Bring Snack Foods Back to Snack
By Juan Matute
Web Master

So I must admit, I came to Snack this past Tuesday night fully expecting to rip it to shreds in this column. But snack threw me a curveball in the form of jalapeño cheese poppers. Jalapeño cheese poppers are God’s gift to Juan. I’ve frequently gone to Jack in the Box at three in the morning just to get my fix. They incorporate my four favorite food groups: fried, jalapeño, cheese, and cream.

However, even the jalapeño cheese poppers do not fully overshadow Snack’s dismal performance this year, which has reached a low in the past week.

It is 10:26 pm on the Tuesday of fall break. I was looking forward to snack as a nice conclusion to a nice break. Needless to say I was disappointed at 10:40 when I realized there would be no Snack that night. The lines at the front and back doors told me I was not the only one. My disappointment quickly led to back-loading (it’s the new front-loading) in a Clark I courtyard as well as a new rationale. There is always Snack at 10:30 on the eve of an academic day. Hence, if there is no Snack, there will be no classes. I found out on Wednesday that I was wrong.

Enter Monday of this week. Snack that night consisted of spaghetti. Spaghetti is an entrée, not a snack food. It requires utensils. Good snack foods do not require utensils. Nachos are a good example. I applaud the efforts of snack management to provide us with chips and “cheese” every night, but it does get a bit trite.

I do realize that Snack is not really all about the food. It’s about complaining to others that you have yet to start on your seven-pager. It’s about taking an extra peak at that love interest you saw at dinner.

It’s also about the munchies, so I guess it’s really about the food. A lot has changed since the days of yore when we were accustomed to chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, pretzels, taquitos, and other popular snack foods. Granted, we did have some amazing stuffed pretzels earlier this semester, but that was a single, isolated incident. I know I’ve thought to myself “I hope they have those pretzels,” on several occasions, only to be disappointed by soup.

After I had eaten all of the jalapeño poppers they had to offer, Snack quickly declined in quality. “When I came they were serving a big bowl of butter…admittedly there’s syrup to put on top of it, but it’s just not the same,” said Kyle Warneck ’05 who rolled up to snack at 11:00 pm. Warneck recounted the story of Slaven Svetinovic ’05, who fled a violent civil war in Bosnia when he was 14. After a horrible experience one snack, Svetinovic exclaimed that it was “‘the worst day of his life,’” according to Warneck.

It’s 11:20. Not only is the hot food gone, but the table it once sat on has also been removed. The 10 people that remain scavenge through apples and bread looking for some sort of sustenance. But it was in these people that I saw the true spirit of Snack. It remains a great place to go each evening and chill, whether or not hunger drives you there. I still want jalapeño cheese poppers more often, though.

I’d like to add that the dining hall workers are great and they’re a good reason to come to snack. None of this column is meant to attack them in any way.