By Richard Raya

I have been getting my grub on in Café Mac this year. Sort of a weird/random topic to kick off the year with, I know, especially in the current issue-ridden climate, but I fracking love food, so we’ll be talking about how bomb-diggity-tastic the selections have been (to a certain demographic) at Café Mac so far. PS: “fracking” here is used under its Battlestar Galactica definition and not in its inciting-earthquakes-and-pollution definition. Now. You’ve either been falling deeper and deeper in love with Café Mac every day since you’ve been back, spending more and more time together even when you should be doing homework or taking naps—or, you know, you can kind of take it or leave it. But in all honesty, you feel like, maybe, you don’t know, they offered more options in previous years, and, don’t judge, OK, but maybe you liked Café Mac better in previous years, OK? But you just don’t know. It took me two days of utilizing my fine investigative journalist instincts (neuroticism and a debilitatingly slow thought process riddled with tangential detours) to realize that a clear pattern defined the growing Café Mac schism. But of course, I purred, stroking my mustache. It is… meat! Yup, meat. The amount of meat in Café Mac this year has been wild. Meat pizzas every day (that gyro meat one was a highlight)! I’ve been a big fan. So have a surprising number of people here at Mac, and I can share that, from personal experience, people generally seem happier with what they’re shoving down their throats. Also, we haven’t yet seen that weird, crusty, dusted orange, deceptively-mushy curd of a tofu that was always lurking somewhere in the cafeteria, something that I honestly believe even the veg-heads are grateful for. Seriously, was that stuff even good? If so, was it good day after day? Because there weren’t ever any real spins on that, or the crusty beans or the brittle rice. Once I was served some of that tofu by accident. I could do naught but shovel that schlop into my mouth with my hands and cry. It was a dark time. Anyway. It’s important to take into account that it is not merely the abundance of meat that gets us red-blooded megalodons so excited—it’s the quality. Last year, yeah, there were the daily chicken breasts and hamburgers and one meat dish at East. Beyond that, it got pretty sparse. When they would finally toss us the proverbial scrap of meat, we would choke that shizzle down, even if it was some sort of ill-conceived Fiesta Pizza concocted with that chorizo they weren’t able to hock off from last brunch. Sort of like how the quality of the goods in Communist Russia went way downhill due to lack of competition, we’d scarf any dry slab of meat they rolled out because there was nothing else we could do. Now, the meat, while not melt-in-your-mouth savory, is definitely pretty damn moist. And yeah, all these pot roasts and chicken parmesans may be crowding out your ability to have three versions of satay, but I think it’s a worthy trade-off. Meat eaters are a minority at Mac, ironically (or perhaps not; it’s hard to tell what is and isn’t ironic here). In Café Mac, it’s been easy in the past to feel that they’re marginalized as well. I feel that these new changes are fair and delicious, environmental impact notwithstanding. We’ve retained the basic rices and beans as well as a lot of a lot of yummy vegetarian options. It’s simply easier for the underprivileged minority to get a leg up and access resources in a still predominantly vegetarian world. Think of it as meat-eating affirmative action. refresh –>