Student life

Last night we watched "Economy Gastronomy" BBC2 once more. So far the series has essentially centred on middle class families. This episode featured a student house shared by men only. We couldn't help thinking the chefs had very strange views of student life & certainly the students shown seemed to be very different from those we remember in our university days.

I spent all my university years in hall. This was out of choice. Although I could cook, I wasn't confident I would always bother &, as the student year progressed, it was always reassuring to know a cooked meal would be made & was already paid for. I wouldn't starve no matter how tight the finances had become.

The Fox only spent one year in hall The rest was in student houses. He was in a house when we started dating. He, like these students when we first met them, bought & cooked his own food, separately from the others in the house. Most of it was convenience food. Sometimes he would eat at the union rather than cooking.

The Fox's reaction was that in none of the houses he lived in did he feel much in common with the others in the house. There was no way he would want to have spent time cooking & eating with the others. And certainly those I met in the last house were best avoided.

I think of my lifestyle then. It would have been virtually impossible to have organised common cooking & eating on a daily basis. My fellow students & friends all did things at different times. We were too busy with study & enjoying ourselves. Often we would be at the university late for the library or social reasons. Even with a set time for meals in hall we often didn't eat together, as one or the other would arrive late or opt for a voucher for a meal in the union.

The other thing that struck me was what paragons of virtue these young men were. Certainly in the seventies when I was a student, most men spent a lot of time & money in bars. A lot of beer was drunk. These lads had the odd glass of wine but there were no signs of pub crawls & the bawdiness that resulted. Surely students still overindulge? In normal society you certainly see enough teenagers who indulge, even overindulge. Are university students a different species from their non-university contemporaries? Has student life changed that much? I don't believe it.

And another thing. A couple of suggestions made by the chefs struck us as ludicrous. Before they were taken in hand, the lads often stopped at the kebab shop late on the way home after a late night out. The chefs taught them how to make their own kebabs which were cheaper & more nutritious. After this they duly went back & cooked their own. When I was late out, the last thing I would want to do is to start cooking. No. In my case it would be the chippy. I don't remember there being KFC, McDonalds, donner kebab places, Subways, around then much.Occasionally I might warm up a tin of soup late on, but not start making soup from scratch.

One student had a sweet tooth, eating a couple of packets of biscuits or chocolates a day. Under this regime, he learnt how to make his own cookies. To me, biscuits & chocolates are about instant gratification, not starting to cook. Most of his consumption was done when he was studying. You can open a packet & eat biscuits, sweets & chocolate, without interrupting. You cannot do that if you have to cook them first.

Personally I don't think I ever really had the time to spend an hour plus cooking on a regular basis. I was far too busy during the daytime with either study or socialising. The only time I really sat & relaxed over coffee, or in my case tea, with friends tended to be late at night, & even then I would not have wanted to start cooking at 9-10pm! Occasionally I stayed in hall all day & made some lunch but that tended to consist of a Vesta Meal. (Oh, remember them. What a culinary highlight in those days!) When I was going out with the Fox I did cook the odd meal for/with him. His house had proper facilities, hall only had a couple of rings to cook on. And yes I did cook properly for him. I grilled my first trout there, cooked some pork in cider. The Fox showed me how to make a decent omelette in return. But then I was out to impress. I couldn't, & didn't, do it on a regular basis.

No these lads were a different species from students in the seventies. And these chefs had no idea of student life. I cannot believe it's changed that much. These lads didn't even bring girls back to the house!