 Editor's note: this is a part of FN Dish's Back to School Communal Table. Follow #pullupachair on Twitter and see other contributions below. Sometimes, late in the night, the craving comes to me. I fight it, as I must, for the sake of decency and taste and everything I have strived for as a grown-up human being. I cannot...I will not...I must not...pour bottled Zesty Italian salad dressing over a heap of drained ramen noodles and slurp down the whole hot, harsh mess hunched over the kitchen counter in my bare feet. Even though (as I recall) it would be freaking delicious. A few of my other college favorites: – Boxed spaghetti with margarine (seriously - who could afford butter?), black pepper, curry powder and as much shake-on Parmesan cheese as I could spirit out of the pizza place in a napkin – Boxed macaroni & cheese made with either the margarine or the milk (buying both at once wasn't in the cards most weeks) and as many mustard packets as I could get my paint-stained paws on – Salad bar vegetables stir fried with peanut butter, duck sauce packets, white rice and an egg in my electric wok – Baked potatoes with globs of cheap hot sauce or barbecue sauce mashed in with a fork I'm ostensibly a grown-up lady now, one with actual metal silverware that didn't come as a supermarket giveaway, wedding china, cups not acquired at ballgames and fast food restaurants, and I swear I haven't hoarded condiment packets for at least a decade. But I can't say I'm not physically restraining myself from running down to the dollar store, nabbing the cheapest brick and bottle I can find, and shame-eating the whole concoction with the blinds down. Let me know I'm not alone - post your favorite college food concoction in the comments below and we'll share them in an upcoming post. I...have an errand to run... P.S. Yes - ramen can be extremely fantastic, artistic and artisanal. I just didn't know that in college. Here are a few ways our iReporters like to get their ramen on. |
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Sriracha chili sauce.
Goolash! Noodles, veggie soup, and tomatoe sauce mixed. If I had extra $$ I would buy Kraft cheese slices and throw it on top!
When i was a grad student, during the 2 semesters I didn't have research or teaching support I ate a lot of ramen. It was something like nine cents a pack when it was on sale. I have not eaten it since. Yeecccchhh.
Tortillas and anything cheap I could stuff in them. Discounted beans, pretend cheese, salsa, pickles, tuna, and an assortment of condiments from the dining hall and the taco bell down the street. Lots and lots of tortillas.
A great student meal is a top sirloin steak with all the dressings. All you need is a part time job.
And a poor crappy grasp of that whole "be smart with your money" concept.
A quickie college meal from the eighties: take a stick of butter (had we only known back then!!) and melt it. Stir in one packet of onion soup mix flavoring, mix it with your pasta, and there's enough for two!
An entire stick?! Yea...a tablespoon + water probably would have had the same taste / effect.
Our Cal Poly Engineering favorite was generic mac n cheese, chop and fry up cheap generic pork sausage until very dark, dump sausage and grease into boiled mac (who could afford butter?) and add the 'cheese' sauce packet and a bit of water, mix, top with Lawry's Seasoned Salt.....
good and filling (I take Statin drugs now..... (35 years later)
Broke students! Sure there are. Broke after buying all those electronic goodies and designer clothing I guess. Let them eat KD!
Wow you are taking me back to my college days at WV State when I would tag along with a professor who had a membership to Sams’ Club, and buy a CASE of ramen noodles, which was about $ .10 a packet. The hot water in my dorm was only a few degrees cooler than boiling, so there was no need to microwave the noodles. I’ve never had them with peanut butter but with a lot of other things such as hot sauce, alfredo sauce, spaghetti sauce, can spray cheese, Mrs. Dash, hot pepper flakes, italian dressing, ranch dressing, french dressing, pizza place shaker cheese, refried beans, salsa basically anything that was free or on sale for $1.00 or less. Even now I still get a taste for the ramen but I am in counseling, getting help for my food addiction. LONG LIVE THE RAMEN!!! I love you and miss you so much.
Hmmm.... I wonder how much they spend on cigarettes?
Get real. You buy pipe tobacco(taxed much lower) and make your own. Hopefully sometimes enhanced with some homegrown pot.
O' man, now that does require some knowledge. Sweet days...
Maruchan Yakisoba noodles! They're a little more expensive (about 70-85 cents per serving) than plain old Ramen, but they have flavor and are really more filling. Their cheddar cheese flavor is SO GOOD.
Egg sandwiches. Fry a couple of eggs and toss some cheap bologna/ham in the frying pan along with it, put them between a couple pieces of toast spread with cheap margarine, add mustard, and season salt to taste, bam, protein-packed sandwich for like $0.50.
The versatile egg is still a bargain IMO. Used to love large rolled up pancake/crepes in college with all kind of weird additions/fillings..
ha...I was an Outback and Applebees junky during college. Put it all on the card and hope I won't ever have to pay it back, lol.
Well, pay on time based on discretionary income rate and the balance could be forgiven.
so you're a thief, ...or a freeloader?
Used to go to the photocopy rooms in the libraries and the vending machine rooms in the student union, reach under the machines to retrieve dropped coins and get enough money to buy ramen noodle lunches for 2 weeks. Sometimes I found enough money to buy broth and a few canned or frozen veggies to throw in the pot as well. After really profitable trips I could get a piece of chicken, too.
I still cook up some mac and cheese plus tuna and my kids love it(now I add a little lemon pepper and dill) and I figured out early on that pork and bean soup offered up the most protein per dollar! I don't mean to be negative but I work on a college campus and now with the proliferation of unlimited student loans these kids come to campus and buy new cars and take sponsered "vacations" and crazy stuff like that. I honestly just don't think they realize what it will be to leave with $80k in debt when they are done.
fortunately the fed has provisions in place now to help you with that if you can't pay it off. Welcome to the 21st century! Mac and cheese is a thing of the past yo.
unfortunately a lot of us had to go 80,000 in debt to go through college without a new car, without vacations, unable to go home and often unable to afford ramen despite working 20 hours a week. We're not all rich kids or debt forgiven freeloaders, a lot of us have worked our asses to the bone only to realize that sallie mae and high tuition with keep us in poverty long beyond the point we get the degree we were told was so valuable
Ketchup squeezed from the little fast food packages into hot water and a sprinkle of salt and pepper also provided by fast food restaurants and a box of saltines fills you up for awhile.
Med Student Tomato Soup.
Free mug of hot water, no tea bag
At least 4 packs ketchup
Couple packs coffee creamer
salt and pepper to taste
couple packs of crackers if they are free
Tom
Hey !
A box of bisquick went a long way. Some days it was just a blob baked. Cheese whiz and saltines. just lettuce salads. Ramen Lo Mein.
Regular flour is cheaper. Just add some baking soda and/'or baking powder
The trick with ramen is to find an Asian supermarket. Almost every college town has one hidden somewhere. The flavor packets in the Chinese and Korean brands are MUCH better. I like mine with a hotdog, a poached egg, and some fresh cilantro or basil thrown in. I'm craving it just thinking about it.
Zombie is right – before I went back to college, I was in the US Army in Korea, and Korean Ramen is the best. Get the spicy kind and put a piece (or two) of American cheese on top of it (with the spicy broth still on the noodles). Stir it up, mmmmmmmmmmm......
Tasty lunch for about a buck.
I got lucky, I suppose. I lived in a dorm and meals were included in the cost of our room and board. So at least, most days, you would get 3 decent meals (if you had time) You could also get a bagged lunch in lieu of a hot lunch if your classes kept you too busy to stop. Buuut, on some days, my classes were off campus so the $1 menu was my friend!
I've done the ramen, off label mac and cheese, the dollar store shopping for food, and the \"condiment\" living, but my big splurge was the dented and rusted cans on the clearance cart hidden in the back corner of the store. Yes, I ate rusted canned beans for a long time as I scored a case of them once. It was better than starving, but made me socially unacceptable to be around for awhile.
Lol, gas heaven .If you have the time and facility to grow some vegs yourself, from seeds not already expensive young plants, rice in bulk plus your added homegrown veggies, is still a lifesaver. Easy to freeze veggies with high yield of course, like bell peppers, tomatoes, string beans, egg plants etc. Problem I have though that many of my veggies get legs lately, too expensive to erect a high fence around my veggie garden. Have not been able to grow peppers till they are red since they disappear prior to that. Guess by folks more desperate than me.
Now , this article got me thinking too. May be my home grown veggies are disappearing to college students. Anybody want to fess up?
Find something to do snookers....you seem to have way too much time on your hands this evening. A comment or two is fine, but you're just begging for attention with the numerous and less-than thought provoking comments.Sorry, but someone had to say it :)
I've done the ramen, off label mac and cheese, the dollar store shopping for food, and the "condiment" living, but my big splurge was the dented and rusted cans on the clearance cart hidden in the back corner of the store. Yes, I ate rusted canned beans for a long time as I scored a case of them once. It was better than starving, but made me socially unacceptable to be around for awhile.
Man, you can add the retired baby boomers to the college students. Each time a new batch of money is printed by the Feds pricing for food goes up. The anemic interest rates of my savings also has drastically reduced my income.
All in a gigantic scheme to transfer/erode my retirement savings to the already rich 1%. Hand outs to adult children in dire need and in the claws of debt collectors for student loans plus medical expenses because of high deductibles also does not help. That said, best buy is 10/20 lbs bags of incredible rice. Even cheaper than ramen noodles or pet food
And I refuse to budge for that predatory reverse mortgage thingy. I will starve myself first.
One Hundred One Ways to Make Ramen Noodles: Creative Cooking When You Can Only Afford Ten-For-A-Dollar Pasta [Spiral-bound] (1993) by Toni Patrick
http://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Ways-Make-Ramen-Noodles/dp/0962633526/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1347326373&sr=8-3&keywords=101+things+to+make+with+ramen
101 THINGS TO DO WITH RAMEN NOODLES [Paperback] (2005) by Toni Patrick
http://www.amazon.com/101-THINGS-WITH-RAMEN-NOODLES/dp/B000KVHS2W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347326373&sr=8-1&keywords=101+things+to+make+with+ramen
101 More Things To Do With Ramen Noodles [Spiral-bound] (2011) by Toni Patrick
http://www.amazon.com/More-Things-With-Ramen-Noodles/dp/1423616367/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1347326373&sr=8-2&keywords=101+things+to+make+with+ramen
101 Things to Do with Mac & Cheese [Spiral-bound] (2007) by Toni Patrick
http://www.amazon.com/101-Things-Do-Mac-Cheese/dp/1423601785/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_z
Living on Ramen allows you to appreciate what your education affords you today.
If you are lucky. Student loans can drag you down for many years and keep you on a college student diet.
Pfft I don't even have student loans and I'm eating like this. Try being a new college grad attempting to become gainfully employed.
In college, it was rice and soy sauce, cheap mac & cheese with canned tuna, buttered bread with sugar or syrup, pbj, cheap bean burritos, ramen, ramen and more ramen. Feeding a family of 6 on a tight budget, I still eat ramen.
Rice and soy sauce I can't even count the amount of times I had that in college...Here's another one which I'm not that proud of we ate numerous times, we re-fried almost spoiled but not yet totally spoiled rice just so we could eat something that might not make us sick the next day....Those were the days=D
Musician's soup! Ketchup, hot water, and, if the money was really rolling in, dehydrated parsley and onion! Flush times would see an actual OXO cube in there instead of (or with) the ketchup.
New generation has their own 'college food' with all the fast food joints having $1 menus. Fat, cholesterol, sodium? The absolute best bang for your buck is right there at the drive-thru.
No one can beat good old beans (pinto....chili power, garlic powder, salt, a small piece of scrap bacon) over rice! On paydays, add a bit of hamburger....although these days? round steak is usually cheaper than hamburger! Makes it even better!
This will be common middle class faire if Romney is elected.
I think that already IS what a lot of the middle class eats.
Because it's delicious!
Not eating as badly as I did in college, but still cheap, trying to pay off student loans in a few years rather than 30. But I remember lots of one meal days, usually hamburger helper with cheap meat, or tuna helper. Noodles with garlic, ramen of course, lots of 99 cent whoppers when they were that cheap, in short garbage.
Well I fix the ramen but I don't like the sauce. I blend in these raw – items: chopped chives, diced tomatoe, dab of butter, small amounts of finely diced cooked cabbage (it still has a tiny crunch), some sunflower seeds to top it. To me the tomatos and onions help add a nice coolness.
You want some awesome ramen recipes, talk to someone who's been in jail.
The fact that Ramen now cost $0.25 a pack is the problem. They used to cost $0.10 a pack. Now they get more expensive and there are less noodles in a pack.
The problem as I see it is that ramen noodles come with a pack of seasoning that contains nothing but fat and salt and yet people still eat them. And either $.10 or $.25 is more than anyone should pay to eat that garbage.
I'd guess it's still better than starving..
I worked at restaurants. Nice ones, intentionally, and I ate well because of that. And I hate to admit, but dates=dinner. Yeah, sad...
and what did dinner =????
Dinner – a date.
Ramen and tins of Kippered herring, I still love this. I have graduated to higher end ramen, you know the Korean kind, so spicy it makes my room mate choke like she was pepper sprayed at a riot.
Hell I am hungry now !!!!!!
Ramen noodles, drain most of the iquid, then add a chopped up baked (microwaved) potato and a couple of eggs and you have a my contribution to society.
This a really great thread to trace college eating habits from the 60's on. When my mother and uncle went to college in the 30's, my grandmother packed a picnic basket full of home made goodies, took it to the train station at 9 in the morning, and it was in their hands around 1:00 PM– in time for lunch.
and then....
How about Ramen noodles at the age of 40 when bills cannot suffer, so you sacrifice for your kids.
You should travel to Asia? When you go to the grocery store, they have one isle with nothing but romen. I feel for you though. I lived off ramen for 5 years in college. (yes I was on the super senior plan...).
Flour tortilla with Taco Bell hot sauce rolled into a small burrito (an acquired taste).
Ramen noodles with sweet and sour sauce from McDonalds.
If I had extra money, then I'd buy store brand soda (blah!)
Mac n cheese with hot sauce packets (better than it sounds)
Bread with jelly packet
AHHH we had > mac N cheese with hotdogs sliced up in it and some nice cracked pepperr on top.
My mom made: Cabbage/Hamburge/Rice. You cook each, keep the oil from the beef and mix in and eat with soy sauce. Not had it in years. Our staple is brown rice, beans (on the rice with plenty of juice ladled on), diced tomato and onions on the beans and some nice corn bread (or wheat bread) with some nice tea.
Wegman's brand soda is actually quite good! And very cheap.
Condiment bar sandwiches – a packet of saltines with whatever other condiments are available squished between the two crackers. Places that served chili had the best condiments too – sour cream, shredded cheese, jalepenos. It was almost like real food.
Ohh I like this one! We did that with peanut butter and bananas.
I must say, if you grew up in Texas (south of Temple) the best pickens' for condiments was the Taco Cabana. They have a QUALITY condiment bar (jalapenos, salsa, chopped onions, etc). Buy some cheap tortillas from them, then raid the condiment bar...they knew me by name. Nowadays Taco Cabana is all over Texas, but it used to be more of a south Texas thang. PS: If you are paying $0.25 for ramen, you need to shop around. My personal best was $0.07 for a pack of ramen!
Ketchup sandwiches...
LOL Someone said KETCHUP SANDWICHES! I have been there man.
A-1 sandwiches too!
Ketchup sandwiches?! You folks are nuts. Mustard sandwich is the way to go.
My favorite filling meal was a pot of rice, a bag of frozen peas & carrots, another of frozen corn. When all of them were cooked, throw them together, add Durkee hot sauce and old bay seasoning. Yum!
I guess my college experience was slightly different. Our dining hall served tortuous things like London broil, crab cakes with orange remoulade, dijon crusted roast chicken, cranberry and apple glazed pork loin, and slow-cooked legs of lamb. I even had to suffer through servings of lobster, steak, and full Thanksgiving dinner spreads. It's safe to say that my best days of eating are behind me (sadly).
f u c k w a d
Did you go to Hogwarts?
haha not Hogwarts, but close enough. Went to a small school up in Maine called Bowdoin. Aside from our academics and graduates, we're famous for our food. But I'm now experiencing the joys of peanut butter/jelly sandwiches, cheap mac & cheese, and ramen that I missed out on back in college. Funny how things change.
Brunswick! Didn't go to college there but spend every summer in Maine.
Same here! We have (usually) great food! Yeah the soup is a little salty and the hamburgers a little burned sometimes, but there's some great stuff! Considering how much we pay for the meal plan, it better be good....
I dont think most of these college students have any idea how to shop. There are plenty of places to shop and find meals that will last a week for less then 20 dollars. Dollar tree, 99 cent store, and many other incarnations of 1 dollar or less stores are everywhere. With 20 dollars I could buy 1 of each of these items; speghetti & sauce/paste, frozen chicken (2 breast), bread, soda, spinach, tomatoes, potatoes, salad dressing, cereal, milk, peanut butter, fruit, canned soup, liter soda, eggs. Those items come up to 18 dollars before tax. The milk is the only exception at 99cent store (1 gallon=3 bucks). All other items were 1 dollar each. Frozen chicken can be found at dollar tree for 1 dollar. 20 dollars can buy enough food for at least 1 week or more depending on how you eat
Ok frozen chicken might feed you for one day. You have have nothing but change in your pocket trying to feed yourself for a week, less than 20 cent ramen goes a long way. You just have to have been there.
I am there... I am eating as normal as any other person. It just takes a bit of strategic shopping. Poor and non-college educated people have been doing it for years. College students should in theory be smart enough to manage a small budget. Well i guess they are managing but some of the meals just sound pretty bad. I know people who are in a much worse financial position then the average college student and they, like myself manage to eat well for less then 100 dollars a month. It is possible
I agree. I budgeted my cash and ate a pretty balanced diet in college. It may have been based on rice, bread, and flour tortillas. However seasonal veggies were cheap, chicken cutlets could be bought in bulk and frozen to last until next 2 weeks paycheck, eggs were less than two bucks. It wasn't that hard to stay within $20-30 for a week or so of food.
When we were first married, young, poor, and hit some hard times, I fed the family on a small turkey for a full week, along with other small amounts of staples I had. Sun, roast turkey, mashed potatoes (real ones...a bag goes much further than boxed), stuffing and veg. The next day, hot roast turkey sandwiches and the remainder of leftovers. Tues we had 'spaghetti o pollo', cheap sauce cooked with bits of turkey and a good helping of (dollar store) Parm mixed in, served over spaghetti. Wed I stewed what was left of the carcass, picked off all the meat and made a potpie with biscuit topping, carrots and peas and potatoes in it, just part of the broth and meat. Thurs I took cooked macaroni and little bits of leftover cooked veggis or a can or bag of this or that, put in a dish with the mac and gravy and baked it like a casserole. Friday I tool all that was left, meat, potatoes, vegs and made a shepherds pie kind of dinner, along with the leftover spa sauce mixed in with the meat and baked it. Everyone ate well, different meal every night, warm and comforting dinners. When I got my check the next day and said I was going grocery shopping, my husband begged me to please 'bring him home some red meat.' lol. But it was an interesting experience in what you could do what you had. Gifted turkey and the rest, probably $20 worth of veg, potatoes, pasta etc.
Art school? How's that working out for you, lol
obviously pretty well, nice try though
How's it working out? She's writing pieces for CNN and you're writing "soundoffs."
Good job Monkeyman! I am also an art student who hasn't received my BFA yet with a $25 an hour job. I'm 19, live alone in a 2 bedroom house, no parental support, and doing just fine. Not to mention commission art and art show $$$ :) Don't be so soon to judge one of those "pointless" majors. I do what I love.. when I WANT to for big money.
I'd buy a huge bag of white rice and dried pinto beans, and a bag of corn tortillas and steal hot sauce from taco bell, and that was it, pretty much all I ate for years.
During the 60's I lived on spaghetti cooked much longer than "al dente" tossed with margarine, dried parsley flakes, parmesan cheese packets, and lots of salt. Still cook this for myself sometimes. Also did the bread and cheese in aluminum foil crushed under a hot iron in the dormitory where we were forbidden to cook. My "ahhhhh" moment came when a huge black man who ran a small fried chicken shop explained to me how to write a check on my mother's account for less than $1. I then could buy–once a week–a piece of fried chicken with fries and a biscuit and write a check for 97 cents. Life was good!!!!
liar
I would buy one big box of American cheese, ketchup, mayonnaise, bread and flour tortillas, and then make: a grilled cheese sandwich with ketchup, an open-faced toasted cheese sandwich, a cheese and mayonnaise sandwich, or cheese crisps (melted cheese on flour tortillas). Splurges = Old Dutch Potato Chips and Top the Tater Chive and Onion Sour Cream.
Oh the early 70's at UWF...no ramen back then...
Tomato soup: "free" ketchup packet + hot water (maybe a packet of "free" crackers)
Lemonade: "free" packet of lemon juice + cold water (optional "free" sugar packet)
Mustard AND mayo (from "free" packets) on "free" crackers
White rice or elbow noodles cooked in tomato water (diluted "free" ketchup packet)
Ironed mustard and mayo ("free" packets) sandwiches on "day old" stale bread (mold was optional)
Cheapest can of baked beans mixed with chopped baloney, spam or hot dogs
In 1970 Top Ramen was sold in the U.S. by Nissan Foods.
when ramens have cooked add the seasoning packet/stir/chop up a tomato/then add whorcestershire.omg!
do not cook tomato, the heat from ramens will handle it and they will still taste fresh.