Don’t bash college food – it just gets worse

Missing Mum mid-term mainly means missing Mum’s meals. Granola, individually hand-cooked meals, and cheese seems a life-time away. Yet, our Southern-withdrawal symptoms shouldn’t turn into college food bashing.

“There are so many potatoes,” you cry, and admittedly there is a lot of potatoes. Yes, maybe the chicken is sometimes overcooked, and the vegetables sometimes drown in water.Admit it freshers: we’re all secretly fans of the college food. We don’t have to spend time cooking it, it’s cheap, and if you steal just the right amount of herbal tea and sugar you can end up being pretty well fed.

When we grow up what will happen? Our student houses, crammed with six other people, will have just one microwave. Chicken Kiev with potato waffles, soup, and jam roly poly, will be changed for beans on toast and a couple of Hob Nobs. A cooked breakfast in the mornings will become a browning banana.

What about after that? In third year some of us may return to college to enjoy the glory of three catered meals once more, but otherwise your next stop is a grad job. Do you really think you’ll have the time to be cooking three hearty meals a day?It also actually tastes pretty good most of the time. Granted, we have some shockers: the BBQ sauce is crazily sweet and also the cappuccino cake is always disappointing. To compensate we have brunch (possibly the best thing to happen on Saturdays), pizza (so much pizza), yoghurt, and a Sunday Roast.

We should all like being able to socialise with friends over lunch, and not fight over the oven with four other people. Or spend time cooking when we want to work, or be Netflixing somewhere.If time is precious, having three meals cooked for you and three options for main course two times a day is not exactly a bad deal.

College food has its issues but for a couple of hundred students they’re not doing a bad job. We rarely leave hungry, and that’s the point of a meal. It’s a good package so quit complaining and learn to love college food. I do.