Formal Hall Revue with Ben Eyre - St Hilda's
St Hilda’s formal has the distinction of having anathematised itself; with a high table as empty as the college’s bank account, no grace of any sort (save leaving the hall early without any objections) and no compulsion to wear gowns.
I could have expected such things from the most disturbing spectacle as I entered the oak panelled canteen, my host handing over ‘meal tickets’ like wartime ration coupons and attempting to make small talk with the 1940s style butcher’s boy handling the queue. The portraits on the walls, some of them painted by students, were of varying quality.
Images of many of the distinguished women in the paintings were thoroughly appropriate for the college however, with the only possible exception being the appearance, at the far end of the hall, of a painting of someone with such large hands that an offer from Hilda’s would surely have been subject to more than one condition. The first course was actually not bad.
Two slices of bull tomato, slightly grainier than a middle aged feminist’s top lip, with a flake of parmesan like an erstwhile wisp of hair missed by a razor in a bed of salad with dressing and ground black pepper.
The attempt at presentation perceived in the dish, combined with my knowledge of the obvious attempt to save money in serving something so obviously virtually worthless, suggested that something more promising, in terms of available percentage of effort and funds combined, might be served as a second course.
A main course of salmon promised something, despite its appearance, though the film of thick white globulous goo that I was able to scrape off was only slightly colder and less appetising than the fish itself. It genuinely was inexorably poor. While the potato tasted vaguely like a vegetable, albeit one that was abused in unspeakable ways, the ‘broccoli’ could not even resemble the most beaten and damaged example of its species.
In their total commitment to culinary inferiority, St Hildas have actually achieved something. Each disappointment was followed by something that increased the overall feeling of despondency, to the point where I almost felt publicly embarrassed at eating so little. The banoffee pie extended its influence over the cheap Formica dish like a particularly potent virus • a brown abomination on a dubious biscuit base.
A coagulation of cheap digestive crumbs and bananas with the consistency of old custard and the taste of imitation superglue was no more satisfactory than the other offerings that were returned to the kitchen in something approaching their entirety. It was fortunate, in a sense, that my choice to eat little of what I was presented with affected me little but the lack of any nutritional value in the meal was irrefutable.
The problem, essentially, was that not only did it look like total cack, but tasted, like it as well. They say you are what you eat. For the sake of the students of St Hilda’s College Oxford, I hope few of them often attend their formal hall. Second rate offcuts of meat, hybrids of strange organic produce, unadventurous attempts at originality and a general guarantee of a bad taste left in the mouth is not something to aspire to.
Having said this, the company was more than pleasant, exceedingly attractive and inquisitive about the up and coming Greyfriars bop, their spirits hardly dampened by the blatant attempt to poison them by college authorities. Most importantly I was allowed to take my exceedingly large White Russian into the hall with me, and received all the nutrition I needed from that.
19th May 2005