Points of Departure: Friendship and Free Stew
Molly Byrd, Emily Drevets, and Emily Bell
In the video above, listen to a story of building community through stew. Photo by Melody Komyerov
“I liked the secret of having tons of meat in my backpack,” Emily Drevets says of the weekly tradition she and her roommates started. “Do they know how much beef is in my backpack right now?”
Every Wednesday afternoon for the past three years, Drevets (CAS’11), Molly Byrd (CAS’11), and Emily Bell (CAS’11, COM’11) have been serving stew to anyone who visited their South Campus apartment. All that was required of the “stewcomers”—as the “stewards” like to refer to their guests—was an empty stomach, a desire to make new friends, and a signature in their guestbook.
To the best of their record-keeping, Byrd says, they have served more than 350 fellow students; about 20 at most weekly sessions, and as many as 80 at their “evening edition,” a formal event held at the end of each semester. Although, the cooks confess, beef stew did not appear on the menu very often. “We call ‘stew’ anything we make in a crockpot,” says Drevets.
Although Drevets, Byrd, and Bell will be graduating, they hope the tradition of stew stays alive at BU. “It’s a big time commitment, and a big financial commitment,” Byrd says. “But it’d be great if someone could carry it on.”
“We’re hopeful the stew spirit will live on,” says Drevets. “Anyone who’s tasted our stew will carry that with them for their entire life. They can’t get rid of it, really.”
Alan Wong can be reached at alanwong@bu.edu.
Additional editing by Chris Maggio. Additional videography by Joseph Chan.
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