What on earth is this mealtime snobbery about?

[Diemme]

At 6.45 this evening, DH and I went to sit outside at front of the house to have a coffee and enjoy the last of the sun - we live in a close with benches outside the houses. Almost immediately our neighbours came back from a dog walk. They chatted for a few minutes and then she said she was going in to make dinner. I mentioned just in small talk that we'd already eaten. And I swear she did a head tilt and tinkly laugh as she said gosh that's early. Then she went inside and her husband arranged his face in a sort of patronising / pitiful expression and asked why we'd eaten so early. It's not just them, ive come across it loads of times. It's as if there's a bizarre sense of superiority to eating at 8 rather than say 6.

We eat at 7. Dh is back from work. Ideally it’d be a bit earlier but it’s fine. As a child we are at 6.
I think it just depends on your circumstances.

Why is it wrong to sit in your front garden? From what I understand Americans sit on their porches all the time?

Codes as DEEPLY non-U, like having white plastic garden furniture, garden gnomes, or gateposts with rearing horses/giant stone pineapples/rampant lions on them in an ordinary suburban house.

Presumably sitting on your porch has different connotations in the US.

I am staggered firstly there is thread on this we all have very different routines based on our own circumstances but as it is asked above.

I agree @Dulra, it's kind of odd that some posters think that everyone works the same hours that they do. 😂 At one time, both DH and I were starting work much earlier than a lot of people, therefore finishing earlier too. DS was ready to eat at 6 so we all are together as a family.

I bet it's the same people wailing that some people earn too much and it's not faaaiiiirrrr who are smugly sitting down and relaxing as a family by 5pm.

^^ This is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen on this forum tbh.

I bet it's the same people wailing that some people earn too much and it's not faaaiiiirrrr who are smugly sitting down and relaxing as a family by 5pm.

I don't actually think that's a 'ridiculous' point, and it's in part what underlines some of the incomprehension about very different mealtimes -- some highly-paid jobs involve extremely long work hours and/or a lengthy commute/culture of presenteeism, so to those people, managing to be home and sitting down to eat at 5 is difficult to imagine. Likewise, the people tutting about how late eating must turn you into a fat insomniac with heartburn are not recognising that for some working patterns, eating early isn't possible.

Obviously, there's not always a correlation between long hours and a high salary.

Why is it wrong to sit in your front garden? From what I understand Americans sit on their porches all the time?

From what I know - based on my intensive study of Hollywood films - all Americans have vast houses and front gardens the size of football pitches.

So they can sit on their porches and watch the world go by from a reasonable distance.

Whereas houses in the UK tend to have smaller front gardens and the majority of land at the back.
So, unless they want to look like those much-mocked people who picnic in laybys, they do the majority of their outdoor activities in the back garden.

Those more fortunate than I, with whopping front gardens, probably cavort on their porch all the time.

(I notice that nobody's mentioned pampas grass in the front garden...)

Why is it wrong to sit in your front garden? From what I understand Americans sit on their porches all the time?

It's common.

some highly-paid jobs involve extremely long work hours and/or a lengthy commute

Yes, they do @BrittleJoys. I was one of them, as was DH, it's the reason we're both able to work shorter hours now. I'm still unsure why some posters assume that all/most high earners don't start work until 8/9 am getting home until 8pm or later. It's most definitely not always the case. We both started much earlier and finished much earlier, as did many of our (high earning) colleagues.

Some posters seem to think that their own experiences are the only benchmark.

It’s nothing to do with working hours for us. DH is a high earner and works from home. I’m a SAHM. We could have dinner any time we wish, but choose to have it around 8-9pm.

That's pretty much my point @SoyDora. The assumption that if you have your tea/dinner/supper/whatever, at 5 or 6pm that you mustn't be a high earner or work long hours seems ridiculous.

The assumption that if you have your tea/dinner/supper/whatever, at 5 or 6pm that you mustn't be a high earner or work long hours seems ridiculous.

It is. The farming family I mentioned here that I knew were very well off and worked very long hours for it.
Their day just started a lot earlier than that of many people so they needed their evening meal by 5pm.

Codes as DEEPLY non-U, like having white plastic garden furniture, garden gnomes, or gateposts with rearing horses/giant stone pineapples/rampant lions on them in an ordinary suburban house.

Surely caring about what the neighbours think is the epitome of ‘non-U’?

I meet a lot of business owners through work with established business who do not work late or walk around in ties and cuff links. They tend to shut the office most days at 5pm. I'm not saying they don"t work from home but they don't need to be out of the house till late evening. So some of your there's don't add up.

Theries

Theories

we don't eat until 8-9pm - wish I could eat earlier but it's just not possible with work & other commitments to start cooking earlier

Surely caring about what the neighbours think is the epitome of ‘non-U’?

Excellent point.

Another Jilly Cooper reference, I'm afraid, but she wrote that a duke's son took her out once. While they were walking along the street, he got out a bar of chocolate, snapped in two and handed her half.

"You can't eat in the street!", she said, shocked.

" I", he said, with centuries of disdain in his voice, "can do anything I like".

(Mind you, Jilly is a bit harsh in print about ornamented gate posts on suburban houses. I think that's because it may be the hoi polloi trying to emulate true aristos. It seems a minefield)

We eat:
breakfast anytime between 7 and 8.30 depending on how early we need to get to work

lunch anytime between 1 and 3 depending on meetings

dinner usually any time between 8-10. tend to get home around 7 but how late we eat is influenced by what we do in the evenings - e.g. one night we have running club and don't tend to be finished until 9.15 so therefore eating is very late.

Surely caring about what the neighbours think is the epitome of ‘non-U’?

I think it's more a matter of public/private divide stuff, like eating on the street, but -- as @LaMarschallin (who has a worryingly total recall of the entire works of Jilly Cooper ) says, those whose unimpeachably high social prestige is not ever in question, can rule-break at will.

When we were at university, DH used to bring home for dinner sometimes a minor royal he used to play intercollege football with, who had the most revolting table manners, wore shiny tracksuits, used to do heroin, not in a 'glamorous aristo' way, but in a 'with the addicts behind the bus station' way, and was planning on a fairly scuzzy post-university job.

They lost touch, but I noted more recently from the media that he's married someone very suitable, is now in exactly the kind of job you would expect from someone in his social bracket, and his children are called classic Aristo Child names.

Some rules you break, some you really don't, I suppose.

LaMarschallin (who has a worryingly total recall of the entire works of Jilly Cooper)

It is a worry!

(I've got a bit of a quirky memory which means I can picture pages of some books I've read. But it has to have been more than once, so wasn't as useful as it might have been for exams.

If you ever see someone on Mastermind with Jilly as their special subject, though...

Give me a wave 👋)

I think it's more a matter of public/private divide stuff, like eating on the street

I think that if you can see your neighbour’s front garden as you approach your house you can’t truly posh.

(I notice that nobody's mentioned pampas grass in the front garden...

@LaMarschallin - that's a very different kind of cavorting which probably (definitely) shouldn't be done in an average UK front garden porch...

that's a very different kind of cavorting which probably (definitely) shouldn't be done in an average UK front garden porch...

Quite.
You'd only hurt your buttocks on the umbrella stand.

I remember Brian Sewell saying that he wasn't shocked about the Bill Clinton scandal but was horrified he drank out of a Diet Coke can on TV.

I probably am BU (as this thread shows how much variance there is in meal times) but i wrongly it would seem equate early eating with age. So if someone was eating lunch at 11.45 for example i would think they had young children, or were retired.

I think the only law should be that a meal called ‘tea’ must be accompanied by a cup of tea.

I’m not snobby about matching tea with any kind of food, but if a meal isn’t tea adjacent it is dinner or supper.