Stanford Dining launched a pilot program on Oct. 4 that introduced kosher food to Florence Moore dining hall. The pilot program serves strictly prepared kosher food in the FloMo dining hall every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 5:15 to 6:45 p.m.
The program is intended to address the absence of food options for those who adhere to Jewish dietary laws.
According to Jacob Portes ‘13, kosher dining intern for Stanford Dining, the idea for the program began with Jarrod Marks ’12, who expressed his discontent to Stanford Dining about the unavailability of kosher food in the dining halls.
“I believe that was the impetus for Stanford Dining, who spent the next two years building up a program,” Portes wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.
Portes agreed that the prior state of kosher dining at Stanford was lacking.
“Previously, there were no strictly kosher options in any of the dining halls,” Portes said. “The laws of kashrut (keeping kosher) are pretty involved.”
Portes also discussed the existence of kosher dining options at other universities across the country, noting Stanford was slightly behind schedule.
“Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Columbia, MIT, Cornell, etc. all have kosher food programs, some for 30 years,” Portes said. “Traditionally, Jewish students didn’t even think about applying to Stanford because of the lack of kosher food.”
Noah Linfield ’13, a participating student, said the project was brought to life by popular student demand.
“I think the catalyst to the beginning of the program was a survey that was sent out gauging the potential interest of the students, which had very positive results” Linfield said in an e-mail to The Daily. “Once the administrators saw the positive student interest in the program, they were excited to move forward and start developing the program.”
Portes expressed delight with the outcome of the program and the food being served.
“The most important thing is that the food tastes delicious. Everybody likes it so far,” Portes said. “There are five dishes (salad, soup, cooked vegetables, starch and meat) served every night, and you can get second servings and eat the rest of the FloMo food.”
Linfield agreed, noting the menu’s variety.
“We’ve had steak, chicken, beef and more,” Linfield said. “Everyone that I’ve talked to has also been extremely satisfied with the quality of the food.”
But the flexibility may not be permanent. Portes discussed what the future of the program might entail.
“We are in the middle of a ‘trial period’ when anyone with a meal plan can have the food without any extra charge,” Portes said. “In the future, those who want to eat will either have to commit to eating in FloMo three times a week [kosher/non-kosher food] or pay extra whenever they want kosher.”
Linfield expanded on the prospective development of the kosher food program.
“The ultimate plan is to convert an existing kitchen (or possibly build a new one) and have that dining hall be the kosher, halal and strictly vegetarian dining hall,” Linfield said. “This is a model that can potentially be exemplary for other schools, because most other colleges run the kosher dining through the Hillel.”
Linfield credited the program to Katherine Heflin ‘11, dining intern over the summer, as well as Stanford Dining administrators Eric Montell and Gary Arthur. According to Linfield, the program is growing quickly.
“There are over 20 students signed up currently, with that number still increasing,” Linfield said. “I am very optimistic about where the program is headed.”
Contact Brandon Powell at [email protected].