Crappy food you ate as a student

[ALemonyPea]

I was reminded today of the really cheap frozen shepherds pies I used to buy as a student. £1 for 6 of them from Tesco, served with frozen peas. Was an absolute feast circa 1998.

Or instant noodles with grated cheese. I like to have that every now and again, proper comfort food.

I went to university in 1995, I never ate crap, I always pooled my money with mates and we ate well. The housemates I had were all into sport, cooking from scratch and enjoyed entertaining, we always had friends and girlfriends/boyfriends over, we cooked and often they brought things. About the worst it got was homemade chinese egg fried rice with peas, peppers and spring onions. We had a lot of slow cooked roasts with cheap cuts of meat. Also the bloke who lived next door, also a student, was into fishing and we got stuff from him.

Ginsters used to do a sweet and sour chicken wrap which was my treat to myself from the petrol station Tesco over the road when I couldn't be arsed to cook. I was very sad when they stopped making them.

Findus crispy pancakes, potnoodles and supernoodles

Asda in the late 90s had £1 pizzas and the vegetarian one was ace! Loved those.

Also, potato waffle sandwiches, AKA, cheap chip buttys

9p Tesco value noodles, thought I was terribly healthy for putting strips of pepper and cheap ham in them. Also used to regularly have a whole Dr. Otteker pizza for dinner in 1st year (and wondered why I gained weight!)

Oh, and cauliflower cheese grills with lashings of mayonnaise after a night out (still love them TBH, I enjoy the circle of life from ‘crappy foods I ate as a child’ through to uni and stuff you now give your own kids!)

Not a student but when I left home and was really poor I used to make a few dumplings with suet and flour and boil them in bovril or oxo gravy. Reheated they were particularly nice.

I was a student in the mid 70's!

My weekly treat was a whole block.of Neapolitan ice cream. 😊. (I recall I used to eat this direct from the carton with a spoon whilst studying in the afternoon.)

I was thinking about student food today as I saw a teenage boy in Wilkos with his mum buying up all the student range. It made me all nostalgic for the days in halls.

If it was far from student loan day, then I’d live on pasta and pesto. There was a shit chip shop near me that did chips ‘n cheese with about a pound of shredded cheese on top, that was soaking up alcohol/hangover food. If we were having a movie night, we’d treat ourselves to £1 pizzas from Iceland. I honestly don’t know how I didn’t end up with scurvy. Maybe cider has vitamins in it?

The worst thing I saw someone eat was a plate of rice with ketchup. She was very posh and could barely boil water, so uni was a bit of a shock.

Just got grant cheque:- rotisserie chicken, chips and brown sauce from chippy.

Next week:- cold walls steak and kidney pie.

End of term, grant cheque long used up:- white rice with chopped onion from freezer

I was never a student really as I did an apprenticeship. My brother on the other hand, his student life never really left him.

I visited him and he was having pot noodles with a tin of baked beans mixed into it 🤢

Twix melted in hot custard

potato waffle sandwiches

What a treat. I could eat one now.

Toast with garlic purée from a tube. Like a student version of garlic bread. Bleurgh.

Mashed potato with grated cheese. A tomato on the side as a token nod to healthy eating.

Loved instant noodles with cheese! My fav uni meal was pasta, grated cheese and chopped up hotdogs.

Mashed potato with salad cream and grated cheese.
And packet spring vegetable soup with home made dumplings.
Could still eat both actually ....

Pasta cooked in dried value mushroom or chicken soup, could make a packet stretch a week....

Pasta with tinned tomato soup and peas
Mashed potatoes with ketchup and grated cheese

Pasta n sauce (usually the cheese and broccoli one) in a white bread sandwich.

Sainsbury's used to do these long-life breakfast things in a foil packet. They did an egg, potato and bacon one and it was amazing. It was scrambled egg, cubes of potato and bacon bits and you slid it out in a block into a frying pan and sautéed it for about 10-15 minutes. They were so good.

My flat mate would have super noodle sandwiches with tomato ketchup. Findus French bread pizzas were popular as was the revolting bright pink sausages from Morrison’s. Blind stew and dumplings was a end of term staple

Chicken super noodle sandwich with grated cheese on plastic white bread

I was a student in the early to mid 80s. We ate Vesta curries & a delicious dish containing a tin of baked beans, a tin of sweet corn, grilled with a topping of breadcrumbs & grated cheese. Mmm.

My halls in first year were near to a big Tesco and Value lemonade (the full sugar version) was about 10p for a 2 litre bottle. I used to buy tons of the stuff and drink it like water.

I only had a single hotplate & kettle in my corridor. So my predominant meal I remember was pasta + sachet of just-add-boiling-water white sauce + mini tin of sweetcorn. Grated cheese if I was feeling flush and it was cold enough to keep it on the window ledge.