In the calm of Harris Manchester’s small, wooden hall, and on chairs with the names of the college’s dead benefactors on them (bit creepy, but big up HManc alumni), we had what could only be called a lovely, light lunch. The abundance and sheer selection of salad was fantastic: coleslaw, broccoli, spiced chickpeas, that mixture of apple and celery thing… it was a mayonnaise lover’s dream.
Mixing this salad with the vegetarian pasta had quite an overwhelming effect however, as it was already (perhaps overly) drizzled with olive oil. The creamy salmon pasta, on the other hand, took the salad in its stride, creating one glorious creamy mess, and somehow it really did work.
Once we’d finished our meals, our plates were promptly whisked away by a member of the lovely hall staff, but were we still hungry? Sadly, yes. There were some standard low-fat yoghurts laid out on the table (the kind that most halls stock), as were bowls of appetising fruit, and we devoured the peach and cherry flavoured yogurts most rapidly. There seemed to be no desserts on offer, but yoghurt and fruit are undoubtedly safe ways to curb post meal hunger, and we sought to learn from the wise.
All in all, the meal was relatively generic, but there’s certainly something to be said for simplicity. Kudos to the refreshingly light lunch – but as carb guzzling teenag- ers, our tummies were rumbling by 3pm. We’re not quite ready for the mature life, but the mature life surely welcomed us with its bounty.
