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.

Mackerz I've reported you so you should be cleansed from MN shortly.

HTH

😂

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.

Actually, laying down so soon after a meal (say you way dinner at 9.00 and go to bed half an hour later) is more likely to give you heartburn as gravity is helping to keep the digestive juices where they should be.

Natalia - you feed your play dates at 6? 3.5 hours after school has ended? Are they chewing on each other’s arms by then?!

Before kids we both had careers which meant eating at 830 ish after we’d got home. I now work from home and feed the kids between 4 and 530 depending on activities. We still eat at 830-9 because that’s when my husband is home.

It probably is a work snobbery - shifts might end at 4-5pm but professions rarely do.

I envy you personally, and all families who can sit down together over a family meal every day around 6. It must be bloody blissful, so good for family life.

Sorry bad maths - hormonal! 2.5 hours after school has ended.

I've never witnessed this and it's made me really curious! We usually eat about 8pm during the week because I don't get in from work until 6.30ish so it's not through choice. At the weekends, we almost certainly eat around 6pm.
Wouldn't cross my mind to sneer at someone for eating earlier - more just envious they get to eat before me
Can't believe your neighbours reacted like this!!

I usually eat dinner between 6:30'and 7 as I don't get home til 6. I'd like to eat later as I get hungry before bedtime, but I have reflux so having dinner at 8 is asking for a sleepless night. Growing up, dinner was always at 6pm, and I carried that on for a few years after I left home until I noticed I was starving by 9ish pm (my mum must have served bigger portion sizes!). Not posh at all by the way, despite the use of dinner for evening meal!

I work school hours. Eat breakfast before 7am, lunch around 12 and eat with the kids at 5. They are starving after school, so am I. I couldn’t be bothered with cooking for them, clearing up ect, then cooking for myself and doing it all again an hour or 2 later. Plus bedtime routine starts from around 6:30pm.
All these adults that eat after 8, what time do you go to bed. At 9 I start thinking I should go to bed, although it’s usually around 10:30 (excluding school holidays)

And yes, the two tier cooking with kids early and us later is fucking exhausting. But the alternative is not eating with my hard working partner so I mostly suck it up.

I eat breakfast before 7. I start thinking about lunch at around 10:30 and am starving by the time I eat it, as close to 12 as I can manage. Because I try not to snack between meals, I am starving again by the time I have dinner at 7ish. There is definitely a snobbery attached to meal timings- my parents are both supper eaters who sneer at eating early in the evening.
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but there’s a definite north/south divide in working hours, or at least a Manchester/London one. Everyone I know in Manchester drives to work and starts before 8 to avoid the traffic, then leaves as early as possible for the same reason. Our London colleagues- doing the same jobs, so nothing to do with class or professionalism- seem to start at 9 or even half past. They get very superior about how late they work in comparison, without realising we’ve all done a good hour before they’ve even reached the office. It amuses me. And probably has a bearing on what time everyone eats.

I just think old people when it comes to eating before 6, HOWEVER I totally understand some people start their day at different times to me so I’m not going to judge. One thing I must say though is the word Supper is VILE. I can’t stand it nor those who speak it. Horrid disgusting word. 😂

Dinner (OH) or Tea (me) is around 8.30 - a bit earlier if I've been organised and made something while our DS was eating (at 5pm). OH usually gets home around 7pm and we both try to fit in exercise 2-3 times per week so that's our only chance. There's also the usual bits of housework and veg patch stuff to be done so we do it all pre dinner/tea.

When I was younger and childless I lived in London, working a stupid job that finished late and took forever to get home from. So dinner was late.

Now I've moved away and work flexible hours, I'm home from work around 4.30 and eat around 5.30.

My London friend was recently a bit snobby / sneery when she found this out - I felt that for her, eating early seemed unsophisticated, synonymous with egg and chips for dinner with a Sun newspaper.

But even though she has way more fancy clothes than me, and eats at wonderful London restaurants and visits all the art galleries, I'm happier with my away-from-London ordinary life that means less time on the tube and a nice early dinner with plenty of time to digest and spend doing other things.

We tend to eat around 7.30 as I like to eat without the toddlers (we have breakfast together every day and lunch together on a weekend) but they go to bed at 6.30 so I prefer to eat in peace for now when they're in bed.

Ideally I like a late lunch/early dinner around 3pm which works on a Sunday!

Dinner is whatever time I can manage after finishing work, collecting the kids (who gave already eaten) unpacking school bags, taking the washing off the line etc. Sometimes ‘dinner’ doesn’t amount to much more than a bowl of cereal about 9pm!

When visiting my in-laws who were totally pretentious, it would often be after 9 p.m. before FIL had taken enough whisky onboard for the rest of us to be served "our evening meal". More alcohol was consumed during the meal. At midnight we would still be at the table waiting for the final course. That is bad enough for adults but I had a child (not their grand-child) aged 7.
I do not think it is at all acceptable for a child to be kept up to complete a meal at those times. I do not think FIL has the right to govern when people get to eat. They had weird views like I should be controlled by my husband (their son) and that my child should be a victorian!
Needless to say, I did not hang around there for long and soon divorced their son.

I don't see evenings should be spent at a dining table. How would they ever cope with going out to a cinema or theatre or another person's house (they were not often invited to peoples' houses). I want to be able to do things in the evenings.

We eat early in our household too because my husband gets up early for work so when i finish at 5pm we are both hungry its different lifestyles but your neighbours sound a bit...perculiar to think its a thing??? Xxx

i'm so ridiculously common that we don't even have anything close to a set time to eat. we eat somewhere between 4 and 9...and in my house meals are pretty much always just called 'food'. as in 'are you hungry? do you want some food?'. very very very occasionally i will say 'what do you want for tea tonight?'

oh, and to me, supper is a yoghurt and a packet of crisps eaten before bed at my dads house. its a totally alien concept anywhere else

We used to eat dinner/supper at 8. Kids came along and we all eat at 5pm now.

We eat late.
I am judgemental of those that eat early because they are annoyingly ignorant of the reasons I eat later and I am preempting comments from them that I normally get about how eating late is bad for my digestion. Aren't I really hungry. Oh we've eaten, washed up and gone for a walk already etc etc etc. You should really try to eat earlier. You'd get more done.

Great. Thanks for your advice. I get home from work, and put dinner on and eat asap. But yes, I'll try to make it several hours earlier. It's not like I have a job or anything.

OP tomorrow you and DP need to be on that bench eating a microwave meal on your lap when they get back from their walk drinking cups of tea in mismatching mugs.

And report back. No excuses. Dinner of kings!

@badg3r

I’d go for a pot noodle tbh.

I feel like a slattern again. My mugs don’t match.

I couldn’t be bothered with cooking for them, clearing up ect, then cooking for myself and doing it all again an hour or 2 later

I tend to cook for the kids and DH cooks for us after they’re in bed. Or if I’m making something like a curry I’ll just make enough for everyone but the children eat early and we have ours later. Don’t think I’ve ever properly cooked twice.

Are mugs supposed to match 😯

Growing up the meal at midday was known as dinner and tea at around 6pm supper was just before bed and consisted of tea and a biscuit. Sometimes my mum made a rice pudding and we would have had that. If we had visitors we would maybe have had sandwiches or buttered fruit loaf. I still use those terms sometimes. We now have lunch but I still talk about doing something for the tea in the evening but invite people round in the evening for dinner!!!! I still think dinner time as being midday and teatime as 5 to 6 PM in my head.