What do I feed our French Exchange Student?

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We have a 14YO French girl arriving next week. What are some good meals to serve? And also some packed lunch ideas?

We'll have fish & chips one night, I'll do roast beef & Yorkshire puddings and a full English breakfast too. I'll also make sure I have shortbread & marmite for her to try.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Toad in the hole?
Crumpets?
I’m struggling to come up with things that they might not have tried

Is course, toad in the hole, how could I have forgotten! I'm also adding by crumpets to my list.

I have heard Nutella and chocolate breakfast cereal is popular too.

Sorry to be boring, but just feed her what you'd normally cook! She's coming to experience normal English life, not a stereotype. And if she's homesick at all, she'll probably find a load of unfamiliar food to be overwhelming.

I think it's fine to plan a couple of things but not the whole week :)

Im not looking to overwhelm her with strange foods just some ideas of what's been well received from other exchange students thanks anyway @BertieBotts

Curry night?

OP what do you think might be overwhelming? Teenagers are teenagers. Obviously junk food will go down a treat but that’s not what they’re coming for.

I loved my French exchange precisely because of things like the different foods. Don’t worry about changing things up too much in my opinion. & don’t give them Nutella- they can get that at home.

I'm not sure it really helps with your original question but this article is interesting. Serve lots of salad and don't cut it with a knife!

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/food52.com/blog/19867-don-t-cut-lettuce-with-a-table-knife-and-other-french-salad-eating-rules/amp

Can't go wrong with pasta, pizza, roast chicken.

Can't go wrong with pasta, pizza, roast chicken.

This.
It's scary enough joining a family for dinner.

French onion soup and frogs legs 😆

I disagree with Romaine, eat as you normally do - that is what she is coming to the UK for - to have a cultural experience of the UK.

Based on DH's stories of his exchange in the UK when he was a teenager, she might not react will to traditional British food (his stories of being given beans on toast for the first time in his life is hilarious).

I'd just eat normally but have a stash of cheese and meats with bread in case they don't like what is offered. Not because they are French - because they are a teenager!

I don't think marmite will go down well. I don't know any non Brits who eat it (and not all that many Brits who do bit they are just mad).

I'd take her for a curry - you don't have an Indian and a Chinese in every little village like we do over here!

Fajitas? Shepherd's pie? Pie, chips, gravy?

Have you thought about puddings yet?

Has to be toad in the hole and spotted dick. This will royally amuse a teenager.

We used to have students, most of them never ate a single bit of veg all week. They disliked most spicy foods, werent keen on chinese or thai. Didnt like gravy, cottage pie, yorkshire pudding or any british staples.

Meals that went down well were pasta, pizza, burgers and wraps. In the end I used to cook a family meal and offer them a student (junk) meal.
I always figured they had enough on their plate without food they didn't like. Seriously I had no idea how they didnt get scurvy.
Simple meat and potatoes went down best. No one seems to eat jacket potatoes or baked beans.

For lunch I let them make their own or they binned it. I bought cheese, ham and cured meats. Cakes and crisps. They never ate the yoghurts, fruit or bread, so I used wraps. Good luck!

My experience was very different to User5, but then we only had the one exchange student for three months. Maybe her mum had just trained her well. She ate just about anything I served up and just commented that we (we live in Germany not the UK) eat a lot more bread than people in France. She was happy to eat fruit and veg too.
So Maybe you'll get one like that rather than a fussy junkfood fan

Our french exchange student asked for ham and cheese sandwich for lunch every single day.

Not beans on toast! I had a French exchange student when I was 16 and she was horrified when we had beans on toast for tea one night.

Cream tea!

I’ll never forget serving mangetout to our French exchange student. She asked what we called them in England, we told her... and of course in French it sounded like we were saying YOU EAT THEM at her!

When she arrives why not ask her what she likes/doesn't like and if there is anything she would specifically like to try?
And ask her what she would like in her packed lunch - at least then you aren't totally stabbing in the dark - but regardless of what she says make sure you add in some fruit and a sweet treat