I have just realized that in all my time blogging in Germany, the Mensa has never gotten a full post, as it really deserves (It deserves this for its disgustingness, not because it is SO amazing). You folks back home need to know. The Mensa is a ladies with hair nets, slop-glop-slop style cafeteria present in some incarnation at all German (and probably Swiss and Austrian universities). Food in Mensas is usually not very good, it's just fairly cheap, but everyone seems to eat there anyways. In Aachen we seem to have it especially bad, according to the impartial ratings of some student magazine that evaluates German mensas.
When you enter the Mensa, you choose between green, red, and yellow. Red is more expensive and green is always vegetarian (but often weird vegetarian--today it featured a cauliflower-cheese medallion, what ever that is. Other often-served items include broccoli-nut corners. What?). I usually go with the yellow. The yellow features some kind of meat, with the choice of over-cooked vegetables or rotting salad and the choice of some carb (often french fries). On top of the whole plate, the grumpy Mensa Frau will pour sauce (that is not a normal English sentence, but it's kind of poetic, so I will leave it). I don't mind a little sauce on my schnitzel, but why do they pour it all over everything else? My favorite (read: most disgusting) sauce experience involved tartar sauce on a fish Friday. There was an incredible amount of sauce on my fish, so I scraped it to the side of the plate, where some of it went over the edge of the plate. But did it fall to the tray? No! For about 30 minutes, this disgusting glop remained there, dangling, but not really moving or letting a single drop of sauce fall, although I turned my plate around to show everyone the disgustingness.
Apart from the disgusting sauces, another noteworthy feature of the Mensa is the bizarre names they give to foods. One can "enjoy" Countryhacksteak mit Texicanasauce (fatty, oval-shaped processed beef patty with sauce that is supposed to somehow be Mexican or Texan, but isn't really) or Schweinerückensteak Florida mit Curryhollandaise (didn't eat this one--pig back steak Florida-style (??) with curry hollandaise sauce (curry and hollandaise go together? okay.)
Despite the disgustingness of the Mensa and the fact that it's really not that much more expensive to eat at some places in the Pontstrasse, there is a solid group of my labmates who eat there everyday. They complain everyday, yet they return. It is a fact that Andreas will leave hungry because the portions sizes aren't big enough, and that the girls will all offer him the food they can't eat. It is a fact that we all spend a little bit of time sorting out the parts of our salads that have gone bad, and that we glumly eat the disgusting food and complain about how disgusting it is. How does this system continue to work? Germans think Americans are stupid, but I think that the prime example of stupidity is making the same mistake over and over again, and eating in the Mensa is usually a mistake.
There are a few possible reasons: 1. We have no microwave to heat up leftovers, so for those Germans who love a hot meal at lunch, the Mensa is probably the closest and cheapest option.
2. People talk crap about other labmates in the Mensa. If you're there, you won't get crap talked about you. The crap talkers will have to find another venue. You also get to hear the gossip.
3. No one likes change. But when you're in your 23rd semester, how can you not long for a little change now and again?
Edited to add: I once asked one of our temporary research students if he usually ate in the mensa, or just when he was doing research in the lab. He replied that he sometimes did and that the mensa is "nicht so schlecht. Man wird satt." (not so bad. One gets full.) When "man wird satt" is the most ringing endorsement you can muster, I think that's a problem.
Conclusion: My Mensa eating days are almost over. I have already secured the prize as the only foreigner in our lab to stick with the Mensa for than two weeks, so I can be satisfied with that.
3 comments:
Man, your description of the Aachen Mensa leaves me a little proud of the culinary accomplishments of the Bonner lunch ladies. The obsession with sauce really baffles me. Some things, like lasagna, just don't need a puddle of sauce, especially a whitish cream sauce. Our food names tend to be a little more direct, I think because we have a digital board that can only handle so many modifiers before inducing mechanical failure.
Ah...mensa...such a German university institution..the stories...the memories that I want to block out of my head forever!
For a while, I actually craved mensa food, I think because I developed an aversion to cooking. The food in fall was significantly better than more recent food. I once made the mistake of eating Hacksteak for lunch, with the end result of me spending the afternoon in the toilet down the hall. For Christmas, they served a 'nice' meal where my meat bore a very strong resemblance to a body part only found on males....that was disturbing.
However, I appreciate the fact that I can get substance that resembles food for extremely cheap, and that I get to enjoy lunch with my labmates. Lunchtime is a highlight of my day, just for the company and conversation. Enjoy it while you still can, and before you get chained to a desk.
very vivid description!
outstanding organization!
gold star! tarter glob!
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