what did your summer camp cafeteria smell like?

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i have a theory that they all smell exactly the same

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 18 August 2003 17:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Clowns.

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 18 August 2003 17:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually ... cafeteria? Summer camp? I never had those two things simultaneously.

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 18 August 2003 17:56 (twenty-two years ago)

well okay, "kitchen", did you never have KP duty?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 18 August 2003 17:59 (twenty-two years ago)

sometimes it smelled like buckwheat, since they made buckwheat pancakes. but i recall the smell of the kitchen much more. (a strange smell that came from a million ingredients all mixing together not to mention the weird dusky smell of the sterilizer on full power.) i went to a co-op camp, campers helped with the cooking. one day i snuck into the pantry and stole a bar of chocolate. later that week the cook came out after dinner and announced that the german chocolate cake that was scheduled wasn't coming because someone had stolen one of the bars of chocolate. he urged the guilty party to confess. i never did.

― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:00 (twenty-two years ago)

i went back to the place i went to summer camp a few years ago, they still sing the same songs at lunchtime and still use the same teal and rose-colored dinnerware.

― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember gagging at the smell of chipped beef day at my elementary school cafeteria.

― NA (Nick A.), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Hm. I'm out of an experience loop -- I went to two kinds of summer camp at different times, day camp (we brought bag lunches and could get snacks or soda from vending machine) and overnight camp which involved actual camping and cooking over fires. So, no kitchens, cafeterias, etc.

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, it's the weird dusky smell, exactly!!!!!!!! I'm tempted to say it's old dirty hot water stuck in the bottom of the industrial dishwasher but presumably not all camps have those beasts.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Tep at my summer camp—"Wesley Woods," named for the founder of Methodism—there were some 300 kids all told, so cob-corn in aluminum foil each night would have been somewhat inefficient. We did campfire stuff occasionally but only when roughing it, i.e. walking a few hundred feet into the woods.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:06 (twenty-two years ago)

we did camp outs once a week but were pretty pathetic at cooking--mostly it was food brought over from the kitchen, and then s'mores.

― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:08 (twenty-two years ago)

It was eerie to me how swept and clean the cafeteria/kitchen would get, 100 little hands pressed into service, yet that smell lingered, as if it lived in the very pores of the place.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:13 (twenty-two years ago)

if the walls of the sterilizer and the surface of the grill are at all porous, then that's literally true.

― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:21 (twenty-two years ago)

there were some 300 kids all told, so cob-corn in aluminum foil each night would have been somewhat inefficient.

See, that's practically the size of my high school! So geez, no wonder.

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Tep's answer = "pine needles and marshmallow smoke"

and the open latrine probably added to the ambience

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Damn, yeah, I can smell it just reading it. Sometimes damp moss, too.

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe camp kitches are just born bad.

― ModJ, Monday, 18 August 2003 18:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't remember any particular smell. Maybe it changed with each meal? I don't remember that the meals were that bad, either.

― hstencil, Monday, 18 August 2003 18:53 (twenty-two years ago)

bad?

― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:54 (twenty-two years ago)

(referring to modj's post)

― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:54 (twenty-two years ago)

damp moss = underutilized garnish

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 18 August 2003 18:55 (twenty-two years ago)

"the head cook spoke up / he said 'leave this one alone' / he could tell right away / the kitchen smelled like a roan"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 18 August 2003 19:06 (twenty-two years ago)

At the one summer camp I went to (a boy scout camp), the cafeteria had no particular odour I remember and the food was surprisingly decent. I used to volunteer to set the table every day because the mess hall was air conditioned.

― fletrejet, Monday, 18 August 2003 20:53 (twenty-two years ago)

All these posts make me happy I didna beg to wade in the mud and the bugs during my Summers with the rest of you kiddies....

― Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Monday, 18 August 2003 20:55 (twenty-two years ago)

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