The nation’s first-ever student protest sparked from rancid dairy. According to the Harvard Gazette, a decade even before the American Revolution, Harvard’s “Great Butter Rebellion” of 1766 was perhaps the first sign of America’s spirit as united in civil disobedience—and it started from a Harvard dining hall. Despite the strangeness of this origin story, student alliance from bad food is a trend continuously found throughout the University’s long history. Since the 18th century, students have continued to form new communities as an escape to Harvard’s dining offerings—and as a byproduct, paradoxically creating both the very foundations of Harvard’s elitist social landscape centuries ago and its remedied equalizing landscape today.
During the country’s downturn in economic stability and access to fresh goods in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War, an act of activism led to half of the student body getting suspended, as reported in the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. Harvard students grew increasingly dissatisfied with a decline in the quality of food and then-President Edward Holyoke’s failure to satisfy these demands. The Colonial Society describes that for Asa Dunbar, Class of 1767, a meal presented with particularly soured butter was the final straw. As the first student to raise conflict, Dunbar is rumored to have brought evidence of the inedible food to his senior tutor, decrying “Behold, our butter stinketh!—Give us, therefore, butter that stinketh not.”
The catchiness of his phrase stuck, and soon enough, his fellow students joined in on the motto-yelling and protesting. Tensions between a haughty administration and a motivated campus grew as protests became violent and illegal. A fed-up President Holyoke eventually demanded that students turn in the leaders of the rebellion. When no names were offered, Holyoke resorted to suspending over half of the student body, as stated in a 2011 Crimson report.
Yet students remained silent. Even during the dawn of the United States’ birth as an independent country, arguably one of the most politically turbulent moments of American history, Harvard undergraduates united under a common goal and refused to turn on one another despite academic threats from the University. Eventually, the Colonial Society explains that the Board of Overseers reinstated the status of all suspended students and replaced the butter. And just like that, one of Harvard’s greatest showings of student solidarity started from some of the humblest beginnings: a fight for un-sour butter.
The notoriety of Harvard as a campus with famously bad food has become an inescapable reputation, one aided by the College’s own students continuing to lament—and violently protest—its offerings.
Nearly two decades later, undergraduates in 1778, similarly unsatisfied with regular dining hall offerings, formed plans for weekly group dinners. Members would rotate hosting the dinner parties, and when the turn came to Joseph McKean, Class of 1794, he presented whole roast pork. These students continued to form dinner plans, enjoying the presence of each other’s company just as much as the lavish food on their plates.
These promised meetings never fully ceased. Over the last two centuries, the accurately-named Porc Club, or Porcellian, has evolved into an ever-prestigious, and notorious, Final Club. Originating as an escape of Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) for simple mealtimes, their story is rooted in the same motivations as Harvard’s Great Butter Rebellion. A group of students, tired of eating the poor-quality, tasteless food offered by the University, came up with their own crafty solutions. Protesting Harvard’s dining halls has incited a dichotomy of inspired and all-encompassing student activism, as well as the birth of Final Clubs—some of the most notable examples of status divisions on campus.
Shrouded in a cloak of mystery, intrigue, and critique from the outside, Final Clubs are now often considered a notoriously exclusive and elitist part of Harvard’s social scene. There is something to be said about the insular nature of the Porcellian’s founding in 1791, making it the oldest Final Club at Harvard. Despite its origin as a form of student alliance and unity separate from the University, these Clubs have since become a way to partition often well-connected and wealthy students from the rest of the student body. In a way, distinct communities may be found as byproducts of opposing mainstream Harvard practices—but at what cost? In the wake of the common attempt to separate themselves from the rest of the typical Harvard experience, what communities have been lost and which on-campus traditions have withstood against Harvard’s obsession with elitism?
Unique in its composition, Annenberg may be the great equalizer. The first-year dining hall is the only building on campus a whole graduating class consistently visits: made up of first-years not yet separated by clubs and all in search of a fresh start in a new environment. Walking in is equally both intimidating and welcoming. The cavernous ceilings do not make up for how packed the seating often gets during peak hours. Sharp bursts of laughter break up a familiar clanking of green trays and silverware. Despite the often-reviled vegan enchiladas and even more popularly hated fried cod, Annenberg is always full of smiles—inviting first-years from all backgrounds to eat together.
Jordan Dotson ’26 finds the inclusive nature of “Berg” as his favorite part of dining. “I like to see all different students interacting and coming together. I think that Annenberg is a place and an opportunity for students to communicate and talk to people that they don’t typically talk to. You know, get a feel for all kinds of backgrounds.” After another bite of food, he continued, “I feel like at least every other week I’m making new friends in here.”
Although, even to the most optimistic of Berg-goers, the horror stories often told of HUDS food are all true. “It’s justified,” said Frank Torres ’26, speaking on the infamous reputation of Annenberg. “The food itself is subpar. Eggs are made out of powder.”
Despite the “tastelessness” that Torres finds in HUDS meals, the bad food offered at Annenberg and campus dining halls may very well be yet another unifying story. But this time, instead of creating an altogether separate community, the lackluster dining hall offerings often bring together the entire student body. Amidst individual students’ participation in a myriad of different concentrations, teams, and clubs, there is one thing nearly every Harvard student passionately agrees on. Dining (badly) remains an inescapable dialogue. It’s everywhere: conversations inside the dining halls, Sidechat complaints, jokes told during Visitas. According to Dotson, “It’s something we all agree on.”
Harvard dining might be more successful than we give them credit for. Inspiring a historic Butter Revolution, one of the most prestigious social clubs in the nation, and fodder for beginning-of-class small talk, HUDS through the centuries has given students something to chew on.
Katy Lin ’26 (katylin@college.harvard.edu) has mastered the art of Chipotle-style Berg bowls.