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?

Ahhhh but it depends. We ate a lot of duck, pheasant, partridge, goose etc. At the kitchen table. Not because we were / weren't posh. Because my dad shot it for us to eat.

In this time of obesity no one should be eating supper as in eating just before bed. Totally unnecessary.

Dinner at lunchtime? That’s mad

Makes waitrose look like iceland

Is it just northern? I live in the south and to me it’s breakfast, dinner and tea and the same for quite a few I know down here.

Mind you I’m in the arse end of the south.

We have breakfast, lunch and dinner. I always thought supper was like a late evening snack although I suspect she is just using it as a posh term for dinner. Tea for us was always bread and cake, we sometimes had it on a Sunday if we had Sunday lunch.

The work *ck is childish and unpleasant. I don't mind supper!
Born and bred in Kent.😉

Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tea is eaten at dinner time but is something cold like sandwiches. We might have this if we eat a hot meal at lunch time. Supper is maybe toast or cheese and crackers eaten about 9 ish because you're hungry. It a regional thing the whole dinner/tea thing.

Where I live (Lancashire) as a child we had lunch at 11, dinner at midday, tea anything from 4 to 6pm, supper just before bed.
Now most people seem to call dinner lunch, but tea is still tea, unless they are upwardly mobile, when tea becomes dinner!

Has she started collecting books by Nigel Slater by any chance? Is there a padded gilet that's appeared on a hook and her parka has seemingly vanished? Are there a couple of striped rugby shirts in bright colours for activities on a Saturday morning, but shirts with pheasants, hares or dogs coming out for Sunday walks with the hound? Is she muttering darkly about whether she'll be able to get a Waitrose Christmas slot and that the overspill will have to go into the Bootroom when you were under the impression that her ASDA deliveries were just left in the hall until she had a chance to drag them into the kitchen?

If more than three of these are true, there is no hope.

You have become the slightly embarrassing Northern relatives.

Don't be a big meanie

Oh I don't mean to be a meanie 😕

But she's started to use pretentious nicknames for her daughters. Think Belle-Belle and Nolly. If she gets a chocolate Labrador and calls it Biscuit or Hugo, I'm going to go NC.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner or tea no such thing as supper. Live in Surrey.

Because nobody - or hardly anybody - is any longer aware that ‘perfume’ is - or was considered - very non-U, according to Nancy Mitford’s ‘Bible’.

My long gone DM could have given chapter and verse on U and non U!

I thought that 'kitchen supper' was a term super-posh people use when inviting you round for the evening meal, but signalling that it won't be in the dining room, and you are not expected to come in full evening-wear and jewellery.

If they invited you round for dinner, you might not know what to expect, and turn up over-dressed and expecting three full courses with the best silverware.

Nothing wrong with supper. So much inverted snobbery on this thread. What you call a meal isn't worthy of character assassination.

Interesting!

I think, firstly, these things are as much regional as they are class-based, so I probably should’ve said ‘very posh/certain regions mainly in the south (? - my question mark is because I think ‘supper’ used in that way is more niche, and I wouldn’t know what those regions were).

’Middle class’ is probably the loosest/broadest class descriptor. I know people who went to Eton and consider themselves middle class, and equally people from financially struggling families but with people working in professional roles. Where I’ve encountered ‘supper’ as a main meal, it’s mainly been among the very wealthy, but somebody upthread did mention it’s a Surrey thing as well so I’m sure you’re right. What region are you in?

There’s always one.🙄

I had slice of toast with peanut butter on for my supper last night.

Agreed with this 👍🏻

Yes I am middle class😀

Probably less tiresome for her than having to be second guessed all the time by new friends and acquaintances. If she says dinner then people will always assume the evening meals and tea will always be confused with a light late afternoon meal.

I'm assuming you're not British. Because no-one rips the piss out of the British class system like the British.

It, along with our obsession with the weather, is what passes for humour here.

Because we shared the "version" before she moved to Surrey.

@Dollymylove so when friends meet for a meal in the middle of the day, they call it "Shall we get a dinner?" or "Let's have a quick dinner and continue shopping". Surely, you would say "lunch"?
Genuinely curious.

Here in Kent we have breakfast, lunch at midday, then dinner as an evening meal. I don't know anyone who has supper! We have snacks in the evening in front of the telly, which could be anything; crisps, cake, yoghurt, ice cream, biscuits, or in some houses you might swap all of that for a vodka and coke - just depends what you're in the mood for. But one thing we never ever ever ever do is call our midday meal 'dinner'! Not even if we're having a roast on a Sunday at 1pm, not even if it's a proper sit down at the table with a knife and fork meal, it's still always lunch. Dinner is what you have late afternoon/early evening, and is usually the main meal of the day. If someone called their lunch 'dinner' I'd be like 🤔.... okaaaay.

I was born in Surrey and nobody in my family ever called mid day meal lunch..

Although it got confusing at school, we had lunch time but the fodder was served up by dinner ladies.