As English students well acquainted with the Oxford English Dictionary, we decided to peruse the OED for what ‘clunch’ really means (leaving aside the definition of its near-homophonic counterpart). Our findings revealed it to be a “lump; a heavy and unshapely mass”, and when we signed up for this, we didn’t think that such a ‘clunch’ would be what we actually got.
As we were led into the kitchen, we realised it that it isn’t just the architecture of Catz that was brutalist. Passing through the heart of the means of production, we left with our product: a jiggling triangular ‘clunch’ of egg. We’re still not sure what to call what we ate. It seemed ‘nutritional’ though, and some of our fellow undergraduates suggested that it could be referred to as a “pancake”. Stuffed with relatively bland butter beans (yet creamy nonetheless) and juicy sweetcorn, it tasted of little more than the chive garnish.
Our opinions were split on the carrots: were they worthy of the description “aggressively al dente”, or were they undercooked enough to be desirably crunchy? These are the big questions that life at Oxford makes you ask yourself.
We were split on the decor too: Anora was hesitant about offhandedly dismissing the college’s post-modern premises (into which the ‘anti-art’ appearance of the meal fit perfectly). Indeed, she thought that Catz’s hall still didn’t measure up to the architectural elderliness of some other colleges. In contrast, Eli thought the “hanging tapestry things” were “cool”. Either way, although very spacious and comfortable, the hall felt more like a gymnasium, and its poor concrete to glass ratio let in little of the day’s sunny splendour.
