Banging Eats with Feats is a column USUALLY dedicated to Wesleyan students’ favorite recipes and the stories behind them. This week Sports Editor Cameron brings us a special review of Thanksgiving meals served on campus. Send us a recipe that’s important to you and let us know why! The form is online.

The fall season is my favorite time of the year. It’s jam-packed with my most favorite things, from the changing foliage to holidays that promise delicious food. A Thanksgiving spread often boasts a variety of options, depending on the culture of the family or group of friends that host it. This year, three campus dining locations served a Thanksgiving meal, back-to-back, three days in a row. I taste-tested and rated them all on a scale of 1 to 10 to determine the definite winner of the Wesleyan Thanksgiving cook-off. 

WesWings: 8/10

As an employee of Swings, I got to see the preparation for the Thanksgiving event in real time. To summarize, I’ve never seen that many pounds of mashed potatoes in my life. The pail is an iconic feature of brunch at the beloved wings restaurant, where you can get scrambled eggs, protein, and hash browns in a takeaway pail while you’re still hungover from whatever regrettable party you went to the night before. Swings knows its branding and sells a Thanksgiving version of the pail every year for dinner. With a price tag of $15.95, the pail offers turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and a side of cranberry sauce. Add the employee discount, and this is a steal.

The restaurant was bustling when I arrived on the later side, but the line was efficient and I was able to grab a pail and a slice of apple pie. I took it home and put it on a plate, as one of the drawbacks with serving food in a pail is that it can be hard to separate parts of the meal from each other.

Overall, I found this meal to be up to my Thanksgiving standards. Swings doesn’t try to play with the pieces that make up the holiday meal, and simple is sometimes better. Which brings me to…

Star and Crescent: 6.5/10

Look, I love Star and Crescent. My housemate and I refresh Instagram every Sunday night in eager anticipation of the weekly menu drop. Just ask me about my thoughts and feelings on their spicy coconut corn bisque (in a word: heavenly). When I saw their unorthodox Thanksgiving menu, which an email described as crispy, herb-rubbed porchetta, buttery leek, celery, and sage stuffing, and gravy, followed by a dessert of marshmallow sweet potato tart, I wasn’t worried. I was determined to try all of the Thanksgiving offerings on this campus, even if they weren’t traditional.

I had to wheedle my good friend (Drew Olsen ’24) into coming, as many of the people I usually go to Star and Crescent with were turned off by the idea of eating pork, and I’m not quite brave enough to eat by myself.

When we arrived, the line spanned the entire first floor, reaching the piano in the Alpha Delta Phi ballroom. After a 15 minute wait, we were able to nab seats next to people I met in my first-year seminar. It’s one of the things I love best about eating at Star and Crescent; you always end up sharing a table with someone you met once a million years ago, and you bond over how delicious the food is. That or you’re stuck bumping elbows with your campus enemy, but I want to keep this article positive.

I had good company as I chowed down on the Star and Crescent Thanksgiving Spectacular. The stuffing was one of the best I had ever had. It was fluffy and light even though many stuffings end up soggy. I wish I could box it up and eat it forever, which is saying a lot, as stuffing is my second-favorite component of a Thanksgiving feast (the first being mashed potatoes). The gravy was an excellent complement. 

The rest of the meal didn’t knock my socks off, though. The pork was tasty but a bit too fatty for my tastes, and I wasn’t a huge fan of the miscellaneous greens atop my meal, but I’m a picky eater, so you can disregard my opinion about that. I didn’t try the vegetarian option, but it got glowing reviews from the people with whom I shared a table. While I ordinarily love sweet potato in my dessert, I think the rich dinner I’d just had made it hard to scarf it down. It was sweet and earthy, although I found it a bit weird to have marshmallows and a crust on the same dessert.

Star and Crescent is still one of my favorite restaurants on campus, even if I was slightly let down by the meat. Maybe that’s my sign to become a vegetarian; after all, nobody’s favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal is the turkey (or, in this case, the porchetta).

Usdan: 10/10

Call me nostalgic, but nothing can top Usdan Thanksgiving. The ambience, the cost-effectiveness (you can get a ridiculous amount of tasty food and dessert for about $10), the live music, the variety of options… it’s off the charts.

I did everything in my power to finish editing articles (for this very newspaper) early enough to make it to Usdan Thanksgiving. While I arrived at 5:30 p.m., a geriatric time at which to eat dinner, I still had to wait in a fairly nasty line. The wait was absolutely worth it, though. Holding a plate piled high with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans, I rushed off to find where my friends were sitting.

Table space was hard to come by, but my group of friends were able to snag a table meant for two people and make do. We ate and chatted and reflected on how weird it was that it was our final year eating Usdan Thanksgiving, a tradition we’ve partaken in every time it was available (though I don’t think 2020 offered the feast). Before we got too sentimental, we gorged ourselves on pumpkin whoopie pies, cannolis, and pies of all flavors.

Please note that these ratings are subjective and not offered by a certified critic of Thanksgiving fare.  I’m a harsh critic when it comes to food but I’m impressed by the variety and quality of the offerings from different places on campus.
Cameron Bonnevie can be reached at cbonnevie@wesleyan.edu.