The Fine Food & Dining Society St Andrews
The Fine Food & Dining Society is for people who love cooking, eating, talking or thinking about food with other like-minded people. Our mission is to show students that you need not spend four years living off frozen pizza and tinned beans. Being in St Andrews means we are surrounded by farms, fresh seafood and an extraordinarily high number of local food shops per square foot. We want to show you how to take advantage of all this deliciousness.
Founded in 2009 by two hungry St Andrews students surprised by the lack of a student culinary society, we quickly became one of the largest and most popular societies at the university. We are the largest University society, one of the most active (running around 4 events a month) and consistently union-acclaimed: we have won the award for Best Society twice in three years. We pride ourselves on providing top-notch services and events for the St Andrews food-enthusiast, regularly gracing the pages of student and local media with our scrumptious experiences. We have also burst the bubble with past coverage in national media such as the Guardian and the BBC.
Cooking Classes
We seek to teach members about food and cookery by running weekly cooking classes taught by the student-run committee or by local chefs. Ever wondered how to fillet a fish? Spin sugar? To properly bake bread? Create gourmet Christmas gift? How to break down a pigeon? We can show you how! They’ve sold out every week since they began in 2009, and are open only to members so we can keep them small and hands-on. And fret not, we make a point of catering to all levels of experience!
Dining Events
We believe that eating out is just an important part of living and that it should be affordable to do so. We organise dining events which are offered at student-friendly rates - and are further subsidised for our members - so we can take advantage of the hugely talented and diverse array of local chefs in Fife.
Past events have included a dinner with chocolate in every course, a traditional Burns dinner and, most recently, a 4-course feast of venison which cost just £10 for members!
Other Events
We also organise smaller-scale and less formal events a few times per semester. This range in nature and scale. Every year, for example, we go to the BBC Good Food Show in October to stalk celebrity chefs and load up on discounted cookware and food. In April of 2013 we went on a field trip to the first Whole Foods which opened in Glasgow. The trip included a behind-the-scenes tour of the store as well as a delicious, fresh lunch. We’ve also done a slew of local forages and hosted our first cocktail class this past spring!
So put down your cup-o-noodles and come eat with us instead.
