What do children from other countries really eat?

[Hostamum]

We have a Spanish girl staying at the moment. So I stocked up on lots of delicious fruit and salad, thinking she would be used to a typical mediterranean diet and planned a week of delicious home cooked food such a lamb tagine with couscous, fish, etc etc.

So far she has eaten a Mac Chicken burger, white bread salami sandwich, no salad, no veg, only fizzy drinks ..... No amount of tempting her to tasty tomatoes etc etc has worked.

Whenever we have been to France the child menu has always consisted of burger and chips.

I'm a bit surprised really that countries that have such amazing cuisines seem to have such seemingly unadventurous young eaters.

Maybe she wants to try food that she don't have regularly?!

We had european students, most of them didn't eat a single piece of fruit or veg in an entire week.

How old is she? Tbh - although there aren't really 'kids meals' in Spain, I think youngsters/kids can eat quite a lot of rubbish. Huge amounts of sugar (Haribo, etc), crisps and processed sugary snacks like doughnuts and pastries.

For family meals they generally eat a range of 'proper food' but more salad than vegetables and meals tend to be quite meat, bread and potato heavy. The also eat in courses rather than one big meal as we do in the UK.

The older generation eat more healthily I think - especially fruit and salad. Loads of tomatos and olive oil/vinegar-drenched salads! Then a big melon sliced up for pudding.

Best to just ask what sort of food she likes. I've found that pasta is always a winner for Spanish teens, and meat/potato meals. Also things with eggs (such as omelettes)...

Something like a tagine or stew is likely to horrify her tbh! Only my experience, but I've found that many Spanish are not very adventurous when it comes to other cuisines, or food they haven't tried before! They think Spanish food is the best, and although it can be fairly simple - it's often very time consuming to prepare (like cocida for example).

When I did my first Christmas dinner in Spain they were all bemused by roast potatoes as they'd only had fried before! 😂

tapas

If you want to give her a little familiarity, you could make albóndigas - which are meatballs made with beef and pork mince, and are good with pasta (or more usually on their own with bread or fried potatoes).

Also something v simple like huevos rotos - where you pan-fry chorizo, then remove it and in the flavoured oil fry sliced new potatoes with paprika, add the chorizo back in and then serve with a fried egg on top! 😬

Generally tray-baked, flavoured meats (chicken/pork) are popular, though nothing spicy. Rosemary, olive oil, lemon all go down well and you can serve with roast potatoes or salad.

Spanish family food is very plain in my experience e.g. salad or cooked vegetables (maybe in a stock or creamed) for a starter, followed by plain grilled meat maybe with potatoes or rice and then a yoghurt or fruit for pud. France just same as adults or - as you said burger and chips. Although the burger would not be recognised as a burger by my DC! (large chunk of medium rare seasoned minced meat).

That's funny because we're always told in mn how much better European children are, eat better, behave better, less obesity. Hmm

I went to a wedding in madrid. They like children at weddings in Spain we all had fish, meat tapas, when the children's food came it was a plate of beige. Chicken nuggets, pizza, fries. I was quite surprised by this. My Spanish SIL cooks beige too for her fussy eaters.

We had a Spanish exchange student who came to stay with us. I asked her when she arrived if there was anything she really didn’t like to eat and she said vegetables. We’re vegetarian.
Fortunately the college catchment area is huge and so I spent most of the week driving DD and her around to meet the other students and so they ate out a lot. DD said McDonalds was the most popular venue.

@StealthPolarBear - I think mainland Europe is catching up on obesity! The children in the village here eat A LOT of sugar compared to their UK peers and parents are waiting at the school gates with doughnuts and sweets. There are no lunchbox police!

However - in my experience people also have a far more outdoors lifestyle (as the weather is better), so much more running around in parks, on bikes, playgrounds, etc. It feels a bit like the 70s/80s as parents just sit with a beer and let the kids all run around in a pack in the square, park, playground, etc! It's a nice life for kids. Kids seem to stay children longer - the 15/16 year olds are more like 12/13 at home, less tech-obsession, less attitude. They are very respectful of adults here and it isn't intimidating to walk past gangs of teens as it sometimes can be at home.

And as was mentioned - in Spain, people actually like children! 😂 Instead of being a 2nd class citizen in the UK, here you are elevated! Every little old lady/man, rubs their hair, tells them "que guapa" and often tries to give them sweets! 😳😂