Headache, fatigue and a metaphysical hunger for chocolate: the sure signs of sugar withdrawal, and during Pesach 2002, in post-industrial Wisconsin, I had to settle for potato chips and jelly.

Potato chips and jelly. Yep, you heard me. Picture an 18 year old New York-Jewish co-ed with a history of cookie eating and a mom who’s not so good at the whole care package thing. Now combine that with a supermarket kosher section that could fit 80,000 times in the space of this period. I needed something, man, and the matzoh I’d horded from the Madison supermarket one hour’s drive away just wasn’t cutting it anymore.

Not everyone’s as hard up as I was in Beloit. Some colleges have Hillel or Chabad to organize meals and services. Some are even lucky enough to have a chapter of Challah for Hunger, a Hazon-supported program that bakes and sells hundreds of loaves of challah on campuses around the country every Friday, and uses the proceeds to benefit hunger and disaster relief and victims of genocide. I spoke to four students connected with CfH about being a Jewish co-ed at the high holidays, and found that while the culture shock hasn’t changed much, the reaction to it has.

“I think I just figured there would be more Jewish culture here than I’ve actually found.” said Rachel Hamburg, a Pomona student. It was a sentiment echoed by the other students, “I’ve met several people who have never met anyone Jewish before.” said Rachel Krow-Boniske of Willamette University in Oregon, “On my first Friday here, when I decided to make challah, I found myself having to explain what challah is and its significance to every person who saw me making it.”

In addition to homemade challah, Mollie at UVM will have back-yard honey at her Rosh Hashanah meal this year. “We now have our own bee hives from the beekeeping club we started.” she tells me, referring to the vegan co-op in which she lives. “We also have our own apple trees outside on the lawn of our house–so we will have completely local, raw, organic and happy apples dipped in the most beautiful honey!”

Rachel at Pomona came from Berkley, CA, where food was an enormous part of her Jewish identity. “The best way I have found to “recreate” my food traditions is to talk to other Jews about them” she said. But it probably helps, too that Rachel runs the Challah for Hunger chapter at her college, overseeing the production of “a couple hundred loaves of challah each week.” “I get my fill of Jewish food” she says.

In addition to the student’s DIY holiday meals, many large universities have Chabad or Hillel on campus to fill in for home-town communities. “I love going [to Chabad] for Shabbat dinners” says Mollie, “because of the delicious traditional foods and the welcoming atmosphere.” At her vegan co-op, “we grow some of our own food but also buy in bulk from Vermont farmers.” she says, “This gives me an incredible opportunity to cook and eat sustainably and ethically grown foods…” and it also lets her share with other students “we usually host a Hillel vegan potluck Shabbat dinner once per semester” she says, and the house helps Chabad run a vegan Shabbat as well.

It’s not all apples and honey, and I heard a lot of stories that echoed my own. Professors schedule movie nights on Erev Yom Kippur, and well-meaning school cafeterias put the Pesach Matzoh on a shelf with the sandwich bread. All of it challenges and changes traditions, and for me, at least, it forced me to prove to myself what my holiday traditions meant to me. Not every tradition survived, but I found that ones surrounding food, both permissions and restrictions, were among the strongest.

Food might be the most accessible aspect of any culture, and these students have spread more than carbs around their campuses through Challah for Hunger. “I would like to say that it gives people a way to tie Judaism and giving together–to understand tikkun olam.” says Rachel Hamburg, and “the head chef of the dining services… has taken to challah with enthusiasm.” It also connects Rachel to her roots in sustainability. “I think about how my ancestors probably ate sustainably… Like the apples and honey of yore were probably not chalk full of pesticides.”

What these students have that I didn’t is the power to use cooking and baking skills to take their traditions in their own hands, and the best thing about these skills is that they’re portable. Leah Isquith, of Emory University, will be hosting her first Rosh Hashanah dinner this year. “Now that Challah for Hunger has taught me how to make a perfect challah, we are half-way there!” she says.