Where's My Spice Grinder?

Nielsen Media Research does not track viewership in dormitories, so it is impossible to know which shows college students are watching. But Judy Girard, Food Network's president, said, ''We do know that they are watching.''

''The first time we became aware of them as a force was with 'Iron Chef,' '' Ms. Girard added. ''We found that they were playing 'Iron Chef' games on campus, and doing 'Iron Chef' competitions on the Web site.''

Students are writing about food and forming clubs, too. ''The Tastemasters of Virginia,'' a dining club at the University of Virginia, was organized by Philip Racusin, a senior who is studying marketing. Some members are in charge of making reservations, and others are specialists in realms like seafood or desserts. When the group dines out, each member takes notes on his meal, and one person writes a review.

''I thought we could take the love of food and turn it into a cohesive club and share our love of food,'' Mr. Racusin said. ''And when you're in a forum like that, you get all sorts of new ideas, like what to cook and places to go.''

Similarly, Thomas Mucha, a senior at Harvard, has put together a wine club, which meets early on Friday evenings in the dining hall at Winthrop House. ''It's not especially ritualized,'' Mr. Mucha said. Wines cost $8 to $15. The group talks about its color, they swirl it around and stick their noses in the glass.

''Since none of us are experts,'' Mr. Mucha said, ''it's really just to learn, O.K., this is such and such a wine. What are its characteristics? Is it spicy? Is it fruity? Is it a good wine?'' They have tasted pinot biancos from Alto Adige and rossos di Montalcino from Tuscany.

''We have a philosophy that this is something worth learning,'' Mr. Mucha said.

There are countless food-oriented groups on campuses that are not so formally organized. Sadie Stein, a senior at the University of Chicago who has written a personal and instructive column in Chicago Weekly News, one of the university's newspapers, has also taught cooking classes to her friends, showing them how to roast a chicken, bake a cake and make salad dressing.

''I've always been a big cooking geek,'' said Ms. Stein, who began as a teenager, reading Laurie Colwin's ''Home Cooking.'' For what Ms. Stein calls a ''simple'' dinner party recently, she butterflied a chicken and roasted it with potatoes, onions, rosemary and garlic and had pannacotta for dessert.

''I suppose it's never been obligatory for this generation to cook,'' Ms. Stein said. ''Yet we're in a society that's very aware of good food and there's more and more availability of quality food.''

This has put tremendous pressure on dining hall food service companies to adapt. ''We see things hitting the college campus before they reach the rest of the consumers we serve,'' said Maisie Ganzler, the spokeswoman for Bon Appétit Management Company, an on-site restaurant concern that serves 75 schools. ''When we look at what trends we want in our corporate food service in the future we actually look at what's happening on college campuses.''

Students today want to see the food from raw material to finished product so food service companies have replaced steam tables and kitchens behind swinging doors with open kitchens, with stations where students can watch their food being cooked and where they can have input on how much coconut sauce is added to their curry.

Campuses like Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Portland State University, Yale and Bates College are considered early adapters, where foods and styles of service can be tested. Right now, Berkeley College at Yale, is trying out a program dedicated to using foods that are local, seasonal and organic. It was requested by a student group and has had support from all levels of the administration, including from Yale's president, Richard C. Levin. At Oberlin College, students have requested that only organic milk be served. The salad bar at Evergreen State College in Washington is now 95 percent organic.

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