Is this kosher?

'Amazing Meals' are Kosher Killers
Submitted by Jamie Wollberg on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 00:04
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Photo credit: Jamie Wollberg

There is a price to pay for being kosher at Purchase and it comes in a little box. Hillel and Chartwells collaborated this semester to offer the Meal Mart Amazing Meals to students.

According to Director of Dining Services Nick Mennillo, not one of these meals has sold to date. Mennillo said that Campus Rabbi for Hillels of Westchester Michael Rothbaum asked him over the summer if he could help provide a kosher meal plan for students.

“I thought I could go to Nick and the Chartwells folks who are great partners with us to see if they could arrange something,” said Rothbaum.

Unfortunately, with lack of demand, there is no way to create a full meal plan for the few students that keep kosher. “I’m going to honor somebody’s wish, and if there’s one kid that wants to stay kosher and my meat hooks are in it, its not going to be kosher,” Mennillo said.

Rothbaum said he is working with Chartwells to possibly turn Terre Ve into a kosher facility. However, the plan will take time and won’t be revisited until winter break, he said.

There are 15 different varieties of the $9.95 cardboard boxes, filled with anything from kosher chicken to beef. These meals don’t need to be refrigerated and have a shelf life of two years.

The meals are loaded with sodium and only take about a minute and a half to cook in a microwave. Another drawback is that the “kosher meal plan” takes two swipes of the meal card in order to pay for one lone meal.

After a student-sampling of two of the meals, one being with chicken and the other matza ball soup, there was much to be said.

“It tastes like an experiment,” said junior new media Major Michelle Marie Charles after taking her first bite. “I can’t believe that chicken would stay okay for two years.”

“It looks like dining hall food that has been sitting around for a really long time,” said junior media, society, and the arts major Alyssa Neuner. “I don’t understand why anyone would want to eat this.”

Junior sociology major Stephanie Gallagher said she was incredibly repulsed by the not-so-amazing meals. “It looks like something my dog would throw up after Halloween,” she said.

Students who sampled the meals agreed that the $1,500 invested in these tiny, toxic meals might not have been worth it.

“I just want to break even with them, said Mennillo, “If somebody wants it, they can have it.”