JoAnne at Cosmic Variance discusses graduate student culinary experiences inspired by this article in Symmetry Magazine.*
Jonathan Bagger, a Physicist at Johns Hopkins reminisces about his grad student days: “I lived with four housemates in Princeton. We had an ongoing competition to see who could make the cheapest meal. The winner, at 17 cents a serving, was pigs’ feet. Not cooked the way pigs’ feet normally are, but simply broiled.”
At least some people can recall their grad student eating experiences (then again, are these experiences you necessarily want to recall?). For me, several years are a complete blank although Kieran may want to remind me – having shared offices for a couple of years – that junk food does not equal blank. What saved me was a fellowship in my fourth and fifth years that came with money to be spent at the student center cafeteria. It was more money than you could possibly want to spend in the dining hall so you ended up inviting friends. That was a nice perk. Unfortunately, it was only after my fellowship with that program had run out that we realized you could spend those points in the faculty dining room eating good meals. Not that I’m complaining. At least I had some regularity in my eating habits for those two years.
[*] If I didn’t happen to own symmetry.org they could have a much cooler URL.
{ 20 comments }
Chris Bertram 01.18.06 at 10:12 am
Oatmeal!
From Rae, “Life of Adam Smith”:http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Rae/raeLS6.html :
bq. It was then very common for Scotch students to bring with them from home at the beginning of the session as much oatmeal as would keep them till the end of it, and by an ancient privilege of the University they were entitled to bring this meal with them into the city without requiring to pay custom on it; but in 1757 those students were obliged by the tacksman of the meal-market to pay custom on their meal, though it was meant for their own use alone. Smith was appointed along with Professor Muirhead to go and represent to the Provost that the exaction was a violation of the privileges of the University, and to demand repayment within eight days, under pain of legal proceedings. And at the next meeting of Senate “Mr. Smith reported that he had spoken to the Provost of Glasgow about the ladles exacted by the town from students for meal brought into the town for their own use, and that the Provost promised to cause what had been exacted to be returned, and that accordingly the money was offered by the town’s ladler to the students.”
Mo MacArbie 01.18.06 at 10:59 am
Rice n’ Stuff. A half cup of rice. About halfway through throw in some kind of frozen vegetable or sliced hot dog.
Fancy variation: add a bullion cube.
abb1 01.18.06 at 11:04 am
Top Ramen
Kieran Healy 01.18.06 at 11:22 am
For me, several years are a complete blank although Kieran may want to remind me
I just want to point out that I am neither causally nor morally responsible for any years-long blanks in Eszter’s memory.
J Thomas 01.18.06 at 11:33 am
Where I live, you can’t get pig’s feet at 17 cents a serving any more. It would be more like 65 cents.
But if you shop around the asian markets you can get rice at 45 cents a pound provided you buy at least 25 pounds of it. And you can get lentils at 30 cents a pound in 50 pound bags. That will feed 6 for 75 cents.
Most of the traditional loweer-class foods have gotten expensive here. Beef heart is $2 a pound, kidney is $1.85, etc. Most beans are 85 cents a pound in one-pound bags. Most pasta is $1 a pound, though there are occasional sales at half that. Powdered milk costs more than the equivalent in fresh skimmed milk. But the cheapest tuna fish is only 65 cents a can.
dasmoment 01.18.06 at 11:34 am
cheapest I managed was: free.
so i was doing an MA in norwich when the dollar first took a dive against the pound. suddenly all of my money for the year was gone–sucked into the abyss of uneven exchange. I made adjustments (changed dorms, started volunteering at the grad pub for free beer and crisps, etc) and moved to beans on toast full-time. then salvation arrived by way of an ad requesting test subjects for a medical student’s graduate work. To study the absorption of various vitamins and minerals, I was fed a controlled diet for a week, followed by one day of meals laced with some kind of trace elements. This happened 3 times, with a week off between each ‘session’. and the food was good! damn good. better than I’d ever eaten on a regular basis. and it was delivered to my door daily. which was easy, since they were coming to pick up my own delivery for them at the same time. see, they didn’t just take blood (tho they did plenty of that). During each week of free food, I had to collect absolutely everything that came out of me. Fluids were easy, and hell, solids weren’t even that hard, what with the contraption they gave me. But I did have to attend classes with two different sterile containers in my bags.
oh, and during each week of free food I also couldn’t drink, or let anything else into my system other than what they gave me. that was the hardest part.
yoyo 01.18.06 at 11:42 am
Earlier this week I actually priced out how much it would cost to live per day (ie price per 3,000 calories) on some of the staples i buy.
flour was the cheapest at $1.22, so i’ve decided i should be making more bread.
$1.87 rice
$2.24 olive oil
$2.25 beans
$2.50 tortillas
$4.17 eggs
$4.50 potatos
$5.70 bananas
$5.73 milk
$5.73 almonds
rc 01.18.06 at 11:46 am
One can pay considerably more than 17c per serving if it’s called “salade de pieds de cochon panés, boudin fermier et pissenlits”.
otto 01.18.06 at 11:59 am
It’s one of the oddities of US universities that – despite their enormous resources- there’s no cheap eatery/mensa type system to make sure everyone gets 1 or 2 good honest meals a day at next to no cost. The meal plan at e.g. Harvard is $10+ a meal, whereas at e.g. the European University Institute in Florence (and, I think, lots of other places in Italy and indeed Germany) you can have 2 good courses for $3-4. Alas, on all other criteria, you’d better getting getting your PhD in the states.
C.J.Colucci 01.18.06 at 12:15 pm
Spaghetti carbonara was filling, nutritious (when supplemented by a salad), and cheap. I had it several times a week.
duane 01.18.06 at 12:15 pm
Jam or Vegemite on Weetbix. Luxury version: with butter. Surprisingly good if you are hungry enough.
Henry 01.18.06 at 12:30 pm
Ah, the EUI mensa … about as decent as university food can get, I think. Certainly, the coffee was unparalleled (albeit the service extraordinarily surly, until Francesca had decided that you merited a minimum of politeness – as my supervisor noted, this was the moment when you truly arrived in San Domenico).
Eszter 01.18.06 at 12:34 pm
I just want to point out that I am neither causally nor morally responsible for any years-long blanks in Eszter’s memory.
:-) You’re off the hook, as I said, it’s all a big blank, at least regarding meals. I like to think I retained something in other realms. And although you’d be too modest to realize, in the intellectual realm you are at least to some degree causally even if not morally responsible.
otto 01.18.06 at 12:55 pm
Absolutely correct on EUI coffee – though they had a disappointing inclination towards serving the espresso in plastic mini-cups, to save on the washing I suppose…
Simstim 01.18.06 at 2:59 pm
No-one appears to have mentioned that staple of the British student diet: beans on toast. Especially as supermarkets tend to sell baked beans and white bread as loss leaders.
JR 01.18.06 at 3:43 pm
When I lived alone in one room with no money, I used to buy liver, at 25 cents a pound, and keep it in my little freezer. At dinnertime, I would hold the liver over the edge of the kitchen table and whack it with a hammer. A chunk would break off and skitter across the floor. I would retrieve the chunk, thaw it under the tap (while rinsing off the dust bunnies), broil it in the toaster oven, and eat it on rye bread with store-brand ketchup.
vivian 01.18.06 at 9:57 pm
Chris (#1): My mother-in-law tells of her lab-mate at U Manchester who hit on the idea of living on porridge oats for two meals a day to save money. Somewhere in the second week she discovered the noxioux gas problem, and unable to solve it, gave up. I’ll pass on the history you provide.
RS 01.19.06 at 12:04 am
I found bulk ramen noodles combined with scraps from the soup-bin vegetables, with some curry for taste, to be quite a good deal. Not sure what the cost was, but I was living on 6K a year at the time… Ah, graduate school!
lalala 01.19.06 at 10:21 pm
IIRC, you always maintained your chocolate habit, Eszter. And made cherry soup occasionally. But this does not speak to the everyday.
Eszter 01.19.06 at 10:45 pm
YRC, lalala, but that’s almost too basic to count.:) I rarely had time to cook for myself, but the cherry soup is actually a pretty inexpensive yet very yummy option. For anyone interested, the recipe is here. (Thanks, Mom!)
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