Thanksgiving is not a holiday for self-restraint. At this year’s Thanksgiving dinner, the abundant spread prepared by the Bowdoin Dining Service pleased even the most gluttonous gorgers.
Last night, students, faculty, and staff lined up at Moulton and Thorne Dining Halls to enjoy a traditional meal in advance of the actual holiday.
The Thanksgiving dinner always draws a crowd, and an impressive amount of food and preparation go into the meal, widely considered a highlight of the year.
Michele Gaillard, associate director of dining service operations, reported that, though the quantity of food required for the meal is high, the staff always looks forward to the atmosphere and energy of Thanksgiving.
“The Thanksgiving meal is many students’ favorite meal at Bowdoin and our staff truly enjoy preparing and serving it,” said Gaillard. “It’s just really good food and a lot of it.”
Gaillard offered a glimpse into just how much food and preparation are behind Thanksgiving at Bowdoin.
Dining staff began roasting turkeys—1,400 pounds worth—on Monday and spent the rest of week cooking and carving the meat. Dark meat from the birds went into the making of 38 gallons of gravy.
While turkey is the star of the Thanksgiving spread, the side dishes are equally delicious, eagerly anticipated and produced on a similarly huge scale. Employees mashed 560 pounds of butternut squash and prepped 320 pounds of sweet potatoes.
The Dining Service made sure all students could partake in the holiday smorgasbord by preparing several options for those with dietary restrictions. Vegetable potpies, vegan biscuits, and egg and wheat-free apple crisp were some notable additions.
Some students, however, were still dissapointed with the vegetarian options. “We wish there was tofurkey,” said Violet Ranson ’16.
The bakery made 190 pumpkin, apple and pecan pies for the dinner. Pumpkin from Bowdoin’s organic garden also went into baking 90 loaves of pumpkin bread. 800 oatmeal molasses rolls and eight sheet pans of cornbread rounded out the meal.
With such large quantities of food, preparation and well-timed serving were key to ensuring the dinner ran smoothly. At Moulton, head chef David Crooker prepared his 11th Bowdoin Thanksgiving dinner.
Roughly 600 people were expected to attend the meal at Moulton, and Crooker is familiar with handling the amount of food and lines of hungry guests.
“It’s not too stressful of an event,” said Crooker. “We prepare and prep early, and the Thanksgiving dinner is a meal we all look forward to. The cooking is straightforward, there’s just a lot of food to cook.”
Crooker said that he hoped students who were unable to make the meal would get the special express dinner at Moulton, cider-glazed ham and sweet potatoes.
Thorne’s larger facility and longer dinner hours were projected to draw close to 1,200 students. Head chef Daran Poulin, who has worked the Thanksgiving dinner since 2005, said he always tries to keep the lines moving and the food flowing.
“At times the lines get very long” Poulin said. “We have to open up the deli as a third serving station since we don’t want people to have to wait too long.”
Staff at Thorne and Moulton divide up the workload for the dinner throughout the week leading up to the event, and the early prep work helps make the event run efficiently.
“I didn’t eat all day in preparation for this,” said Kyra Babakian ’14.
If students and guests didn’t manage to eat all of the food, leftovers are resourcefully used. Extra turkey might go into making turkey potpies or soup, and leftover side dishes are sometimes put out at the deli stations in both dining halls.