Can you help me plan a week's worth of meals for a Spanish student?

[raspb]

We have a Spanish exchange student coming to stay for a week and I'd love some help planning a week's worth of family meals that are likely to go down well with a typical Spanish teenager.

All ideas welcome. Thanks so much

Cottage pie
Fish and chips
Chilli
Roast dinner

These are the best homemade chicken burgers and always go down well with my DS and his friends https://www.tamingtwins.com/crispy-chicken-burgers/ I normally serve them with potato wedges.

Other ideas:
Sausages, mash, gravy and peas
DIY naan pizzas https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/naan-bread-pizzas.html
Pulled pork loaded jacket potatoes https://www.lovepork.co.uk/recipes/pulled-pork-loaded-jacket-potatoes/
Fajita traybake https://www.sainsburysmagazine.co.uk/recipes/mains/chicken-fajita-traybake
Kebabs

Toad in the hole with peas and gravy
Roast beef and Yorkshire puddings with all the trimmings.
If you happen to be near he coast fish and chips on the beach if not at home.
Full English
I'd probably mix it up with maybe a pizza night, fajitas, a curry with rice, popadoms, naan,mango chutney, a lasagne just regular family dishes really.

Also, remember that Spanish families tend to eat a lot later than here. Often not until 2000, 2100 or even later. If you usually eat earlier don't be surprised if the student doesn't eat a lot but is then hungry later.

What do you usually eat?

Since they'll be used to the idea of tapas-style sharing, you could serve meals 'family style' as they say in the US, with everything in the middle of the table, in case they don't like an element of the meal.

You could also include some optional spice, e.g. toad in the hole or roast beef might be a bit bland for them, but you could do carrots with cumin or curried parsnips as a side.

Wait until they get here.

Plan a "family style" meal eg fajitas where they can choose the filling, and then ask them what they like.

I hosted a few Nigerian students on exchange. One hated spice and wanted all bland, one was lactose free etc etc,

Talk to them after the first meal and then plan.

Be careful with chilli & curry, Spaniards do not use a lot of spice.

I'd go for typical English meals but ones teenagers would like. ( so not really old fashioned ones)

Fish and chips
Burgers
Roast chicken - Spanish teenagers will love lots of chicken
Sausages and mash maybe
Pasta and garlic bread

Bit chilli, cottage pie or chilli

Thanks so much everyone. These ideas are great. I'm just a bit wary of cooking what we normally eat as it might be not to everyone's taste!

Spanish folk dont eat things very spicy so if you make chilli etc. Make it on the mild side

Definitely this. Things like fajitas and chili are Mexican not Spanish. Best to talk with the student and take it from there.

When my DS had his Spanish exchange student stay, the school were very clear that we should just eat what we usually eat. As the whole point of the exchange was them to experience normal life in the UK. The same when my DS went to Spain. So I’d stick with what you normally eat, maybe go a bit easy on spices and flavourings if that features in a lot of cooking.

DS’s exchange student really liked a roast dinner as that seemed to be seen as exotically British!

I'd go for traditional British food as that's part of the experience - definitely wouldn't try to make anything 'Spanish'!

This recent thread might have some good ideas?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/food_and_recipes/5163911-menu-plan-for-foreign-exchange-students?reply=138249385

I think you just need to ask them! It’s like saying every British person likes pie and mash, haggis, lava bread, fish and chips, roast dinner, doesn’t like anything spicy, will only eat beige food and eats at 1730 every evening.

I don’t know anyone British who does all of this (I don’t know anyone who eats that early for a start), most people I know like a range of food from various cultures.

I would say traditional Spanish is probably the closest cuisine to traditional British - big fans of pork products, potatoes, eggs and fried fish!

I would go for British meals like

A roast or toad in the hole (Yorkshire pudding and gravy are very British)
A Nando’s fakeaway (they may have seen Brits talk about this on social media )
Cottage or Shepherd’s Pie
Fish and Chips if you have a chippy or live by the sea
A full English (beans are often mentioned on social media)
Sausage roll (if you’ve got a Greggs nearby then they may have seen this mentioned on social media )

When DS had a Spanish exchange student, we went to the pub for one meal (roasts available, but chose chicken and chips iirc).

DS took him out to meet friends one evening and they all got food from the chippy and hung out in the park.

Another meal he and DS cooked together for us all (Korean chicken skewers, I think), he quite enjoyed puzzling out the English recipe instructions.

Can’t remember what I cooked for the other few meals tbh, probably pasta one night. He politely ate everything, don’t know what he really thought of course!

I had to make him a packed lunch each day, but just did standard cheese sarnies, fruit, crisps, penguin bar.

One thing was he liked bottled mineral water, so I rushed out and bought that the second day.

just for inspo/info @raspb

https://www.memoriesofthepacific.com/2021/04/spanish-typical-dinner.html

Agree ask them what they like. DS asked his German exchange student ahead of time before he arrived. His faves were schnitzel - I just did a chicken in breadcrumbs thing plus fat Coke. 😂

He also liked Five Guys!!!

NOT curry. Sadly, nobody likes it here. Not chili either. No spice.

Fish, chicken and rice, potatoes. Salad, they have salad with every meal with a bit of bread. Fish and chicken basically.
Pasta.
Fruit.

Yes to eating at 9pm.

Oh yes, bottled water.

For breakfast you[ll be fine with cereal.

Fajitas. Don't anyone who doesn't love them 🙌🏼

We hosted Spanish students in pre-covid days and basically fed them what we fed the kids in those days. So it would typically be:

Pizza (usually the night they arrived) with salad
Sausage, tomato and paprika pasta
Tuna Pasta bake
Burgers & chips
Roast chicken & jacket spuds
Mild chilli con carne
Hot dogs
Fish cakes

I remember they weren't that keen on veg eg broccoli. They mainly ate salad.