halls. At a freshman orientation party she cornered university president, Richard Levin. Waters buttered him up with talk of happy students dining on fresh eggplants and cherry tomatoes from small New England farms. Soon after, an $800,000 grant from one of Water's supporters made the dream a reality.
(Track 9: chopping parsley)
These days shelves once stocked with cans of soup are filled with crates of butternut squash from local farms. Jeffirico is a chef in the Berkeley dining hall, where the pilot project is taking place. He chops parsley for a dinner of linguini with mussels in a spicy tomato sauce.
(Track 9: "This recipe calls for a quart, but you gotta do it, you know. I enjoy this, I really do. I just hope the students enjoy the food as much as we enjoy preparing it.")
Initially, the dining hall staff was not thrilled with the idea of having to slice carrots and chop onions instead of merely opening bags of processed vegetables. When tempers rose, Waters asked former employee Catherine Jones to step in.
(Cathy Jones 1: "I came in here on my second day the three cooks closed the door and said we're going to other colleges because this is just too much work. I said can you just wait a minute because I just want to get to know you guys. It couldn't just all be done overnight they needed to have someone come in and turn the cooks around because they were miserably unhappy and overworked. They didn't understand it. They didn't get the bigger picture of why this was important instead of being overworked.")
Jones came on board with some spicy ideas for getting the chefs more invested in their work.
(Cathy Jones 2: "It was a sea change, changing a culture, getting this group of people to be proud of their profession.")
The Berkeley kitchen staff is slowly developing a closer relationship with the food they prepare. Yet, the project coordinators recognize it will take more than dedicated cooks to achieve success.
(Ernst Huff: "Even as recently as last week we're getting indications that the university wants this program to continue, but they're still struggling with how to pay for it.")
Ernest Huff is the Associate Vice President for Student Financial and Administrative services.
"I think that the challenge for us will be exactly what can we do to hold the costs down and continue to expand."
John Rogers, master of Berkeley College, says expanding the project to other Yale Dining Halls and nearby universities is not just a hope. It's fundamental to the project's long-term survival.
(Master Rogers: "Because only once when there are a lot of places like Yale in New England that are buying and creating a market for organic produce and organically and locally raised meats. Only then will the costs of all start to decrease.")
With a greater demand for local agriculture, not only could farmers sell their produce at a lower price, but Yale would also be able to split the costs of distribution with peer institutions. There are universities that have recently begun to express interest in Yale's Sustainable Food Initiative. But, at the end of the day, Master Rogers says students will determine the future of this project. When he walks into the Berkeley dining hall he sees smiling students piling bright red tomatoes and green peppers onto their trays. He says it's an encouraging sign.
(Master Rogers: "When asked if they preferred to have hamburgers and French fries available to them two meals a day 7 days a week as you remember was the case here and is still the case here 85% of the students in BK college they said that they preferred having one BK college hamburger a week rather than having the option of French fries and hamburgers seven days a week, so much better was that hamburger and it was worth it.")
(Fade into dining hall sound.) If this project is to become a revolution it won't be because of philosophical ideals -- it will simply be a matter of taste. For Next Generation Radio, I am Allison Hertz.
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