Ailee Jones

It was my first move-in day at Bowdoin. After lugging all my suitcases up to my room on Appleton fourth floor, I walked over to Farley Field House with my new roommates for the cookout. I quickly found my orientation trip (o-trip) group, lined up, set my plate down on the grass and before I took my first bite, I snapped a picture of it. That picture later became the first photo I uploaded to @mybowdoinmeals, an Instagram account I started after returning from my o-trip.

For the next three and a half years, I would take and post a picture of almost every meal I had at Bowdoin. At Moulton Union and Thorne Dining Hall, the Pub, Fast Track, Express, C-Store snacks, catered events on College Street and even the occasional food trucks brought on campus.

It started as a way to show my friends back home the meals I was having. It was a way to connect, to share and maybe even show off a little (although most of them went to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which is consistently ranked above Bowdoin in dining). But it quickly became routine. I stopped thinking about it. I would go to the dining hall, line up, get my food, sit down and immediately take a picture. Every day, for every meal.

Sometimes I would rearrange the food to make it look more aesthetically pleasing. Sometimes I would turn the plate so the vegetables were more visible, just to prove to my small audience of about 20 people that I was, in fact, eating healthy, despite whatever was hidden just out of frame. It wasn’t long before I started including everything I ate, shifting my perspective from “meals at Bowdoin” to “logging everything I ate as a Bowdoin student.” Eventually, it expanded outward to food I ate around Brunswick, outings in Portland and even what I had back home between Quincy and Boston during breaks.

Soon, the account wasn’t just mine to look at anymore. My friends at Bowdoin knew about it. Other Bowdoin students knew about it. Even if they didn’t know it was me, they knew it existed.

When I went abroad, I documented that too. I showed people in my program the account and kept posting the food I ate there. It wasn’t until a friend asked me, very genuinely, and in a way that made me ask myself the same question:

“Why are you taking a picture of your McDonald’s order?”

“It’s for my blog.… It’s to show my friends back home.… It’s for diet tracking,” I said, trying to justify the fact that I was photographing a single hash brown. At that moment, I realized I had lost sight of what I had originally set out to do. What started as a way to share my meals gradually became more like logging them, and it all became so automatic that I stopped thinking about it.

At the time, I didn’t know why I kept taking pictures and posting. I didn’t really know why I started it in my first year either. But looking back now, I think I understand it differently. It wasn’t just a food account or blog or whatever you would call it, but a kind of digital archive of my time at Bowdoin, something I didn’t fully realize I was building as I went.

With that in mind, I’m thankful I’ve been tracking all of this since day one. Because, as cliché as it sounds, food holds memories, feelings and identity—my identity. Even when people tell me a meal “isn’t worthy of a picture,” or when my posts get called disgusting on YikYak, I am able to find something worth keeping.

I always joke that I chose Bowdoin because of the food when I talk to prospective students and parents. But truly, food was part of what brought me here. Food has always meant something to me in a way that’s hard to explain.

I do this because I love food, and not in a gluttonous way (though some might argue otherwise). It’s something I’ve always loved capturing because those meals stick in ways I don’t always realize until later in my life.

When I scroll back to the beginning of my account, I don’t just see the meals of a naive first year. I see the friends I shared those meals with: those who have been with me since day one and those I no longer give a “Bowdoin hello” to alike. I see stressful days where I didn’t put much thought into what was on my plate, and late nights at Super Snacks after an a cappella mixer. I see warm afternoons on the quad that felt rare and worth remembering. I can see how my life here changed, quietly and loudly, over time.

I’ve come to realize that a meal is never just a meal.

And I think that’s why I’m glad I have this.

Because when I take a picture of my lobster bake plate at graduation, I know I won’t just be capturing the food. I’ll be capturing my four years at Bowdoin.

Kevin Chen is a member of the Class of 2026.