When I was at Wellesley in the early '80s they served broccoli at dinner every. single. night. One of my friends asked our cooks (Rocco and Charlie, we loved them they were great) and was told that some alumni had set up an endowment to make sure that broccoli was served every day. They did their best to dress it up in different ways, but there was always broccoli.
Current or recent students, is this still a thing? Does Wellesley still serve broccoli all the damned time?
I graduated in 2013, and I don’t remember having broccoli at every meal. It’s certainly possible it was there and I just forgot. There is, however, an “ice cream endowment”, which means ice cream is always available. Was that around in the '80s?
That came in in '83 or '84 and I remember the rumor was that it was in direct response to the broccoli endowment. That’s cute - the broccoli has run out but the ice cream lives on. There’s a metaphor in that somewhere.
Hilarious!
Back in ancient times when I went to college, there was some alumnus at Williams who donated a lobster dinner every year… until some student protesters wrote a letter to him complaining that it was a waste of money and inhumane to lobsters and should be stopped (or something like that, anyway). My friends and I were annoyed because we had thought the lobster dinners were great fun and that the guy was being really nice to donate them!
My older daughter went to Middlebury ('15) and either a parent or alum was in the avocado business and made a donation her last year (to the point avocados were on everything). Avocados are her favorite, but she said they weren’t haas avocados and not nearly as good.