When speaking with our hosts, one topic comes up more than any other: food! 

Sharing a meal transcends language barriers and can bring people together like nothing else. It can, on occasion, cause concern for hosts who are worried about how involved they should be with their guests’ mealtimes, or how to set rules and boundaries. 

All our placements are different, and there’s no right way to do things, but we strongly recommend that our hosts are upfront and transparent about their preferences as early as possible. Hosts can let us know about things like dietary requirements, meal times, and anything else they want us to pass on to potential guests. 

To help those new to hosting who might have similar concerns, we’ve spoken with several of our hosts and home visitors about their experiences with food during a placement, and what advice they’d give to others. 

Nicola, host

I think clarity is really important. My husband and I are vegetarian so we’ve made it quite clear that people cannot bring meat into the house. Everyone has ways they like things to be done in their home and other people appreciate it if they know what they are. For example, I can’t bear people eating in their rooms and if guests know this then they’re very respectful. 

We’ve always been very happy to buy food for our guests and for them to be able to use whatever they wanted, but my experience is that often they’d feel better about bringing their own food in. 

I find it useful to be clear with guests about them having their own space in the fridge for things. I know that lots of Refugees at Home hosts have spoken about lovely experiences where they all eat together every time but that hasn’t really happened for us. We often invite them to join us on Friday nights but they rarely seem keen – although we have mostly hosted young men who have their own busy lives.  

Ravi, host 

With Muslim guests, I was worried about making sure the food was halal. I really wanted to be respectful and had to educate myself a bit. 

Mealtimes have been some of the most memorable parts of hosting. My first guest was from Somalia and I’d done some research into Somali food. I normally cook Indian food so I found out as much as I could about the similarities between the two cuisines. There’s definitely a lot of crossover in things like spices so I made a normal chicken curry with a few substitutions and served it with couscous instead of rice. 

Because of the language barrier, we’d often enjoy meals together in silence, so it was a really nice feeling when he asked for more. 

Thomas, host 

As a family we always make an effort to have dinner together around the table and including our guests in that was one of the ways we tried to make them feel comfortable. A few of them have reciprocated and wanted to cook meals from their countries so we’ve been able to experience traditional Eritrean cooking and other food that we wouldn’t have had any exposure to otherwise. 

Ian, host 

At first, your guests are in a new place and they might not understand how things work. Once they’ve been there for a week you can see that they’ve settled in and feel relaxed like it’s their own place and they’ll come and go and help themselves to food as if it’s a normal everyday thing. It’s really nice to see. 

The awkward thing for me is that I’m pretty much a vegetarian and all my guests have been meat eaters, so eating together which is normally a way of bonding and sharing, is a bit more difficult. One of my guests couldn’t believe that I wouldn’t eat meat and eventually I started having tuna with him – so virtually every meal we had was tuna! 

He said that in Sudan people don’t eat separately, so we had to share our food, and sometimes he was waiting for me to get some so we could have dinner together, and he’d insist on making it. It was lovely. 

Clare, host 

I’ve learnt through a few years of hosting that however much you say ‘help yourself to anything’, people feel much more comfortable with food that’s set aside for them than helping themselves to the communal cupboards. I put aside an area where it’s clear that it’s their food and not mine. If they get their own accommodation, they often won’t have any food, so I make sure that it’s easy to take so that they’ll have something to eat.  

Jenny, host 

I’ve hosted several age-disputed guests. Some of them had great cooking skills and a couple were absolutely obsessed with trying to show me all the things their parents used to cook for them. With others, I had to show them very basic cooking skills like how to fry onions. Some of these guests had more general life skills than others. I think a lot of it depended on their family situation back home. 

Rona, host 

It’s good to talk about these things. I get the impression that most of my guests have just wanted to be told how to fit in. 

It’s important not to force anything, your guest will eat with you when they’re comfortable to do so, not necessarily when you want to. Everybody also has their own times they do things – which you’ll definitely know about if you’re hosting someone observing Ramadan. 

Guy, Home Visitor 

Sometimes, hosts have this expectation that they’ve got to put on a five star service and I remind them when I visit that this person just needs somewhere warm and safe, a bed, and a leg up to settle in. 

Pip, Home Visitor 

I speak with a lot of hosts who will say to their guests ‘Ok you can sort yourself out for breakfast and lunch, but we’ll all eat together in the evening’. One host told me that he and his guest will alternate who cooks dinner each day. When I visit the homes of potential hosts, I always stress that there isn’t a rule for how you have to do things, but you should think beforehand about what’s going to work for you. 

Andrew, host 

If people want to, then we eat together as a family. If they don’t want to then that’s fine too. We do find that a lot of them will want to eat with us, and at first they end up eating food that’s quite strange to them, like shepherd’s pie,  but after a bit we try and encourage people who are able to do a bit of cooking themselves and they tend to love it. The kitchen table is a really happy place, where people bring their own traditions and their own skills once they’ve got the confidence to do that. Incredible smells from the kitchen and new foods that you haven’t experienced before – and that’s great fun! We tell stories and have lots of laughs and sometimes play games. All sorts of things happen around the kitchen table.

Read our Advice for Hosts guide for suggestions, information, and more experiences from our community of hosts. Still have questions? Get in touch by email and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. If you’ve never hosted before, you can also request a call back with a member of our team.

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