Gripes between bites
Harvard was founded in 1636, and it took only three years for trouble to stir up over food. Nathaniel Eaton, the Puritan college’s first master, was dismissed in 1639, in part because of his misuse of dining funds. Call it a case of defeatin’ Eaton over eatin’. From the 17th century on, food was often at the center of the plate when it came to student discontent, an interpretation of Harvard history captured in the 1936 book by A.M. Bevis, “Diets and Riots.” There were rebellions over comestibles in 1766 (butter), 1807 (cabbage), and 1895 (Irish stew). One famous food fight at University Hall in 1818 set off a chain of events that culminated in the entire sophomore class of 80 resigning en masse, at least briefly. (Among them was Ralph Waldo Emerson.) Through Dec. 20, visitors to Pusey Library can look at how food has for centuries turned up in student...