I can't remember when I first walked into a student kitchen. I think it was about the time I was trying to decide which university I would grace with my presence. While my idealistic contemporaries were looking round departments and libraries, saying "ooh", "ah", and "oh yeah" (in a febrile attempt to look like they were cynical-as-hell and had seen all this before), I headed for the living quarters. Spend half a decade at boarding school and you soon learn what shapes your life. Lecturers may pretend that the size of the library will alter your perception, but not being able to sleep or eat will change it a damn sight more.

The second thing that struck me - the first was the Withnalian squalor, obviously - was the lack of variety on the student menu. I can't tell you much about the moral fibre or intellect of the inmates of Unspecified College London, but you could see at a glance that if people are what they eat, they were all floppy and tasteless. Yes, it was pasta asciutta. Mountains of it. And sauce - let's not be unfair. The cupboards revealed a collection of half-used Dolmio jars that virtually constituted conceptual art.

Why do students consume so much of the stuff? When Cas Clarke's informative Grub on a Grant first came out it sold like, well, pasta. But no-one can have ever done anything other than look at it, or possibly organised a student reading group. In all my years as a student, the mainstay of university cuisine for those too lazy, poor, or sensible to eat in halls has been the Italian staple. There are a number of rational explanations. It's cheap, filling, adaptable and cooking it is unlikely to tax anyone with a mental age above four. But it's also what Italians eat to fill themselves up so they can save on the expense of meat. So, in that respect, it's a bit like walking into the Halls at Bologna University to find them all chewing on Yorkshire Pudding.

The main problem with pasta is that it's terribly easy to cook, but even easier to overcook. When trying to boil the best strategy is to put in a "tasting handful" so you can keep on ensuring that it hasn't gone flaccid. Always remember that the cooking times on the packet are a bit like the Ten Commandments; sometimes applicable, but probably mistranslated.

The difficulty encountered by any food that crosses cultures is that it undergoes a change of purpose halfway, which is why we'll happily pay through the nose for other countries' peasant fare. Example? Mussels. Go to Normandy, they're cheap and plentiful, and found in most cafes. Over here? You get the gist. Pasta has the reverse problem. Having emigrated, it's dropped a social class or two.

Notwithstanding what I said before about it being a filler food - which is true in Italian home cooking - in restaurants they take a very different approach. The portions are small, often with a bewildering array of ingredients. It's served between the antipasti and the main course, so I suppose - if you need an analogy - it's the fish course of a restaurant meal. Without a silly knife. Here, you're most likely to find it belaboured with tasteless tomato, those all-purpose "Italian Herbs", and some garlic, if you're lucky.

So where's the halfway point? Many of the cookery-is-the-new-rock-and-roll brigade have been doing some interesting things with pasta, but their seafood-and-burnt-sienna approach can get pricey, so you need to think a bit more laterally. An interesting alternative to carbonara can be to fry up some small chunks of chorizo sausage with finely chopped garlic until it darkens, then mix in with the pasta, before pouring a couple of beaten eggs over the lot. Then continue to cook until the egg thickens (but don't let it scramble). You'll end up with a spicy, creamy coating, which complies with the "filling" element, but tastes like something that would impress your mother.

Alternatively, if you regard eating flesh as right up there with being a member of the Tory Party, you can fry four minced cloves of garlic in a lot of nice olive oil, stir in a handful of torn fresh basil and then add to the pasta, before sprinkling over crushed walnuts. Or almonds, come to that. Easy. And then, if you're very lucky, your dinner guests may end up saying things like "ooh", or "ah". Or possibly even "Oh, yeah". And mean it.

· Jamie Douglass is a student at Cambridge University