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.

Yes I think it is a class/snobbery thing.

I'm a night owl and would rather do everything late. As a child we had tea at 6ish, but I remember going to stay with my mum's posh friends and they had it at 8, meaning we had to stay up later than bedtime. I was in heaven and thought it was the height of sophistication :o

Your neighbours were snobby and rude though OP. No need to make faces about it!

Not sure there is a right and wrong here, but as DH arrives home after work around six, we have a chat for an hour while I cook. We eat when it's ready. DS is a hotel chef, working split shifts so 9-4 and 6-finish, mostly, and eats when the kitchen/waiters eat or not at all.

Unhealthy to eat a big meal later and can affect sleep

Why unhealthy? What proven health risks are there to eating late? A calorie is a calorie, whatever time it’s consumed.

Supper winds me up too.

Always sit outside the front of the house- it’s the best view of the sunset 😍

We dont eat until 8/9 but that's because I am a disorganized fuckwit.

My mum, who wasn't a fuckwit always had dinner ready at 5.30 and tea and toast at 10.30.

Bookworm4

I am half Scottish and I have lived in a close before and never seen anyone sitting out the front of their house. Where does the car get parked? In a garage I presume, but then, you're still on you driveway, unless you live in a massive house with a lawn out the front??, but that is way posher than anywhere I have lived!

I'd find it barbaric to eat dinner before 7pm. With commutes etc I doubt I ever eat before 8pm.

I like to eat about 6.00, have dessert about 8.00.

“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.”

Weird. I have no time for people who are this weirdly judgey.

I also have no fixed mealtimes but I suspect this couple would be horrified by me generally

We've always eaten whenever DH gets home from work, so now it's about 6:15 but when the children were small it was 5ish. That suits us all, especially when DS1 is at home because he likes to go for a run after but wouldn't be able to fit that in if we ate at 8pm.

I hate eating late. I always wake up feeling full and bloated the next day if I do

Who cares?
We go to bed quite early, so eat early, before 7, depending when my husband gets home. I will eat alone, as dont like food laying on me.
Dont think it's a snob thing at all, everyone had different lifestyles.

I think parents eating with their children will tend to do so around 5 - 6pm, whereas those who feed the children separately might then eat quite a bit later themselves, adults only.

My mum would always cook when we got in from school because we were all hungry then so we'd eat about 5.30. My Dad (who didn't live with us any more) had a knack for phoning to speak to us just as my mum was serving up which really used to irritate her - he never seemed to remember it was a bad time to call and would always express surprise (and possibly a little bit of the superiority you mention?) that we were eating so early.

To me eating very early in the evening (say all finished by 6.30 to 7pm) would be associated with older people.

Agree with this - in my experience, old people and children eat at 6. So if my kids have a play date, that’s the time I’d dish up the kids’ food - but I wouldn’t feed adults st that time. Wouldn’t bother me at all what anyone else does, though!

I agree with the PP who said that they'd seen eating early mostly associated with older people particularly after retirement but also done so in a slightly sneering way, like there's something weird about eating early.

I don't like eating late, personally, and I don't care if people think it's strange. I prefer to have finished supper before 7, ideally.

(And for me it's breakfast, lunch, and supper. I don't like "dinner" because it's a source of confusion. "Dinner" can mean midday meal or evening meal, but "lunch" and "supper" are less ambiguous.)

It's well researched now that eating late isn't good for insulin levels, losing weight etc etc. We eat most of the time 5-6pm and get a good 14hours fast overnight which is good for the body.

On some nights we don't eat until 8:00 because the kids both have crew practice in the evening and don't get home until 7:45. We'd much rather eat at 6:30, and for us the evening meal is "dinner".

'Supper' is the devil's work. 'Kitchen supper' - hell for all eternity.

Lol well I'm screwed then I eat at 4 😂😂😂

I dont care when other people eat but eating early (before 6) does make me think of old people!

I work full time and eat at 5. I’m starving when I get in. DH always has it ready for me coming in. I don’t get hungry at ten as I’m usually in bed by then. Also, I hate dinner being called ‘tea’. Tea is a drink

I’m with all the posters saying never mind what time you ate this evening - it’s the sitting in the front garden that makes you common .

My mother would have thought so anyhow.

Breakfast, lunch,dinner,supper here.
Tea is what I drink out of my mug

Old people, working class?

Surely people just do what fits in with their lives?

I like to eat 5:30-6:30 but work often means we end up eating later. I’ve definitely think there can be a snobbery around eating early. I’m from a working class family where my dad worked locally in a physical job. He’d be home around 5:30 and starving so that’s when we’d eat, my other friends with W/C parents were all the same. Whereas friends who had parents commuting back out of London in white collar jobs ate later. In one sense it’s just what is practical for each family but it is also a class-marker.
In Georgian high society (which was my special area of interest in my degree) people ate ridiculously late. It was absolutely a marker of the upper class to sleep until 11 then eat breakfast, have tea in the late afternoon and then dinner late in the evening... at a time when I would be in bed.