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.

Findus pancakes, chicken Kiev's and pot noodles in the 90's yuck 😂

Late 90s/early Noughties - tins featured heavily. Tinned sweet corn with ketchup, and tinned ratatouille with ketchup stirred in. Sometimes (often) I didn’t even decant it - just ate it cold from the tin with a fork. Addding the ketchup practically felt like cooking.

Was also a fan of Pasta ‘n’ Sauce, as well as ‘Big’ Cup A Soups (qualified as a meal) and pesto and pasta (fancy meal). Frozen peas were also a prominent feature, and I remember two of my school friends falling over themselves laughing when they came to visit me the night before I left for uni, and saw I’d carefully written out the method for cooking said frozen peas... cooking wasn’t my forte.

Frankly between that diet and the obscene amounts of booze, it’s a miracle any of us came out with a decent degree...!

Mid 90s, supernoodles every other day, lots of toast, jacket potatoes and fish finger sandwiches.

I also ate out a lot. It was the time of the curry wars and there were so many Indians vying for the students' business that you could have a slap up Indian and a couple of pints for under a tenner.

I learned to cook at Uni (am a foodie now). I shopped at the ethnic food markets, discovered the joys of such things as mooli, tried tripe (once), and even got the bloke from the best local Indian restaurant to come to halls and show me how to make a restaurant style curry. A friend taught me how to make sweet and sour chicken - but those were the highlights. The rest of the tme I lived off plain tomato (no butter) baps, egg mayo and spring onion baps with cheese 'n onion crisps squashed into them, square portions of fish from the Chinese chippy that came with a luminous orange sauce, and - always on a Thursday morning after a night at the student disco - a full Englsh breakfast with builders' tea from the covered market. There was a very basic curry place at the end of our road which did a keema curry for 99p - that was a bit of a treat! The local Italian did a fantastic aubergine parmigiana, whch I've never been able to reproduce, despite 30 years of trying!

I arrived at Uni unable to even grill bacon (ate it when it was still flabby), but left with the confidence and ability to have people round for dinner, and a real appreciation for the culinary arts!

Mid 90s too - favourite meals were mashed potato, garlic and broccoli cakes which made me feel like I could cook (I couldn’t then, love it now). When I was at uni (in Yorkshire) would shop at Morrison’s and was a fan of their frozen ‘fish balls’, if I went home to the midlands would go to Aldi or Lidl, can’t remember which but they were brand new, I would stock up on their instant mushroom pasta - it was gorgeous. Was also a supernoodle fan and considered myself healthy for eating them with wholemeal bread as opposed to white, I have never had them with cheese though and think tomorrow I may buy some again, for the first time in a long time, and try exactly that!

Boil in the bag frozen chicken tikka masala - bloody lovely.

Chicken super noodles served on top of cheese on toast with crushed up salt and vinegar crisps on top - again, bloody lovely 😊

Mayonnaise on toast (value white bread).... I ate a LOT of that.....

Can’t ordbpasta moved with Campbell’s condensed mushroom or chicken soup. Tinned meatballs, fray bentos pies, a looooot if toast I think as a student we could put anything on toast or into a roll lol.

After a drunken night out my starving housemates came home to an empty fridge so made a curry using just two ingredients - curry powder and cat food....

I read that a bit too quickly and thought you ate the cat!

Curried cat!

Bean feast gives you raging farts though.
I graduated in 1988 so it was cheap burgers and veggie fish fingers for me, plus unidentified soupy powders from the scoop yourself shop.
I went through a phase of healthy eating which involved cooking cabbage or leeks every night- to my former housemates I apologise now - it must have smelt like a care home.
I still have super noodles and a tin of value curry in my cupboard now. And I'm 51.

1986 -1990. I went vegetarian (lasted until I was 30). One of my flat mates was from Rajasthan and cooked the most amazing food. We ate like lords, really cheaply, spinach and lentil curry was a staple.

Lentil moussaka, often minus the aubergine 😂 unless they were reduced, potatoes were cheaper, was my specialty.

My parents were massively generous and used to bring food parcels most months. My mum used to clean the whole place when she came incl ironing everyone’s sheets and they would leave a big vat of lentil stew which lasted all of us a week.

Happy days, life was much simpler!

anything and everything from the Kwik Save 'No Frills' range (with the awful black and white packaging an 'no frills' printed on it). Home made tuna fish cakes were a treat, as was vanilla ice cream with melted mars bar sauce. Ate a lot of basic salad (trying to be healthy)

Student in 70s. Used eat fairly well. Tuna and pasta bake was the highlight.

4 girls sharing a minging flat, 2 of them quite houseproud and 2 who were happy to live in a tip. Not a good arrangement.

mashed potato, garlic and broccoli cakes

That sounds great.

I did uni in Bradford, needless to say lots of curry and no cutlery!

Bacon supernoodles with sweetcorn and grated cheese. I still turn to that as comfort food every so often! Oh, and butterscotch Angel Delight!