jerseysusan

My 20 year old daughter is planning on going to Sevilla to study abroad next spring. She is opting to stay with a local family as a main goal is to improve her Spanish. She is wondering what kind of meals to expect. Although I have been to Sevilla I only know about what to expect in restaurants. Can anybody help us? Thanks.

Christina

yeah, I have an idea, but it depends on the family and how much they like cooking or how much they spend on homestay people. I know in some programs, they are just doing it for the extra cash and it's just like a boarder, really, not family-like.

I found this website about study abroad and it has a section with guest bloggers talking about their experiences, including several doing homestays in Seville. One name is Kris B who has blogged and talked about the food his landlady made (tortilla, which you know is omelet, paella, codfish, etc.).
http://www.amerispan.net/guest-bloggers/

It's good reading, if you want, just put in Sevilla in the search box at upper left and you'll find some homestay blog articles.

Cali

Our niece did this last fall and she said the lady she lived with tried to make her everything she could possibly want to eat - and it was all wonderful. She finally had to tell her not to cook so much as she did not want to put on weight while in Sevilla. She had a great time and met lots of other students and saw so much. It was a very special experience for her and she really misses everyone she met, especially the lady who hosted her. Her parents came over to see her for several days while on a cruise and her host treated them to some wonderful meals and made them feel so welcome. They were so pleased that their daughter was staying with such a wonderful person. Hope your daughter has an equally good experience.

ribeirasacra

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastron...Andaluc%C3%ADa
http://www.andalucia.org/es/gastronomia/
http://youtu.be/hCAthzGfkk4
I suppose it comes down the time of the year and the live style of the family.

jerseysusan

My daughter and I thank you for the links and info.

BigRuss

I don't usually mention other publishers on Fodors.com but the D------ K--------- book for Spain (and if it has one for Seville) always has descriptions and pictures of the subject country's cuisine.

greg

It depends on the family.

We have hosted many students from different the overseas using different agencies in the US as well as have sent our daughter to Spain for a term abroad. The families who do this in the US as well as in Spain roughly came in two types: ones who are in for experiences and ones who are in for money for agencies that pay stipend. Our daughter ended up with a family who were in for the money. They did not serve any of the local specialties. Just plain common everyday food one can find anywhere in Europe.

nytraveler

i would assume that the family will continue to serve whatever types of meals they usually do - and your daughter will take part. I wouldn't expect a gourmet experience - nor that they would go out of their way to do a bunch of special meals.

If she is concerned about liking the food - I would suggest she look at menus at some Spanish restaurants online. If she has special dietary needs or is a picky eater - she may want to be prepared.

We found overall that there is little beef, some chicken, pork, ham and lamb are common as is fish and seafood (including cod and lot of clams/other shellfish and octopus). And lots of olives.

stokebailey

A couple of years ago, our daughter spent a home stay semester in Paris (not, I realize, in Spain) with a middle aged single woman. She and the other student were entitled to daily breakfast and one or two dinners/week.

Luckily they were light eaters with senses of humor, because breakfast was a dried crust that sounds like Melba Toast, ~1.69 euros per large econo-sized bag, jam, and coffee. Dinners were also econo-style, and the French they picked up during meals came from the loud TV game shows that their hostess watched throughout.

Obviously some of the hosts are in it for the income boost and not the pleasure of our darlings' company. The location was great, she loved that semester and got along fine with her hostess. Something to laugh about, though not the homey scene I'd pictured in advance.

Christina

I think most of these people usually do it for the money, actually. Now some may cook well, also, but money is the primary driver, I think. And with the Spanish economy like it is now, I'm sure that is even more common.

hope for paella, maybe fried fish (which I don't like at all but they have a lot of it there), they seemed to have a lot of spinach and tomatoes and olives there.

jerseysusan

Thanks everyone - My daughter is not a particularly adventurous eater so a less than gourmet experience would be fine by her. Me, I am hoping she comes home liking new foods.

annhig

when i attended a language school in Tuscany, I stayed in a hotel, but some of the other students were staying with families.

with one exception, their families were very hospitable and gave them lovely food as well as helping with their language studies. The exception sadly wasn't interested and was just there for the money, but the student still got fed, just not as well as the others.

i hope that your DD has a good rapport with her hosts and enjoys her time in Spain. She's a lucky girl to have that experience.

kybourbon

>>>Our daughter ended up with a family who were in for the money.<<<

I think most families in Europe are doing it for the money if you are talking about a semester studying. Families in the US do not get paid. They are expected to provide food/housing free. Families in Europe typically are paid 1000€+ per month during the students stay.

If you are talking about a simple language school/course that is short (a few weeks or month) then you will likely get better food/housing.

DD spent 6 months in Spain along with 5 other classmates. They were scattered among homestays, some quite far from the college. Some were given very little food (as in not enough or what was supposed to be provided) while others were provided more.

DD's host provided enough food, but didn't care if DD didn't like something and piled it on her plate anyways insisting DD eat it. She was never allowed to fill her own plate. Additionally, none of the students were allowed to use the kitchens/fridges of the hosts families to keep their own foods or cook. DD's family ate at 10 or 11 pm and food was often prepared at noon and sat out on the counter all day.

FWIW - All 5 of DD's classmates requested non-smoking families. Evidently that doesn't exist and they were all in smoker's homes.

annhig

DD's family ate at 10 or 11 pm and food was often prepared at noon and sat out on the counter all day. >>

don't know about the food being prepared early and left out all day [a pretty dangerous practice in the heat of a spanish summer] but late meals may be a problem in Seville, as they do dine exceedingly late even for european tastes, let alone americans who seem to us to want to eat extremely early!

there are two ways round this: adapt to the spanish way of doing things, and adopt their mealtimes and the practice of having an afternoon siesta, or invent a health condition which means that your DD has to eat at specific [un-spanish] times.

kybourbon

DD was in Madrid and dinner was always that late. Breakfast consisted of yogurt and some type of bread (usually cake like). Desert was usually yogurt.

It wasn't practical to come home in the afternoon for siesta as the university was too far away for that to be practical. The boys in the family were in middle school (grade 7 or 8 even though they were 15) and were able to walk home for lunch and school had a long afternoon break.

>>or invent a health condition which means that your DD has to eat at specific [un-spanish] times.<<<

They would not have catered to it as they don't believe in a lot of those type things. They had their own ideas about health and what caused or cured things (evidently pouring vinegar on everything was supposed to help many things).

They did have a big leg of jamon that stayed on the counter so there were slices from that at various times.

stokebailey

That's good, kyb. A health condition, real or invented, would no doubt have gotten the classic Gallic Shrug in my daughter's case.

Food-borne pathogens must be different on that side of the Atlantic. Several years ago we stayed in a small London hotel where we had to cut through the kitchen to get to our room. Every evening the kitchen staff set the frozen breakfast sausage and bacon on the counter to thaw overnight, which would get you Health Dept. hotwired around these parts.

It might be good to set expectations a little lower than that of a motherly figure tenderly passing the paella. And if she gets that, hooray! It is all part of seeing the world and growing up, after all. We still consider our daughter lucky being where she was.

annhig

Every evening the kitchen staff set the frozen breakfast sausage and bacon on the counter to thaw overnight, which would get you Health Dept. hotwired around these parts.>>

stoke, believe me, any health inspector would be having kittens at anything like that. our food hygiene regs are pretty rigorous. The problem is that in London and other big cities, there are too few inspectors to go round. you were lucky you saw what they'd done and could avoid the breakfast. [at least, that's what i assume you did].

it's real fault of our education system that kids who follow a food technology course learn more about designing food packaging than they do about food safety and actual cooking. and the one who don't learn nothing [about food and cookery] at all.

Egbert

My family was old school. They did it because they needed the money but the Mom had a wonderful, simple meal ready for me everyday at 2pm and at 9pm. Lots of stews with beans or potatoes. A stew of spinach and Garbanzo beans was served often. Lots of sausage in the stews too. A common dinner is a thin cut pork chop, potatoes and a fried egg or two. Every now and then fried fish. Your daughter will most likely have a fantastic time. There is something special about that place.

jerseysusan

kybourbon - My son would have loved access to a leg of jamon. On vacation he ate it as much as possible

weber6560

I've done homestay 5 times in Spain and the food has always been just fine. I was interested in how they cooked so that may have helped. BTW: the Spain tradiiton is a light breakfast-coffee and may toasted bread con tomate.