AIBU to be annoyed he thinks my food is disgusting?

[WontEatMyFood]

Would you be offended if someone consistently didn't like your food?

For context, we have a 15 year old Spanish boy staying with us and each night pretty much his whole dinner goes in the bin. He also doesn't appear to eat any vegetables as he'll always pointedly pick them out and push them to the side of his plate.

He's with us three months now and it's actually making me dislike him!

I wouldn't mind but I really enjoy cooking and I actively have an interest in it so I know my meals are generally pretty tasty and they're also very varied (not modest I know!). Typical meals I'd make are; spag bol, roasts with all the trimmings, thai food, indian curries, pork casserole with apple, chicken florentine, pasta linguine, bean and sausage casseroles amongst many other things!

The only meals he appears to have liked are burgers and steak which he wolfed down like a savage.

Oh and he never says thank you for a meal.

He's giving me the rage! But I need to get a grip don't I?

Why is it either/or? Why is it difficult to add two/three dinners a week that he enjoys or let him help himself to what he likes and leave him to it?

It’s possible that in Spain the boy’s parents make him eat healthy food and they rarely have pizza, burgers and chips at home. He might have heard some rubbish story about Brits eating a lot of junk every day, so being a naive teenager he thought he would try his luck and mentioned on the official exchange papers he loved chips etc.. But now he is disappointed about the lack of shit he was hoping to scoff on a daily basis.
Of course a teenage boy would say he loves junk if asked. These foods are okay in moderation as a treat but nobody in their right mind would feed their kids this diet regularly.

This is directed more towards some of the replies than you, OP, as they are so unkind, uncaring and honestly some are even xenophobic.

What on earth is wrong with some of you? It's about time you woke up and realise the UK NEEDS Europe a hell of a lot more than the other way around!!!

Making teenagers who have come to learn more about this country feel unwelcome and hungry for months is NOT the way to encourage good relationships for the future. 😕

I agree on not plating up and I said this earlier in the thread too but the OP is actually already doing 2 dinners a week he enjoys and has updated to say she will do more

Just to clarify a few things; we have pizza once a week, well the kids do on Fridays, and we'd usually have burgers maybe once a fortnight and then steak maybe every three weeks or so.

A bean and sausage casserole to a Spanish person would be vile lol. Have you asked him what he would like. Imagine having food plonked in front of you that you have no control over and dislike. I feel sorry for him it must be awful.

@Cinecitta there is a simple solution to all this, JUST dont be a host when you are not capable of being one!! Stop asking a poor exchange student to eat your crap everyday. You wouldnt want to eat soome one else's food to their tastes all the time, why expect a poor teenager to do that. If OP cant manage her kids that her problem not the poor teenagers issue. I think you are so detached from other people and have zero empathy that you dont understand how difficult it must be for the teenager to sit there with food he cannot eat.

The comment was more towards Cincetta who thinks the teen is choosing to be difficult and people are making excuses for him.

I’m glad OP is agreeing to make more because 7-8 dinners out of 30/31 wasn’t much of a compromise.

I have eaten that meal in Spain in a traditional restaurant. It was butter beans and chorizo, it's very common.

A sausage and bean casserole is not ‘awful’ or ‘vile’ - how rude and yes can be traditionally Spanish.

The irony is I'm sure all those insisting this poor kid needs to shut up and eat foreign meals he doesn't like are the same lot that go on a Spanish holiday and stuff themselves with British sausages, bacon, sandwiches, pasta, chips, and ice cream at a resort which intentionally caters to an English palate.

Oh come on!

It[s quite clear the OP is not doing a traditional Spanish one. I doubt she can even properly pronounce "chorizo" never mind cook them.

She sounds like the sort who buys cheap processed sausages from the supermarket and feels a sense of satisfaction if they avoid exploding in the oven.

Also love that people are acting as if sausage and beans and spal bol are the height of international cuisine 😂

The irony is I'm sure all those insisting this poor kid needs to shut up and eat foreign meals he doesn't like are the same lot that go on a Spanish holiday and stuff themselves with British sausages, bacon, sandwiches, pasta, chips, and ice cream at a resort which intentionally caters to an English palate.

Yeah of course - and the posters who embrace the local cuisine when abroad are sure to be the ones saying - oh just feed him pizza and chips. Definitely.

@MumtherofCats I was thinking as someone of immigrant parents the same thing. English people love describing themselves in the kitchens as foodies, then serve abominations of international food. Spaghetti ball and sausages to me sound like grim student food

Spaghetti ball

What on earth is spaghetti ball?

Can't believe some of the answers on here! I did a few foreign exchanges as a teenager and would not have dreamt of refusing food. It's basic manners. Ok they weren't months at a time but still.

Having said that, I'd compromise and maybe make some basic dishes a few times a week. Or hand him a pan and some eggs.

That's a lot of speculation.

@Fairislefandango maybe or maybe not, but at least either way they wouldn't be hypocrites! 😂

The OP probably is a good cook making typical British family meals and personally I would happily eat everything on her menu.

But for a teen who is away from home, maybe a bit fussy and not entirely sure what is being served to him, mixed up one pot meals like casseroles and curries are probably a bit off putting!

A good compromise would be serving food to the table and letting everyone plate up themselves, having pasta with a plain sauce on the side sometimes (eg penne with a tomato sauce, baked chicken thighs and broccolli all separate) and doing a few more simple dishes.

I expect if the OP tried cooking something more traditionally Spanish (well, she said she'd tried paella - a dish often done wrong) then he still wouldn't eat it if it wasn't the way his family makes it. She's probably on a hiding to nothing unless she serves up burger and pizza every night and she doesn't want to do this for her family. Yes, try to do more to suit his taste but mainly try to engage him in (simple) conversation about food and other stuff. You can be a better host and he could be a better guest.

but would you do this with your own 15 yo teens? It's not exactly uncommon for kids this age to vastly prefer junk food - it doesn't mean that's ALL we would ever serve them!

I'm sorry, I can't believe that a neurotypical 15 yr old is literally incapable of eating anything other than pizza, steak and burgers! 😂 I'm sure my own son would greatly prefer if if I served up the same every night but I like him to have a more balanced diet and pizza, steak and burgers are fairly costly for every night. Do people on here genuinely think the OP should just whack another pizza in the oven every day??

He's presumably on a cultural exchange of some sort and therefore he needs to branch out a bit and try things he's unfamiliar with. I remember being on a French exchange when I was 15. The food was mostly fairly plain but there were meat dishes I'd never come across and I wasn't that keen on. You know what? I tried them, probably left a lot of it, but didn't want to seem rude. They kept on putting these bowls of what I thought were boiled hazelnuts on the table - they were bland and mealy and I ate a few. Turns out they were undressed chickpeas! (this was the 80's, chickpeas hadn't been invented in most UK households.) The point being - he's meant to be experiencing life in the UK. He IS being quite rude, though my Iberian half can tell you that there are slightly different cultural norms for expressing gratitude for food. But mostly I think he's being an ungrateful 15 yr old boy. 3 months sounds like a looong time - for OP and for him.

Im
assuming he’s here to learn the language ? I’m assuming he’s able to communicate?
you may need to tell him to say thank you
you also need to ask him what he would like to eat each day . Make a weekly menu and get him to write in it what he would like . Maybe take him to supermarket to choose .maybe there is tinned and jar things he’d rather have .
he needs to to shops as part of the exchange anyway

Does ANY other country plate food up? In Scandinavia you take food yourself, that could also be an issue.
yhe whole situation is so odd I think. The boy is 15, there just be a say to Communicate with him about what he will happily eat.

It's not exactly uncommon for kids this age to vastly prefer junk food - it doesn't mean that's ALL we would ever serve them!

Exactly. If my nearly 15 yo ds went to stay in Spain for 3 months and told his hosts that what he liked was pizzas and burgers, I'd be pretty horrified if they let him eat junk for the duration of his stay. Not to mention seriously unimpressed with him for getting them to do so.

My parents always did and still do; we have lived in Ireland and Australia.