February 18, 2016
Whenever I talk with other people here at DIS about what’s different between being here and being at school, I always mention that cooking for myself feels weird. At school, I always explain, there’s a universal meal plan that everyone has (i.e. no one can opt out), meaning that we have a big culture of grabbing a meal. At first, I talked about it nostalgically, saying that I missed seeing everyone in the dining hall and being able to grab meals with just about anyone.
Lately, I’ve thought a lot more about it and realized that “grabbing a meal” is a huge part of the Harvard culture. It can certainly be said that it is rooted in trying to create a level environment in which everyone can make new friends and meet new people. I remember when I was a freshman, I felt incredibly flattered and even grown up when certain upperclassmen I’d met invited me to “grab a meal” with them in their house dining hall. It was such a big deal because it felt like being invited into some sort of social space that I didn’t yet grasp.
Soon enough, I was asking people for meals too. I think at first, getting a meal together with someone was just a chance to get to know them better. But soon, it turned into a ritual. If I met someone and asked them about their experience with ABC at Harvard, they’d tell me some story and then recommend I grab a meal with someone else to discuss ABC. Then the process would continue.
Towards the end of sophomore year and beginning of junior year, I began to get a lot of these referrals. “Hey, can you grab a meal with so-and-so? They want to learn more about XYZ.” I realized that each meal was just another Q&A session, another chance for someone to say they knew someone else, another opportunity to try and branch out one’s network.
It was the juxtaposition of this kind of experience with how I eat here that led me to the realization that “grabbing a meal” is not just a core part of the Harvard culture. It’s representative of the culture and the way in which transactional activities often define our every days on campus.
Here, at DIS, I have a lot of transcendent relationships with people. Everyone knows that we’re only here for four months and that often dictates how we behave towards one another. Maybe in some ways we’re more accepting of people and their differences or maybe in another way, that makes us even less tolerant as we just skip over the ones we’re different from. We just stick to what we know. That’s besides the point, though – what I’m getting at is that here, every time I’ve eaten with someone, it’s been a genuine effort to get to know them. I want to hear their story and their background. I don’t want anything from them. I’m not there for the small talk so I can ask, “How did you get XYZ job? How did you land ABC fellowship? What would you recommend I do?” I’m actually just there for their company. And it’s incredibly liberating.
Perhaps, another part of it is the deliberateness of it all. Here, if I ask someone to eat with me, I have to plan on a place to go or a meal I can prepare in order to host that person. I can’t just ask them to show up at a given place at a given time and then just eat whatever has been prepared for us. There’s something about how low of a barrier to entry “grabbing a meal” has that makes me almost take it for granted and not think clearly about why I want to eat a meal with a certain person.
It feels like at the core of the school’s culture, we’re taught to meet someone, decide whether to get to know them better because there’s something to be gained from that relationship, and figure out what they’re useful for. The more I think about it, the more I realize that “grabbing a meal” with someone is so much more than just sharing good company over food – it’s a self-perpetuating tradition of networking that has crept into even the most fundamental parts of our lives, including nourishing ourselves.