This month marks 20 years since I arrived at university in London, with an Ikea saucepan set, a six-pack of Pot Noodle and a trusty jar of pesto to my name. I was a student now, and I intended to eat like one.
But what did that mean? Where to my parents “student food” had hippyish connotations – lentils and ancient grains, communal pots of unidentifiable greige – by 2006 the stereotype had evolved to mean convenience and speed. Frozen pizza, potato waffles, mountains of pesto pasta – if we were eating at all, that is. As a 2000s girl with a 2000s diet mentality, I’ll admit that part of me hoped university would mark a turning point where I started having so much fun that I forgot to think about food. No such luck. What followed instead were probably the most formative eating years of my life; I don’t remember a single line of Beowulf, but those early tastes of independence are seared into my memory for ever.
Far from swapping food for booze, student nightlife opened doors to new culinary delights: there was a vogue for bars and clubs with barbecues in the yard, or a man in a cloakroom hatch selling McCain Micro Chips for a quid. I discovered that kebabs could taste of fire and adventure, not animal welfare violations. By the end of the first year, all my vintage dresses bore oil stains like medals of honour.
My new friends and I invented an official fourth meal of the day: pstub. Short for post-pub, it was coined to name those sacred meals eaten after midnight, which started as street hotdogs and hasty fridge-raids, but soon evolved into feasts more memorable than the nights themselves. Vast trays of crisp nachos, elaborate toasties, curry mopped up with bread stolen from someone else’s cupboard, a 3am roast chicken. Pstub had rules, it had ceremony, it had – oh, brave new world – a thriving Facebook page.
There were wholesome habits, too. Brisk Sunday walks across Hampstead Heath, rewarded by soporific pub roasts; enough hummus and falafel to keep an army regular; pick-and-mix sushi from the new breed of chains springing up across the city. “Look at me, Worthing”, I would think, administering my tiny plastic bottle of soy sauce. Eating eel.
Having to shop, cook and budget for myself for the first time, I discovered new passions for tinned sardines, fish-finger sandwiches and omelettes zhooshed-up with sweet chilli sauce. Sainsbury’s Basics 8p chicken noodles soon became a staple, so I could save my loan for this newfangled thing called brunch. Meeting other students also expanded my horizons. Before encountering the middle-middle classes at uni, I’d never eaten real butter, and I didn’t know anyone could make yorkshire puddings except Aunt Bessie. I learned that what I thought of as a bagels was just bread with a hole in it – nothing like the warm, chewy wonders we’d queue for on east London’s Brick Lane and eat on the back seat of the N253, chunks of salt beef falling into our hair.
Food was a way to bridge cultural gaps and forge new friendships. On my first-year corridor alone were students from lands as distant and thrilling as China, Poland, Japan, the Czech Republic and Hull. My nextdoor neighbour, a Hongkonger, and I began a tradition of monthly dinners in Chinatown, where she would order and I wouldn’t ask questions. On her watch I tried tripe, chicken feet, soup dumplings and lilac-hued ube tea. I returned the favour by introducing her to Fray Bentos tinned pies.
Two decades later, though, what are students eating? Legend would have us believe Gen Z are all matcha-swilling, fibremaxxing wellness nuts who choose sushi over chicken nuggets – does that mean student food culture as we knew it is dead? Is it all poké bowls and functional mushrooms now? Not according to Alex Harvey, founder of The Student Food Project, which provides online recipes and runs cookery workshops on campuses across the country. “There’s greater awareness around health and wellness, but I wouldn’t say student eating habits have dramatically shifted off the back of that,” he says. “If they have, it’s only people in a financial position to make that possible.” With fees now three times higher than mine, plus the cost of living about 80% more expensive, today’s undergrads are feeling the pinch more than ever. “Students have always had to budget, but it’s now becoming a constant worry,” says Harvey, who is still gathering results from the project’s Student Food Survey (the first in the UK), but about 40% of respondents so far say they’ve gone to bed hungry or skipped meals because they couldn’t afford food.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t afford principles. Since 2021, the climate-focused Plant-Based Universities campaign has seen 29 student unions across the UK and Europe vote to make their campus catering 100% plant-based. Meanwhile, institutions themselves are making an effort to equip students with cooking skills to save them money, keep them healthy and help form social bonds. “We’re increasingly seeing universities doubling down on food as an area of their wellbeing programmes,” says Harvey, who has seen his busiest year yet. “As loneliness and isolation form an increasing part of student life, food has that ability to bring people together.”
But while my beloved 8p noodles now cost 50p and my favourite kebab shop was bulldozed for the Elizabeth Line, it’s nice to know some things haven’t changed. “A lot of student staples remain incredibly popular,” says Harvey. “Pesto pasta is still top of the list.
Food for thought: what students are really eating
‘I might be the only person who has a blowtorch at uni’
Aaron Godwood, 20, from Cambridge, is in his third year studying computer science and mathematics at the University of Bath
“I couldn’t really cook before I came to uni. In the weeks before I started, my older brother gave me lessons so I could make a few basic meals: spaghetti bolognese, chilli, fajitas, that kind of thing. But now I’m in my third year, and I’ve discovered I really like cooking. One of my favourite meals to make is gyros, either with chicken or halloumi. I eat a lot of halloumi. There’s a bean and halloumi stew that I make all the time, and, of course, a lot of pasta too. Across my campus, I’d say pesto pasta is probably the most widely eaten dish.
“I might be the only person who has a blowtorch at uni. My favourite dessert is creme brulee, and when I tried making it without a blowtorch, it was just terrible. So when I had a bit of money for my birthday, I thought: I know what I’m spending that on.”
“One of my housemates is also really into cooking, so we’ll swap recipes and teach each other how to make new dishes. And often we’ll do big group meals where we all contribute a dish. Cooking for other people is one of my favourite things to do; it’s a bit like showing someone a film you really love. It’s introducing them to a little bit of your world.
“I’ll get food on a night out maybe twice a week. My mates and I always go to the same kebab shop in Bath, and always get the same order: chips with chilli sauce and garlic mayo.
“I try to set a weekly food budget of about £40, but I don’t really stick to it. If I want to cook something nice that costs a bit more, I see it as an activity in itself. I’ll happily spend an extra £5 on ingredients and have fewer drinks in the pub to balance it out.
“I don’t consciously think about the health credentials of what I’m eating, but a lot of the food I cook is naturally pretty healthy – a lot of beans, lentils and veg. But I’m glad I’m not a gym bro who only cares about food as fuel. Sometimes you’re out on campus and you’ll see someone whose lunch is a plain chicken breast. That can’t be nice.”
‘It’s a lot of toast, a lot of cereal’
Archie Marks, 20, from Worcester, is in his final year studying English literature at the University of Birmingham
“I love an Aldi pizza. Pesto pasta has always been a mainstay for me, or just pasta with oil and cheese, and I quite like a stir-fry, because it’s easy. But that’s it for cooking, if I’m honest. It’s a lot of toast, a lot of cereal.
“I try to budget for about £30-35 per week on groceries, and get a takeaway or eat out maybe once a week. Post-night out, we always go to Mamma Mia, which is a local institution. It’s one of those takeaways that sells a bit of everything – it does the best pizza I’ve ever tasted, and for about a fiver. It’s so trashy, but when you’ve had a few it’s an absolute godsend.
“I think money is on the mind of every student. I’m not exactly living off scraps – I buy strawberries out of season and stuff like that – but I don’t go crazy. I spend a lot of money on concert tickets, so often I’ll just live off whatever I have in the cupboard to afford them. Recently I went to see Harry Styles, which was worth a few weeks of beans on toast.
“I’ve been vegetarian for five or six years, and my parents instilled in me the value of good nutrition and getting my five a day, so that’s kind of second nature. But the idea of Gen Z as clean-eating wellness types could not be further from the truth. It’s a lot of faff, and it can get really expensive. Sometimes I’ll be at pre-drinks and we’ll play a game of: ‘what has everyone eaten today?’, and I’ll realise I’ve had two slices of toast and an apple.
“But two things can be true at once. Budget is a big factor for students, but by the same token there is a lot of going out for coffee, going for sushi, splurging on food every once in a while. It’s something to get you through, isn’t it?”
‘For lunch I’d have avocado toast with a boiled duck egg’
Hannah Austin, 20, from Wellingborough, is in her third year studying games art at Nottingham Trent University
“In my first year, I put less time into cooking than I do now, but I did a lot of meal prepping. Usually for breakfast I’d make a dairy-free yoghurt bowl, then for lunch I’d have avocado toast with a boiled duck egg, or a cheese and tomato toastie with plant-based ‘bacon’ on the side. For dinner I’d typically make a veggie gyro bowl using oyster mushrooms as a meat substitute, some sort of pasta, or if I really couldn’t be bothered, noodles. I am definitely more adventurous now in terms of what I make, and it’s something different every day.
“During the day I prefer quick things – I almost always have a sandwich of some sort (smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel, say, or a caprese sandwich) for lunch. I go through a lot of pesto, basil, rocket, prawns and salad veg; they’re my favourite ingredients. Buying fish in supermarkets gets expensive, so I found a well-priced fishmonger nearby.
“I wouldn’t describe myself as a foodie, but it depends on who you ask. My friends would tell you that I’m always cooking something a bit extravagant (by student standards). In my first year, one of my flatmates would eat plain pork chops every single day for dinner. I cooked him chicken wings one night and he loved them, so I taught him how to make them and let him use my seasonings.
“I’m usually quite good at sticking to my food budget of £40 per week. Most of my friends spend less, but I have food allergies, which mean I have to buy more expensive alternatives. I definitely need to adjust my budget, though – my most recent food shop had gone up by £7, despite buying all the same things. Price is important to me, but I care about quality more. I don’t really travel, and I don’t go on nights out, so I save a lot of money that would otherwise be spent on drinks.
“I’d say uni has positively influenced my eating. I get very lazy when I’m at home. But there’s not much I’ve picked up from living with others, except red pesto. It’s good, but I still prefer green.”
