"It goes through spurts," he says. "At the beginning of a cycle of our menu, people want to know what's in this product. The second time they ask why we are having it again."
"There are a lot of people that call about their meal and really get expli- cit about their dietary habits," he says. Andover the holidays, "students who eat at otherhouses call me and say `I had to eat over here,and Menu Man, it sucks,'" he adds.
But Menu Man says most messages are positive."It's surprising," he says. "I tried to tailorDial-a-menu after Penn State, who has aDial-a-menu system. The person who did that saidbe careful, the first year all you are going toget is obscene messages."
Instead, Menu Man found, inebriated studentswould often call late at night to sing "`Menu Man,we just love you.' The problem is that people willperceive my role as Menu Man as a big ego trip,but it's not."
Menu Man Fan Club
Once last year Menu Man checked his messages tofind that someone had left a five-minute narrationof a parade in his honor. That message was thework of the Menu Man Fan Club, which was foundedin October of last year by Kenneth A. Smith '93and Steven A. Hoey '93.
"We include the entire Harvard community in ourmembership," Hoey says. He describes the parade as"a moving experience."
"Everyone's favorite float was the full-sizedbroccoli tofu with spicy peanut sauce and thedining hall checkers dancing around," Hoey says.
"[Menu Man] is a deity," Hoey continues. "Ihave seen apparitions of him, I have seen visionsof him. I have seen him out of the corner of myeye, but when I look he's not there."
"On a more serious note, he uses [theDial-a-menu service] to his and our advantage bybeing friendly, which I think is fantastic and Ithink should be applauded," Hoey says.
Menu Man attributes much of his popularity tohis seeming distance from the HDS administration.
"I think that I can be more credible than somemanager who might have to be more political," hesays. "Sometimes from my voice inflection[students] understand that [the dish] might not bemy favourite but yes, it might suck."
"I really think people like Menu Man," he says."But maybe it's because they don't know who he is.I think they can put any face they want to MenuMan."
But Menu Man still spends most of his timeanswering complaints, letting dining hallmanagements know what students are thinking andresearching the answers to students' many dietaryquestions.
"He's never failed to get back to me and hecertainly does seem to care," says John Nash, astudent who often calls Dial-a-menu with questionson the food content. "Nothing has actually beenchanged but they have at least taken it intoconsideration.
Menu Man, who says he will continue leading twolives "until I die or move," is not only an HDSinsider, but also knows who is who in the world ofanonymous telephone voices. Menu Man says he isfriends with the person behind the voice recordingwhich plays when people calling Harvardinformation are put on hold.
But "don't confuse us with the Action Man," hesays, referring to the mysterious man whoperennially crank-calls Harvard students. "We havenothing to do with him.