If you invite someone for a bit of dinner at 5pm, what time would you be cooking to sit and watch?

[Thesofathatwas]

Not a formal dinner party btw.
This has happened a few times.
Invited for tea, told to come for 5. Great! Thrilled!
Arrived at 4.50.
Didnt start cooking till 6.30. Ate at 7.45..
Could have eaten my own arm. Starving.

Happened again at a BBQ. Over 2.5 hours until food served.

Would this bother you or would you be meh?

I tell people what time I’m cooking for so they can decide at what time to arrive. So, I’ll cook for say 7 and say they can arrive from 6 onwards. And I usually have most of it done in advance.

I hate arriving and they haven’t even started prepping food.

Also agree don’t arrive 4.50 if they invited you for 5!!

I think there's something in the language as well

"Invited them for a bit of dinner at 5pm" suggests to me that this is a normal working day evening meal (whether you call it dinner or tea, depending where in the country you grew up) and is an invitation to say "Come straight from work / school / college" to someone who you know finishes in time to be passing your house then. So, if I only get in from work just before 5, I'd have said "Come anytime from 5, and we'll eat by 6pm" or , if it were because we were going out together to a gig or a night class or a book group or a choir practice, it would be implied that you'd have to eat before leaving at 10 to 7 or whatever.

That is different, from inviting someone to a dinner, where the 'event' is coming to dinner, rather than "I'll feed you as it makes sense around other things we are doing".

We quite often have people "Have a bit of tea with us" because they are then going to be doing something with one or both of us after the meal - it is a convenient / helping them out thing, with them being given whatever we'd be having for a normal week night meal, rather than an event in itself where food is being specially prepared for guests.

I can't imagine knowing someone well enough to pop round for dinner informally but not be confident enough to say 'when's dinner I'm starving'

I think refusing all further invites is a bit heavy-handed. Why not just ask for clarity on when they plan to eat? And if you arrive 10 minutes early I'll still be hoovering.

Or even just think ‘they never serve food until a couple of hours after arriving so I’ll have a late lunch/a snack before I go so I’m not getting too hungry’.

My friends come over around 5, but we eat dinner at a normal time, around 7ish. We sit and chat first.

I'm so so surprised that people serve guests dinner at 5 or 6. Most people don't finish work until then. Also I truly don't believe there are any circumstances when arriving early isn't incredibly rude!

It all depends on the set up really. If you're literally inviting someone round for tea (like a regular mid week meal) then you'd reasonably expect to eat within an hour of arriving. But it's a case of reading the room really. I think most people who invite guests to an evening meal would envisage a social occasion with wine and lots of chat!

If you eat at 5pm, aren’t you hungry again by 9pm. I’d have to have another meal then.

It always amazes me that some people can be so ignorant that they assume that everyone lives the way that they do, works the same hours, lives the same life with the same responsibilities, gets hungry at the same time etc. It might not be dinner time for you but plenty of other people eat at that hour for many reasons. It does not make them three year olds though I probably wouldn’t have to explain this to an actual three year old as they probably aren’t quite so lacking in imagination.

No.

HTH

For me no. I went to a restaurant today for lunch and ate around two. I won’t need anything else today and that was my first and only meal of the day so 3 hours later for dinner would be fine.

6:30, snacks to graze on while they wait

I would be, yes! That’s why I eat later. I can’t eat first thing in the morning so I don’t have breakfast until around 10, lunch at 3ish and dinner at 8. If someone was serving dinner at 5pm I’d have to miss lunch so that I would be hungry enough to eat, then probably have ‘supper’ before bed.
People are all different though! Some people on here are saying that they only eat one meal a day and I couldn’t cope with that. I like to eat little but (fairly) often rather than have a big meal.

Are you in Spain ?
9:30 is incredibly late to eat for the UK.
FWIW we eat around 6:30/7pm.
Bit later if going out to dinner.
But always between 6 & 8.
If I invited some one round for 5pm I would give them a cup of tea and maybe a biscuit.

Did you manage to get your full daily calorie requirements (to maintain your energy levels) in one meal? I don’t think I could eat one meal so big that it had sufficient calories for my needs.

I would not be wanting to eat at 5pm. We never eat before 7.30pm although if eating at a friend's house I would be ok with 6.30 at the earliest.

I don't know how people can be hungry enough to eat at 5 if they have eaten lunch.

I'm diabetic so I plan my other meal timing around when I would expect to eat if going out/away from home. So if I was thinking eating at 5.30/6 ish but didn't eat until 7.45 I would have to have said something and had something to eat otherwise blood sugar would go too low

I doubt it but I’m not going to keel over from not eating the recommended number of calories for one day , and as we’re all individuals then some require fewer calories daily and some more. I usually eat lunch and dinner, though not much for lunch and almost never breakfast but my preference is one meal a day if I’m eating out. I know that wouldn’t work for everyone though.

If I say 5, I’m pissed off when people come at 4.50.

I would expect to eat around 7.30ish.

I would be horrified if I invited someone to come at 5 and they arrived at 4.50 to be honest!
I’d probably expect to eat by 7ish so it was a bit late, but it sounds like you expected food on the table at 5.05. When we invite friends round we have a drink and sit and chat for a while before we eat. I’d always have something to nibble on available though, even if just a bowl of crisps.

In your situation you’d probably ask your host what time food was going to be served though wouldn’t you, so you can plan the rest of your meals around it?

Depends on exact wording and if children are involved. If there’s kids and were told after 5 I’d assume okay for 90 mins or so then eat. If as a no adult household I was told came at (not after) 5 I’d expect food by 6 ish though seems very early.

If you eat a sandwich or soup or whatever for lunch at 12-1, I find it completely reasonable to then be hungry for your next meal 4-5 hours later.