In college, I nearly starved. There were meals I just would not eat — creamed eggs being one of them. I would eat the grits, but they were runny, certainly different than the grits I would be served at home. Served with the creamed eggs and grits was a hard biscuit.

Sounds like a war ration, doesn’t it?

Thankfully, just across one of the side streets, was an Arnold Bakery store. There they sold nearly expired baked goods at a discounted price. I would buy Dolly Madison “Zingers,” chocolate, vanilla — the boxes and wrappers had “Peanuts” characters on them. Oh man, were those good. Not fresh — kind of stale, but so good.

It was creamed eggs or Zingers. I went with Zingers every time.

Were we served other meals? Other than creamed eggs and grits? Of course. But those culinary delights had their own issues. Ever hear of barbecue hotdogs? These were the cheapest hotdogs (the pink color would rub off the dog) slathered in a drizzle of barbecue sauce. It looked like a porcine amputation gone wrong. Some of the other cusine was…

• • fried chicken with feathers still attached
  • ham coated in a bright rainbow-hued glaze of liquid
  • grease filled tacos that caused the bottom of the shell to dissolve
  • vegetable beef soup where the contest was who would get “the beef?” (“Stop looking! I found it!” someone would shout.)
  • Welsh rarebit (or was it “rabbit?”) – it was yellow and smelled like vinegar and may or may not have contained bunny parts (I was never sure and I never asked.)

“Well you were just too picky and big complainer, weren’t you? You try cooking for over 5000 people!”

First, it wasn’t my job to feed The Five Thousand. Second, there were one or two meals that were fine. I discovered rice and gravy (very good). And the few times we had them, the hamburgers were good (hard to screw up a burger, though).