Student life at Cambridge is odd, from the confusing complexities of the college system,  to terms so short you question the point of ever leaving home in the first place. But it is the living arrangements, and in particular the cooking facilities available, that truly take the biscuit – no pun intended. 

Firstly, you have the option of securing your scran from a wood-panelled hall lined with frowning old men, questioning your decision to get both chips and sautéed potatoes in one sitting. But if you don’t fancy being judged by these immortalised academics or eating nosh flavoured solely with salt (if you’re lucky enough to get any seasoning at all), your only other option is to muster up a masterpiece in your student kitchen.

Remembering this is Cambridge, this isn’t actually a kitchen but is instead referred to as a ‘gyp’ for reasons I do not know nor care to ever find out – and there’s no guarantee that your gyp is even going to be functional. Got a microwave? Great! Now try and use this contraption to heat up your Alphabetti Spaghetti just as someone else enters wanting to boil the kettle, leaving you to fight over the single available socket. Now imagine doing this in a room more apt to being labelled a cupboard. One step to the right and you’ll be making awkward physical contact with your fellow chef. No one wants that. 

I have been to colleges with frankly unnecessarily large kitchens, but these pose their own dangers. Ten people sharing one space? The odds on being able to pop in at an ungodly hour to curb that craving for tortellini without being witnessed are low. It’s clear that whatever their arrangement, using kitchens in Cambridge always entails some form of trial.

I have not been without my own difficulties – I started Cambridge as a meek, uncertain fresher, but as the year went on, my confidence in all areas of life began to spring up. Sadly, my new found confidence got the better of me when it came to the kitchen. My attempt to cook fresh chicken in the microwave ended with me marinating an entire staircase with the scent of burnt electrics and a chicken fillet somehow more raw than when I had first put it in, sending me cowering back to the buttery until the end of term.

Things have improved. Since moving into offsite accommodation for second year, we have been granted the gift of hobs (not ovens though, that would be far too kind). This has inevitably resulted in a lining of charred food remains coating the worktops, along with smashes of cutlery at regular intervals. Yet our new arrangements have brought with them many triumphs. It appears that with this minor improvement to facilities, we may all just manage to survive another year.

So, glossing over what may have been a weak bout of food poisoning three days after arriving back, I would say my new start to student cooking life has been an undeniable success. I have only managed to slice my finger once on a dropped wine glass (meaning I’ll be taking mugs to pre-drinks from here on in), burnt just two slices of toast and ruined only a few friendships with the dodgy looks I give to their ‘pasta’ concoctions. But I remain alive and thriving, and that alone is a feat in such a testing environment.

It’s when someone comes in from the corridor to tell you the place smells ‘insane’ that you know you’ve truly made it in the student kitchen and believe me, my ego has been continuously swelling ever since. I am, at this point, quite literally unstoppable.