My sister has started calling her evening meal supper ...

[TheFateofOphelia]

She was talking about having friends round for "supper" on Friday. I was puzzled as she knows, and I know, that supper is a piece of toast if you're feeling peckish at bedtime.

Apparently, now she's moved to Surrey she no longer has her dinner between 12 and 1, she has lunch. Now I'm ok with that but AIBU to draw the line at her having supper at tea time?

I listened to one of those The Rest is History podcasts.Breakfast dinner tea is a northern thing. More people worked so got up earlier and got hungry earlier in the day in the north.

Dinnet in the evening is a southern thing because people had more leisure time and worked less. Also, it’s closer to how the continent is, and they viewed the south as part of Europe.

Before the Industrial Revolution most people ate according to how light it was in the day. The majority couldn’t afford candles.

😂😂😂

I think that, counterintuitively, high tea is more lower class and low tea is the fancier one? Think it comes from the height of the table. Fancy person tea being at a low table and lower class tea being at a higher one. Feel free to fact check me though!

I'm definitely Not Posh.

So does it work like this now? (I’ve lived in northern and southern England, and for a long time now in Scotland).

Northern and/or more working class - Dinner (middle of the day), tea (evening meal), supper (not a term I heard a lot but my gran used it and it meant a hot chocolate, or a slice of toast if you were still hungry). This one is how I grew up.**

Southern and/or more middle class - Lunch, dinner (evening meal), supper (still a late night snack but maybe a slice of toast from a crusty loaf!), tea (literally a cup of tea, maybe with a slice of cake). This one was the most common among people I knew at uni - evening meal was definitely dinner.

Very posh - Lunch still middle of the day. Tea could be afternoon tea - full on or a simple cup of tea and nice cake. Then - and this is where is gets complicated and I could be wrong! - dinner is the evening meal, but is called that when it’s more formal (think Downton Abbey) and/or when there are guests. Supper is the full evening meal when it’s more informal and casual; a ‘kitchen supper’ as mentioned above, means not eating in the dining room/getting out the silverware.

Scotland - Some of the above apply, but ‘supper’ is a large takeaway, usually fish and chips (a ‘fish supper) eaten on a Friday/Saturday/Sunday.

**Historically, my understanding is that among the working classes tea and supper were both smaller meals. Your main meal would be dinner (at lunch time - maybe provided by your factory owner if you were lucky), tea was literally the drink plus a snack if you were lucky. Supper was much later and similarly small - maybe a slice of bread and some Bovril. Plus, if you were struggling, you might have supper but not tea. Would love to hear from a food historian if that’s right.

You see I think it makes you closer friends because they don’t have to put on airs and graces or try to impress you. You’re allowed to see them as they are because they’re comfortable with you.

It's very definitely a regional not a class thing. I'm very firmly middle class, from a really rather posh middle class area growing up, but it was Yorkshire - so for me it was breakfast, dinner, tea and supper (light snack before bed).

After many years in the south I've accepted lunch in my head. But I refer to the evening meal as the evening meal should I ever need to refer to it. And supper will always be a light snack before bed to me.

😂😂😂😂😂 so true, but generally eaten at tea time, fish supper without chips is a single fish 😂

Very interesting

Not a class thing. In London it is "lunch" everywhere. Despite "dinner ladies" at school my kids always tell me what they had for lunch and vice versa 😊

Breakfast, lunch, dinner in my world. Dinner is occasionally tea.

dinner or tea would never, ever be at lunch time. Ever, ever , ever😂.

supper is a snack before bed

I'm guessing you haven't lived in Yorkshire then. It's a northern thing.

As a life long southerner, with a 3 year blip in the midlands, I hate the word supper used for what I variously call tea or dinner. I have a friend who says supper for tea/ dinner whose father was in a regiment once upon a time. Her family had 'connections' in the past.

Sorry OP, she’s clearly going downhill fast.
I’d put a stop to this supper crap. YANBU😆

According to your definition I am
very posh. But I would say I’m middle class.

High tea to me is the afternoon version of brunch. A bit like afternoon tea but with fish and chips / a hot meal. You’d never manage dinner afterwards but might have supper later on.

😂it kind of is!
At the kitchen table, NOT the dining room.
Casual fayre - spag Bol or shepherd’s pie, NOT roast pheasant. 😂

🤣🤣

I’ve lived all over the UK and use lunch/ dinner and dinner/tea pretty much interchangeably, but supper is definitely a pre-bed snack unless you’re having fish and chips, in which case it’s a fish supper 😁.
Your sister is clearly moving in fancier circles these days. Or watching too much Downton?!

Spot the person who has never been to Booths.

Makes total sense to me! I'll have it however it comes. I'm up for the little sarnies but not so much the cakies.

Or posh tea in cups and saucers, but defo not with lemon. That's sacrilege and I DGAF how common it makes me look.

Never heard of it.

Growing up my family were the only ones locally that used Breakfast, lunch and supper. Supper was the last food of the day, whatever time or size of meal. I learnt very quickly people could be unpleasant if you don’t match societal “norms”.

As a grown up, I’ve somehow acquired Breakfast, lunch and dinner for myself even though I live in an area where the standard is definitely Breakfast, dinner and tea. I’d maybe call a late evening wee bite before bed a supper, but we don’t actually eat after dinner. Basically, I never fit in and I’m okay with that 😂.

(I live in Scotland and supper is definitely only something-and-chips!)

I've only ever heard anyone say supper once, it was someone I worked with and although everyone else said lunch break (we worked nights), he always referred to it as supper break. He was probably correct but I have an unreasonable dislike of the word so it's not something I would use.

Has she moved to the Cotswolds?

Or married a Tory landowner?