Have you ever, in excitement, reached bare-handed for that one last Foco cookie, only to be unexpectedly scalded by its warm and gooey exterior? If you find yourself wincing at the memory, you’re not alone.
A small and passionate group of Dartmouth students found, in an anonymous poll, that more than 60% of the student body has reported being at least “lightly burned” by a Foco cookie, with a small contingent even reporting “moderate to severe burns” after attempting to pick up a fresh cookie without the aid of the provided spatula.
- Photo by Sharon Cho
Who are these committed dessert-safety vigilantes? The fledgling group goes by the name Dartmouth Food Risk Management (DFRM), and their goal is to prevent Dartmouth students from undergoing unnecessary harm from the foods served to them on campus. The five students who comprise DFRM (two 15’s and four 16’s, who wish to remain anonymous) met in a statistics class, where they decided to survey Dartmouth students about their experiences with Foco cookies. The results were surprising enough to spur these students to action.
“The incidence of injury caused by Foco cookie burns is simply too high to ignore,” an anonymous ’15 affiliated with DFRM explained. “But now that these safety risks have been brought to our attention, we feel that we cannot continue to allow Foco cookies to put unsuspecting students at risk.”
So, in a highly controversial response to these recently gathered survey results, DRFM has decided to petition Dining Services in the hopes of suspending production of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies in Foco, beginning Monday of next week.
Our DFRM sources note that this will be “hopefully just a temporary measure” until a new method for serving warm, soft-baked and safe cookies can be successfully implemented.
“Our aim is to inspire the brilliant chefs behind Foco cookies to come up with an innovative way to serve equally delicious cookies that pose minimal safety risks for Dartmouth students,” noted a DFRM ’16.
Our DFRM sources note that they are “apprehensive” about student response to this drastic measure, should it be implemented, but hope that students realize that they will be brainstorming ways to fill the void left in all of our hearts (and stomachs) by the temporary discontinuation of this comfort-food staple.
Finally, a DRFM ’15 said that it was crucial for students reading this article to understand that “this is totally an April Fool’s joke. FOCO COOKIES FOREVER!”