As part of the recent batch of major renovations done to Rose Hill’s cafeteria (i.e., The Marketplace), Fordham University dining services, coined Ram Hospitality, introduced to students a variety of new made-to-order food preparations. These stations are focused on providing students with fresh, customizable and transparent meals. Jamie Serruto, FCRH ’24 and United Student Government (USG) vice president of Facilities and Dining emeritus, perhaps put it best in a previous interview with The Ram, stating that “Students should look forward to personalized, made-to-order meals, openness of food preparation, chef interaction.”
Included in this collection of new stations is The Iron Skillet: a place where students can request fresh egg dishes in the morning like scrambled or fried eggs, as well as pasta dishes at night. The station provides students with the option to incorporate a plethora of add-ons to their respective meals including basil, peppers and bacon for omelets. Shrimp, andouille sausage and onions can be tossed into a serving of red sauce-doused noodles.
At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, this delightful little station is possibly the best thing to currently exist on Fordham’s 85-acre campus, if not the world. There is simply nothing like waking up in the morning knowing that you are about to walk over to The Marketplace and order a freshly made omelet, egg scramble or serving of fried eggs. It sets an amazing tone for the day when your ears are graced with omelet-masterchef Chef Raymond’s blunt but loving “Next guest?” and you know that, in just a few minutes, you will have a freshly prepared masterpiece of the culinary arts sitting in front of you. And if need be, the “The Iron Skillet” can certainly put one back on the right path if they were to wake up on the wrong side of the bed — it is really, really difficult to stay in a bad mood when you have a piping-hot ham and cheese omelet sitting in front of you.
Putting aside all these more lighthearted points, the addition of The Iron Skillet also genuinely works to address what is essentially a major pandemic sweeping across America’s college campuses: students’ unhealthy eating habits. A 2018 cross-sectional study published by the National Library of Medicine revealed that about 47.5% of all college students fail to eat three meals a day, and when they do consume food, the vast majority had a dangerous habit of relying upon highly processed and/or fried foods that were, in a couple of words, terribly unhealthy.
Considering this, the allure of The Iron Skillet is of paramount importance to the general health of Fordham’s student populace. For one, it is getting more and more students into The Marketplace at regular intervals; the behemoth lines to get an omelet are unlike anything that was ever seen prior to The Marketplace’s renovations. This effectively means that students are increasingly likely to get an adequate amount of food that their often sleep-deprived bodies need to just survive the day — a huge win for everyone in their lives. The Iron Skillet also provides the student populace with a fresher, infinitely healthier alternative to the suspicious-looking, premade scrambled eggs left to sit under heat lamps elsewhere in the caf. This is not to mention the fact that simply getting students into The Marketplace increases their exposure to, if not their outright consumption of, all the other fresh and healthy options now offered to Fordham students.
Miranda Joyce, FCRH ’26, offered up a reflection of this reality when asked about her relationship to the Iron Skillet, stating that “[p]rior to the egg station, I never saw the appeal of eating in the caf — I mean ever. But, I think the egg station puts caf breakfast on another level compared to any of the other breakfast options on campus.”
However, like all things in this world of grey, The Iron Skillet — and by extension, The Marketplace as a whole — is not without its flaws. The allure of The Iron Skillet ultimately clashes with the realities of Fordham’s limiting meal plan options, in which students face a lack of opportunities for customization and a distinct lack of access to a medically-sufficient number of meals. The meal plans that Fordham currently offers leave a lot to be desired, existing at the ends of two very different poles: too expensive or overly sparse. An unlimited meal plan costs at least $4,305 per semester while the most bountiful option available below this option only guarantees 14 meals a week at $3,830 per semester. Thus, The Iron Skillet creates an appetite (pun intended) for freshly-prepared meals that Fordham’s current dining plans simply cannot satisfy, with students being unable to quell their cravings by a virtue of a major paywall: one worth $475 dollars to be exact.
Despite these potential grievances, The Iron Skillet still represents the pinnacle of human achievement and ingenuity. It not only provides Fordham students with some of the greatest foods known to man (omelets and fried eggs), but it does so with an eye for freshness, quality and transparency that may perhaps provide an antidote to the student health crisis ravaging college campuses across the nation.
