Title: Hockey Pucks

General Information About this Item:

• Joke
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant Number: 12
• Date Collected: 2/23/18

Informant Data:

• High level manager within DDS. Has been at Dartmouth for nearly 40 years and has worked with the areas today known as the Hop, Collis Cafe, and 53’ Commons.

Contextual Data:

• Joke that dates back to the 90s when a certain type of meal such as steak and gravy was served to the kids in the dining hall.  Was not meant to belittle or anything, but was meant to display the appearance of the steak.

Item:

• Verbal Lore, dates back to the 90s and was told between students and to the workers at the Dining Hall. Kids would walk up to get their food asking if they saw the “hockey pucks” or “hey man pass me some hockey pucks” in reference the hockey puck like shape and density of the meat.  Workers would even say that there are pucks on the menu today to humor the students.

Transcript:

“It was a steak meal, with gravy on it…kids would call them hockey pucks…it became a joke of sorts with the students”

Informant’s Comments:

The origin of this Joke is unknown, the informant only knows of around the time it started in the 90s.  Was a good joke and helped the dining hall change their recipe to make the meals less “hockey puck” like.

Collector’s Comments:

• Clear example of Verbal Lore and a Joke
• A joke that was around by students until the recipe for the steaks changed.
• We could call this a Dartmouth Culinary Joke

Collector’s Name: C. Ross Wood

Tags/Keywords:

•  Joke
• Verbal Folklore
• DDS