Savoring the moment

But on a recent night at College of the Holy Cross, an entirely different scene was unfolding at one end of the cavernous dining hall: a five-course meal served on hand-painted Wedgwood china by bow-tied servers in crisp white tuxedo shirts. The stylish repast would last - gulp - two hours.

Students feasted on cream of asparagus soup, mushroom and chevre tarts, and maple-glazed hanging tender steak - all products of local farms. The din of conversation floated over the linen-covered tables as the last rays of the setting sun streamed through the wall of windows.

Holy Cross began offering the special meals - they call them "slow-food" dinners - last school year to encourage students raised in a fast-food culture to savor meals with fellow diners while learning to appreciate home-grown food and the people who prepare and serve it, said Arthur Korandanis, director of auxiliary services at the school. Korandanis came up with the idea after hearing a speech by Italian food and wine writer Carlo Petrini, who founded the international slow-food movement in 1986 to combat the opening of fast-food franchises in Rome.

The twice-monthly meals at Holy Cross have become so popular that this year's schedule booked up last fall, and the dining staff is already taking reservations for next year. One caveat: the focus would be on food and conversation. No cellphones or BlackBerries allowed.

"Developing community around meals gets us past the hi-and-goodbye culture," said Boyd Servio-Mariano, associate director of the college's Office of Multicultural Education, who helped organize the recent dinner. "This is an opportunity at the busiest time in the academic year to sit together in an environment that's conducive to deeper conversation."

Other colleges, including Middlebury, Harvard, Boston University, and Tufts, have embraced the slow-food movement but none to the extent of Holy Cross, said Julia Middleton, who oversees the campus program for Slow Food USA. Most of the 20 schools nationwide with slow-food chapters offer potluck dinners hosted by students, she said; that number is expected to rise as more young people have come to expect good food and recognize the importance of sustainability.

At Holy Cross, the recent dinner began with a mini-lecture from chef Tim Trachimowicz, who painstakingly explained the origins of each dish.

The asparagus stalks, the first vegetables of spring, were picked days before in the Pioneer Valley. The hanger steak came from a Hancock farm; the cheddar in the mashed potatoes was from Cabot Creamery in Vermont; and the potatoes from a farm in Fryeburg, Maine. Even the organic mesclun salad mix and accompanying blueberries were local.

Trachimowicz urged students to carry on the discussion.

"Take a little bit of your time to talk to your neighbors," Trachimowicz advised. "Talk about what's going on in your lives. Talk about the food."

Conversation around the table hopped from the expected - students' summer and post-graduation plans - to the esoteric - a discussion about Irish immigrant laborers in New England mills, which spawned from a student talking about her thesis on the history of African-American party affiliation.

One student compared the work-centered, consumerist hectic pace of life in the United States to the family-centered "easy living" in his hometown in Guatemala. Several said they had never sampled goat cheese.

Daryl Brown, a senior from Georgia and cocaptain of the football team, stared in awe at the menu printed with a snail logo. Before the event, he had never heard of slow food.

"I guess we'll be here for awhile," said Brown, before turning to the student seated next to him.

A half-hour later, Eddie Hairston arrived late, straight from track practice. The group had just been served their second course.

"As a college student, slow is not in my vocabulary," said Hairston, who works in the dining hall and has witnessed the amount of care and time that goes into preparing a slow-food dinner.

The dinner cost students about $35 - about three times the amount of regular dining hall meals, or three swipes of their meal cards.

But the price is worthwhile for the special occasion, said sophomore Camila Rivera, who rarely has the luxury of lingering over dinner.

"It's so nice to actually have time to sit down and talk," Rivera said as candlelight flickered across the table. "If it weren't for this, I probably wouldn't have dinner tonight, with my schedule."

Her evenings are packed with dance rehearsals, club meetings, and homework. Dinner with friends is usually out of the question.

Tiffany Reid lives next to the dining hall but said she rarely sits down for meals. She usually grabs a crispy chicken wrap from the campus center - for lunch and dinner - because it's faster, and devours it on her way to class or brings it back to her room while she studies.

Even the night she attended the slow-food dinner, she had a packed schedule, squeezing in the meal between track practice and a resident assistant's meeting. "I have to leave at 7, so hopefully the steak comes out before then," Reid said.

The lengthy family-style dinner could not hold everyone's full attention. Despite the chef's rule forbidding cellphones at the table, some students could not resist text messaging their friends.

Several feet away, on the other side of the screen partition, other diners looked on with envy as the servers shuttled silver platters from the kitchen to the students.

"That's the bourgeoisie, we're the proletariat," said Steve Anevski.

"I wonder what they're getting over there that we aren't getting," said Sean Kiely.

Their friend Joey Kingsley looked up longingly from her bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal at a tray of chocolate raspberry tortes being served for desert at the slow-food meal.

"Someday," Kiely assured his friends. "Someday that will be us."

Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com.