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.

As children we always ate earlier than my parents, who often ate after 9 or 10pm depending on meetings and work commitments. We had a young babysitter who always ate her “tea” with her parents when her dad got home from work - ie at about 5.30. My dm was uncharacteristically snobby about this.

Nowadays dh and I bust a gut to get home in time to eat with our young children shortly after 6, and then we pick up our work again later. My parents simply cannot fathom this!

Eating any later than 7 would keep me awake.My liver would be having a party trying to break it all down.

Something else to add to the list of things I didn’t realise were a thing. Certainly it’s better for your metabolism to eat early but why would anyone care about other people’s eating times. Imagine how empty their lives must be to be bothered by your eating times.

We have dinner at about five!

And while you enjoying your evening, your neighbours still have to cook, wash, wash up!

Knock on the door as they're doing the dishes and give them them same look they gave you and through in a comment like, oh you look so busy, well just go back to relaxing and drinking coffee!

Seriously, who is actually giving a shit when anyone is eating?

I finish work at 6, home by around 7,15, I'd love to eat dinner soon after I get in but have to get my DS to bed first so don't get to eat until after 8.30 (by which time I've usually stuffed myself full of 'snacks'!)

I have two meals a day, lunch at 2.00 p.m. and tea at 9.00 p.m., sometimes later. The lateness of teatime is due to getting my housework done when coming in from work - what I used to call the housework hour, which sometimes dragged on for two hours or longer. I would never do it if I relaxed and ate my tea first. Retired now, but I’ve got used to eating late. Although, since the dishwasher broke down I can see the advantage of an earlier evening meal. It’s a real pain doing the dishes at 10.30 p.m.

I love the word supper. SUPPER, SUPPER, SUPPER, SUPPER, SUPPER, SUPPER. Tea is a lovely drink that I enjoy after my SUPPER.

We eat about 7, later at weekends. If I ate earlier I would be horsing into biscuits about 10 o’clock.

Here we use dinner/tea fairly interchangeably for the evening meal, but tea is more easy/casual/snacky type food rather than something lovingly prepared. If I was meeting a friend for tea, it might be somewhere like Nando’s or Pizza Express. Dinner would be at a nice restaurant.

We give our cat “supper” on a Friday and Saturday night, which is a half-meal about midnight, designed to stop her clambering on our heads at 6.30 desperate for her breakfast. Supper for me would be a bit of toast with peanut butter, only ever eaten if I have had a couple of glasses of wine!

I think it’s really interesting in terms of the words people use, particularly with regional variations, but can’t get excited about the times people eat.

In an ideal world I'd have breakfast at 7, lunch at 1 and dinner at 7. I don't really mind whether people say dinner, tea or supper (although I say dinner) - the one that irritates me is "evening meal!"

When I was growing up we had breakfast, dinner(school dinner) and tea at 5.30 every day without fail, then maybe milk and biscuits before bed.
Now we have breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don’t get home until 7pm, so dcs either eat earlier or have a snack tea and then a smaller meal with us at around 8-8.30pm .

Definitely not superior, with me mealtimes vary though depending on the day and what I'm doing. In Wales (well, live in West mids but from s Wales,) it's breakfast, dinner and tea. We do have supper sometimes but that's toast or some porridge.

Growing up tea was done right after school, so 4pm. Far too early. I was never properly hungry and always starving then by 8pm. Hence supper.

Now I'm moved out, it varies. Weekdays breakfast is usually at 8ish. Either a porridge pot if I'm being good or bacon roll on the walk in if I'm not (I walk 15k steps plus a day so justify it that way lol). Dinner between 12.30 and 2pm depending on hunger, and when I'm in group/supervision/meetings. Tea depends vastly. Never usually before 5.30 at the earliest. As I work full time and do NA meetings regularly, I usually grab a coffee and sandwich/gingerbread man/ salad on the way to meeting and then have something proper when I get home around 9pm. It does me no good eating that late- I feel sick, tired, headachy etc and sleep awfully. I might start having main meal (microwaved) in work and then the sandwich in evening.

Weekends, anything goes. Breakfast whenever I wake up, although if it's lunchtime I often forgo breakfast. Then tea pretty much.

Eating habits not the best and suddenly it's twigging why I eat sweets and crisps at 10pm- because I'm bloody starving and eating is low on my list of priorities. The ideal time for me would be 8ish breakfast, 12-2pm dinner and 6ish tea. Would prob still snack in evenings but not so much.

We used to eat at 9 but we both suffer from acid reflux so need to leave a good 3 to 4 hours after eating before lying down therefore we moved dinner to 7.

When I was little ( a long time ago) dinner was a posh meal that some grownups had in the evening, as in dinner party, or a not so posh meal that children had in the middle of the day, as in school dinners. Tea was a meal you had around 4, high tea a bigger meal you had around 5, supper a not posh meal you had around 7. Obviously you didn’t have all these. Mostly kids had high tea, adults supper later when kids in bed. I don’t understand when supper became a posh thing to have!

Never mind “supper”
Who the hell drinks coffee in the evening????

I live in a "naice" street and all immediate neighbours seem to have their dinner in the same 5:30 to 7pm slot as us, depending on work hours, judging by the plate chinking on a hot evening.

I didn’t even know this was a thing

Yes I’ve heard people say that too op. I just say too early for what, how can it be too early to eat? People eat when they’re hungry.

@ElizaDee

Yes, I remember having supper of a hot chocolate before bed, when I was a child. In the north (1980s) so it probably wasn’t fair trade and organic, I should probably remove myself from mumsnet for this transgression.

I would choose to eat at 5pm if I could! I tend to get back later from work 6pm, then put the kids to bed and by the time we eat it's often 8.30pm. I also end up stuffing snacks around 5 or 6pm as I'm starving.

I'm often up at 4.30am though and need breakfast to function so my day is shifted forwards.

Surely people just do what works for them rather than it being about snobbishness? We’ve always eaten late as we used to work late / had long commute pre-DD - now we eat late as she is a difficult to get down to bed (tonight we ate at 9 🤯). I’ve literally never been in a situation where I was able to eat at 5.30/6, nothing to do with thinking I’m better than anyone else.

Anyone who comments on the time you eat is inevitably one of those insufferable people who can’t possibly understand why you might do anything differently to them.

Coming from the opposite side: I’ve encountered a weird kind of hand wringing over our late dinner time on more than one occasion, and there’s a fair bit of reverse judging
on this thread. All the ‘oh but HOW does your digestive system manage when you eat that late?!?! I couldn’t POSSIBLY do it, I’d be up all night with indigestion” etc etc. Sounds like my MIL

Yes, some people like to scoff at people who eat earlier like they are of lower social class. I personally like to eat by 6, earlier if not working. More chance to burn some off - I’d hate to eat late at night.
Some like to call it ‘supper’ too but refer to dinner really. They must be the super posh

If you can't eat after a certain time because you'll be "up all night with indigestion" then you should maybe see a doctor. Food doesn't suddenly become impossible to digest if eaten as 6.01pm rather than 5.59pm.

(Also this is one of the most MN threads I've ever read.)

I was always brought up with 'supper' (7.30 ish) - unless we went out or had people round for dinner. Tea would be sandwiches/cake at 4pm but we never ate that. DH's family always had dinner at noon, (high) tea at 5 and if they were hungry later, they had supper of cheese and biscuits etc.

We now eat at 6 so the children don't starve and can go to bed a sensible time (and DH gets home early enough for that) - and call it tea or supper interchangeably. Surely none of this matters?

It's snobbery. I eat my nuggets and oven chips early and have my evening free. Middle class types think the evening is for lingering over a convivial home cooked and carefully sourced meal with accompanying fine wine, like something out of a Nigella episode. This may not be the reality for most people, but at least by eating later you can hold on to some of the dream.