Food at Harlaxton

So we've been here for a few days and had quite a few meals in the refectory. This is a UKan word for a cafeteria, although sometimes the word canteen is used by two-year schools and technical colleges. In any case, the food served in the refectory has to be understood in the context of a cafeteria.



College cafeterias these days are nothing like cafeterias of twenty or thirty years ago. Nowadays there is an enormous selection of food. By contrast, old-style cafeterias had all the trappings of a military operation, with workers slopping food out of a metal terrines.

Harlaxton's cafeteria is similarly organized, with a line of food sitting on a steam table, plus a salad bar, a soup, and sandwich fixings. The food tends towards the kinds of things that can be easily cooked for 1000 students who will eat their food within the allotted 1.5 hours the refectory is open for a meal. The standard offering is baked meats, potatoes, and steamed vegetables. Tonight was turkey, mashed potatoes, steamed whole carrots, Brussels sprouts, and gravy. A few nights ago it was a baked beef dish, gravy, roasted sliced potatoes, and steamed carrots.

They also have eggs mayonnaise (egg salad in the US), potato salad (with the potatoes diced into pretty big chunks) and tuna salad.

I love the salad bar. It's got enough fixings to keep me happy, and along with a bit of the potato dish, I'm doing fine. No complaints. A long time ago I cooked in a college cafeteria and I understand the logistical difficulty of feeding a large number of people with any kind of efficiency. Nobody is serving up lobster thermidor aux crevettes with a Mornay sauce, served in a Provençale manner with shallots and aubergines, garnished with truffle pate, brandy and a fried egg on top. Although spam could make an appearance.

As an alternative we've stocked our kitchen with some breakfast items and a few foods that are very British in nature. I'm glad to be able to get "pot noodle" again. This is a British variant of the classic ramen noodle. It comes in a plastic "pot" (cup), with seasonings in the noodles and an additional flavor packet. Pot noodles are, apparently, mined in Wales and there are occasionally shortages of this most excellent food.

Pot noodles are a great snack. Easy to make, filling, and tasty, they come in an astounding variety of flavors. I picked up Doner Kebab, Bombay Bad Boy, Sticky Rib and Original Curry. I like the Doner Kebab and the Bombay Bad Boy, and the added spice packet makes them very hot. I've not tried the other two yet.

We've also picked up some meat pies. These are meat and potatoes backed into a pastry. A quick reheating in the oven or microwave delivers an easy snack. The kids love these, and it's a popular snack in England.

It's not all institutional food and snacks, though. I also picked up a few turnips, which came from the farmer's field on the other side of the woods behind Harlaxton Manor. It's a huge field—I'd guess 50 acres or so altogether—that seems to be rotated between turnips, potatoes, and sheep. These are huge turnips, too. I picked about 4 - 6 nice-sized turnips, and plan to roast them in the oven in the next day or so. More on root vegetables in another post. For now, I think one of the purposes of the turnip field is to feed the sheep. I noticed that the flock of about 40 or so sheep were enclosed in a moveable fence surrounding about 5 - 7 acres, and the ground was strewn with bits of turnip, and the field was dotted with the white circles—half-eaten turnips with the bottom half still in the ground. I get the sense that the farmer moves the fence around to a new area and lets the sheep graze the turnips and the greens.

Also grazing the turnips are some of the most enormous rabbits I've ever seen. Rabbits are not native to England, having been introduced at some point in the early Middle Ages. They are a nuisance pest, and Harlaxton regularly culls rabbits from the grounds using a variety of methods. I've spoken to the groundskeeper, who promises to set aside a few rabbits for me when they do the next cull. He used to raise rabbits for food, and seemed excited (well, as excited as I think he gets) when I proposed making a stew. When that happens, in a few weeks, I'll post pictures.