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.

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

To me tea is a drink, not a meal but fully appreciate in other parts of the country, tea is a meal.

If you have 'tea' as a meal, do you eat late?

MC Beaton (see! I do read other authors apart from Jilly) is always going on about Scottish high tea in the Hamish Macbeth series.

Which definitely contains tea as a beverage (certainly nothing stronger) and sounds jolly hearty. Chips may be involved on occasion.

And is about 5:30pm.

I would have thought most people eat when it’s convenient for them but there are some learned and cultural elements to it too.

I am hungry as soon as I get home from work. If I was home in time to eat for 6 pm then I would be I usually get home around 6:30 and then it’s realistically 7:30-8pm when we have dinner if I cook from scratch.

Generally I like to eat a proper meal ASAP as the alternative is to eat junk until I can have my dinner!

Your neighbours are rude for speaking to you like that. You may eat whenever you want.

Yes, I grew up with Scottish High Tea- I distinctly remember being taught how to set the table for it for my Brownie Hostess Badge!

In our house the evening meal (eaten at any time between 5.30 and 7.30 depending on what was going on that day) would be called “tea” or “dinner” depending on what it was- if fairly light and accompanied by a cup of tea it was “tea”, if heavier (Spag Bol etc) it was “dinner”. “Tea” might be cold meat or egg and chips, or a cheese and apple salad, or hot dog sausages and chips, or an omelette. I don’t think there was a particular rationale for when we had one ir the other- probably just depended what my Mum had in and what she felt like cooking.

Lunch was always called lunch, never “dinner” but we did talk about “school dinners” meaning the hot food that was cooked at school. I never had a school dinner, lunch was always sandwiches to me.

I never had a school dinner

That made me remember something.
We had school "lunches", took in "lunch" money, but had "dinner" ladies.

Never noticed the discrepancy before.

We eat at 5 but I did see on mumsnet someone who has her/the kids evening meal at 10pm!

I think “dinner” “lunch” etc is a geographical thing. DH says “tea” and I say “dinner” (for evening meal) but we both say lunch for midday meal. My mum used to say “supper” if we had something after dinner at around 9 o’clock eg cereal if we were still hungry after dinner

Just randomly remembered that when I was young we used to have ‘supper’ on a Sunday night only (we had Sunday lunch at around 3pm so weren’t hungry enough for a proper dinner but needed something small before bed). I have memories of me as a child eating dairylea on Jacobs crackers with pickled onions and a glass of milk, while watching ‘last of the summer wine’ on TV

That reminds me that we also ate a roast meal at about 3pm on a Sunday- but it was invariably called “Sunday Dinner”, never “Sunday Lunch”. I don’t think I heard “Sunday lunch” until I moved from Scotland to England as a student. (Yet we always called lunch lunch and not dinner like people do in the N of England)

Actually ArgumentativeAardvaark I think we called it Sunday dinner too, even though our normal meals were breakfast, lunch and dinner. I’ve only picked up ‘Sunday lunch’ from DH (southerner)

My family, firmly middle class ate at 6pm growing up, myself and my husband eat around 8pm but that's because we cook from scratch after he gets home at 6pm, and like to chat and shower and stuff before we cook.

Sunday dinner

Good point! And it's Christmas dinner generally too despite usually being sometime in the afternoon.

**I hate the word “supper” the way others hate “moist” or “gusset”.

I hate the word "tea" in that context. grin
I assume you're a southerner then

No it’s Sunday lunch and Christmas lunch.

No it’s Sunday lunch and Christmas lunch

I generally say Sunday lunch but I can totally see Sunday dinner. At, er.. lunch time.

I wouldn't say dinner for another midday meal.

Christmas lunch/dinner - both sound normal.

I absolutely don't know this, but was "dinner" traditionally used for the main meal of the day? Whenever that was.