I do my daily TikTok scroll of 15 minutes give or take a couple of hours. The start of school is approaching, and my for-you page is flooded with how-to videos for elaborate dorm room dishes. Steak salad, shrimp fried rice, receipts adding up to the double digits for a single meal. Cookware bordering on Michelin standards. Step one: Pull out your wok. Yeah, thanks.
And it makes me wonder, as a rising college senior myself, what is becoming of the struggle meal? That culinary Benjamin Button phenomenon in which, as our brains age forward, our eating habits age backward? It seems as though we’re losing that sacred tradition to a new culture, one of young foodies with palates too mature for their age (young man, put down that lemon squeezer!).
At risk of being the old purist who won’t let go of what was, I urge strongly against this shift. And without the slightest exaggeration I argue that, without the struggle meal, the entire higher education system will crumble. I’ll give some examples.
I Facetime my grandparents from my apartment, while stirring my pot of buttered noodles. They tell me a well-rounded meal is important for a man of my age. Well, you know what else is important, Granny? (I love and appreciate her dearly.) Getting this essay done. I will have the next 70 years — 80 if I’m lucky, and 40 if I keep drinking Yerba Mate every day — to eat well-rounded meals. But I only have two hours to finish this essay. Now let’s think of a title. Thank you struggle meals, I say.
Someone I know tried to use the oven for the first time last semester, at the age of 20. She burned her hand and never even looked at the thing again. I don’t blame her, it’s a challenging piece of equipment. Many have tried to tame that beast and failed. One day she will probably make a steak salad you could mistake for a Fleming’s dish, but only when she’s good and ready. For today, PB will meet J and she will go to class without skin grafts. Thank you struggle meals, she says.
Two of my good buddies like to eat canned tuna and mayonnaise over rice. This is their struggle meal. I don’t partake but rather watch over them like some sort of anthropologist. It’s a Latin American thing, they tell me, and they’ve been eating this dish since they went to high school in Ecuador. As two guys who work at the ID tap desk, they don’t have the cash to blow on expensive meals and groceries. So, they throw these ingredients together and sit around listening to Latin progressive rock deep into the night. When they fall asleep, they will dream of home. Thank you struggle meals, they say.
You’ve been brainwashed by the church of meal prep. They told you to go to the store and buy dishes to make for the week. Now you’re at the supermarket, looking down at a pack of chicken breasts. Boneless, skinless, soulless. You worry they misplaced a decimal on the price sticker. Suddenly, something calls out to you from across the store. You’re lured to it, like a lonesome seafarer to a siren’s song. And there, in the freezer section, lies your maiden: frozen chicken tenders. Ten servings per bag, expiration: never. When you leave, your wallet is hardly lighter than when you came. Thank you struggle meals, it says.
Don’t get me wrong, nutrition is a vital part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Struggle eating doesn’t necessarily disagree with this. If nutrition were for the non-strugglers alone, we wouldn’t have frozen peas and carrots. Fruit is sometimes as cheap as the dirt it grows in, and requires little to no preparation. If you’d never even seen a salad before, you could throw one together with common sense alone.
And putting a little effort into a meal never hurt anyone. But there’s a line that has to be drawn, a balance that must be struck. If you are a college student who uses scallions every day, you are likely not someone who I’d like to get to know. But if you are a college student who doesn’t know what a scallion is, you might have some growing up to do.
You might look at me and say, “this guy needs to start eating like an adult.” And I’ll take that one on the chin because there’s surely some truth to it.
But riddle me this, wok owners, steak-makers and noodle naysayers: If not for instant coffee, what would we have to buy for breakfast? If not for Kraft Mac-n-Cheese, what would stick to our plates until the end of time? If not for Hot Pockets, if not for instant noodles, if not for Rice-A-Roni, if not for Ragu, if not for grilled cheese, if not for microwave nachos…
Thank you struggle meals, we say together.”
