Late-night love from Frist

I admit that Princeton is famously generous for offering free snacks in the form of special events, promotions and study breaks. In fact, just a few years ago, a couple of Daily Princetonian reporters proved that it is possible to survive a week on free food alone. Like most students, however, I do not intend to spend countless hours scouring the internet for events with food, and I therefore rely on Dining Services meal contracts to provide the bulk of my food. Yet, I have often found that no meal is available exactly when I need one.

The weekend is the most likely time for the pangs of hunger to strike. On Saturdays, for example, meal plans only essentially cover two meals: brunch and dinner. There is also the drastically underused Early Breakfast served in Frist Campus Center from 7:30-9:45 a.m. While I am sure there is a certain segment of the student population that frequents this meal, which I am told is the best breakfast on campus, such an early meal will never attract the hungry - and over-tired - throngs on Saturday morning. As a result, students are essentially made to eat only two meals. Inevitably, this plan leaves most students less than full by nightfall, and one can often spot Princetonians searching desperately for a snack in Frist or along Nassau Street past dusk. This lack of food has two consequences. First, it forces students to study on a less-than-full stomach, even though studying requires a great deal of energy. Second and more drastically, it often forces students to head to the Street and drink on an empty stomach on one of the biggest party nights of the week.

The same could be said, albeit to a lesser extent, of Fridays. There is no Late Dinner, and therefore students must often go the rest of the night without eating anything after dinner. Considering that many students skip breakfast and intend to remain awake for five to seven hours past the end of dinner at 8 p.m., this is a similarly dangerous scenario.

Sunday, by far the worst offender, offers only brunch and dinner. This, again, unfairly forces students to study on an empty stomach.

To address this problem, the administration and Dining Services need not look far. Frist should simply offer Late Dinner from 8:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Such an innovation would allay the pangs of weekend hunger. It might also have the beneficial consequence of altering party habits for the better. At the margins, it may convince some students to simply go to bed earlier then they would otherwise by drawing them back from the Street into Frist for a pre-bed meal. A more likely but equally beneficial scenario is that it will convince students to stop drinking for up to an hour and then return to the Street. In addition, the meal itself will probably fill up some students to the point where they will drink less upon returning to the Street. Indeed, it is quite possible that adding a weekend Late Meal would convince students to do what health officials have long yelled at them to do - take a break between chugs.

At first glance, this seems like an expensive proposal because it would force Frist to employ a full staff at inconvenient hours of the night. After all, more people will likely take advantage of Frist's late-night offerings if they could pay for them with a late-meal credit. But a staff is already employed to service students' yearnings for 2 a.m. Frist pizza. It would not be that much of a stretch to employ a few more in the service of something much more productive.

Admittedly, the "hunger" at Princeton is nothing compared to the much greater problems in the world. But, if we are to have a meal plan, there is nothing wrong with wanting the best one possible. Given the overwhelming power of food in the undergraduate imagination, the addition of a weekend Late Meal may very well do more to positively change campus life than many of the creations of the past few years. Why not to give it a try?