Oscar Chun

I felt that the first day wasn’t too difficult. For breakfast, I had a veggie danish at Ramekin, a cafe in Anonymous Hall, before my 9S. For lunch and dinner I ate at FoCo, mostly at Ma Thayers, the classic dining station and Herbivore, the vegetarian station. I loaded up on steamed vegetables and added some seasoning off of FoCo’s spice rack. My favorites at the moment are Momo’s Backyard Blend (a savory and tangy BBQ spice mix) and Shichimi Togarashi (a floral, nutty chili mix). 

I did notice that there was a lot of corn served today—steamed corn at Ma Thayers for both lunch and dinner, deconstructed elotes at Herbivore, and corn chowder at the soup station. Hopefully I won’t be eating corn the whole week.

On day 2 I already lost the challenge. 

I was at Ramekin, deciding what to order for breakfast and decided on a sausage egg and cheese. I even took a bite before realizing I was still being vegetarian for this week. 

Well, that’s strike one. 

There are a few vegetarian breakfast options at the different cafes on campus. Besides the veggie danish I had yesterday, Ramekin has DIY parfaits (dairy or non-dairy yogurt) and bagels. While Novack has scones and other baked goods. Though a majority of breakfast items on campus involve animal products, usually eggs, dairy, or honey, so I think it’ll be pretty difficult to find an enjoyable vegan breakfast at campus cafes. 

I also had lunch at Ramekin today. I tried a sandwich that was made with slices of sweet potato, arugula, mozzarella cheese and sundried tomato paste. It was a delicious combination of crunchy bread, creamy cheese, tangy tomato, and soft sweet potato. Ramekin always has at least one vegetarian sandwich option every day. Some other sandwiches I’ve seen are the brie and apple pita and the vegan patty melt. All of the sandwiches have a cheese component—which I’m not the biggest fan of, so I don’t tend to eat meals at the cafes. But for a quick grab-and-go lunch, the sweet potato sandwich was pretty good!

Day 3 went pretty smoothly. I had a relatively slower day, so I had more time to sit down and eat at FoCo. A new FoCo favorite I’ve discovered are the veggie fritters from Herbivore. They’re savory, fluffy pancakes with extra texture from the vegetables mixed in.

FoCo was also doing a special hot chocolate pop up, featuring marshmallows from a local New Hampshire business. Unfortunately, the marshmallows were not vegetarian because the gelatin was animal-based. But I was still able to enjoy the hot chocolate. 

Food is a big part of the community campus—there’s always a food event going on or free food somewhere (there’s even a GroupMe chat called “FREE FOOD @ NOW”). For example, many club meetings will have free food, such as the Dartmouth Outing Club’s (DOC) “feeds”, which you can read more about in this post by fellow blogger Tao ‘28. This upcoming weekend has lots of events: the annual Winter Carnival, Super Bowl Weekend, and a few more Lunar New Year celebrations, which will definitely involve food. Many events try to have vegetarian/ vegan-friendly options, but this isn’t always the case, so I’m a bit worried about missing out.

On Thursdays I have class in the Engineering and Computer Sciences Center (ECSC) at the far west side of campus, which gives me an excuse to go to the Fern. The Fern is a cafe in the neighboring Irving Institute for Energy and Society that serves sandwiches and baked goods from King Arthur Baking Company. So the Fern’s food is a bit different from the other cafes on campus. I had a vegan patty melt, which I don’t believe is a Fern exclusive, but I don’t see it at the other cafes as often. A mildly hot take—I actually really like the vegan patty melt. I’ve actually continued to order it a few times after my vegetarian challenge ended.

Most of the options at the Fern do contain meat, but there’s always a vegan sandwich and wrap option, acai bowls, and the baked goods are a vegetarian snack option. I would say the Fern has more plant-based options compared to the other cafes on campus, the only trade-off is that it’s far from central campus.

The Collis Cafe, located in the Collis Student Center, has a variety of offerings including a build-your-own smoothie station, sushi made to order, and stir-fry bowls. But what Collis is best known for is its daily special. Some past specials include gnocchi, ramen, and bulgogi (Korean marinated steak), which often are not vegetarian. But once in a while, Collis offers a plant-based special. I was lucky to have vegan pad thai this week, which I added a fried egg on top of. Unfortunately vegan pad thai will be lower on my list of foods I ate this week; I’m just not a fan of how Collis does rice noodles. 

Besides the occasional plant-based Collis special, you could also make your own smoothie, try vegan sushi, or check out the baked goods section. Either way, it’s easy to identify vegetarian/vegan options at Collis, marked as V or VG respectively. For dessert, I picked up a Vegan Crispy Chewy Oatmeal Cookie, which I can confirm is vegan, crispy, and chewy. If I wasn’t told it was vegan I probably wouldn’t have known otherwise. 

I have something I want to admit—I love soup. It’s been so cold outside, so I’ve been spamming soup recently. Thankfully, FoCo always has a vegan soup option. Some of my favorites are Moroccan lentil soup (pictured above), white bean and escarole (what is an escarole?), and lentil chickpea. The soups are a good way to get protein, as they often contain protein-rich legumes. Otherwise, if you aren’t a fan of cheese, or if you’re vegan, it can be difficult to get enough protein in your diet. 

Something new I found out about FoCo is that Ma Thayers, the main dining station in FoCo, does not label its vegetables as vegetarian or vegan. Even though the plant-based dishes do not contain animal products, they may come in contact with utensils or equipment which were used to prepare dishes containing animal products. For example, the fries may have been fried using a fryer that was previously used to fry chicken. So out of caution, the food at Ma Thayers is generally not marked as vegetarian or vegan. Just something to keep in mind if you are strictly plant-based.

It’s the last day of the challenge! Honestly, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I did have to be more mindful of what I ate, which involved meticulously checking the labels of everything I ate. But dining’s dietary symbols helped speed up that process tremendously, as I could easily tell what was plant-based at a glance.

Day 7 was also a day of two different events that are very centered on food—Super Bowl Weekend and Dartmouth Malaysian Student Association’s (DMSA) Lou Sang. For the Super Bowl, Dartmouth Dining offered a variety of wings and ribs at FoCo, which I was unable to join in on, but they also offered vegan options like vegan nuggets, so plant-based students could join in. 

However, DMSA’s meeting didn’t have a vegetarian option—though the club event was centered on creating a non-vegetarian dish. Lou Sang is a salad traditionally containing a variety of shredded vegetables and raw fish. Although we opted to use smoked salmon rather than raw fish, as it was more readily available. As this was my first time attending a lou sang, I was interested in trying the salad, but wanted to stay committed to my challenge, so I ended up taking a portion back to my dorm to have once the week ended. 

This was the hardest part of being vegetarian—feeling a bit left out from social settings because I couldn’t always have the food that was served. But there is a conscious effort from the college and its student organizations to be more accommodating for dietary restrictions. 

There were a few bumps in the road (and a breakfast sandwich incident) but I’ve completed a week of eating vegetarian on campus! Eating plant-based at Dartmouth seemed like a difficult task, but was surprisingly simple. The advice from my peers was very helpful, particularly with finding a balanced diet within the limits of a Dartmouth meal plan. If I were to do this challenge again, I’d like to try incorporating cooking or going for a full vegan diet.