Can you explain what supper is?

[beebee25]

I don't really understand what supper means.. is this a full meal or a snacky type thing? My boss puts she is meeting people for supper in her calendar. Is this dinner or am I missing the point?

We have supper as our family evening meal or with friends round for a casual meal. The children have tea earlier in the evening. Dinner is either a big dinner party or a meal out somewhere.

Where is your boss from? Supper in South Africa is dinner and in a few countries, and posh / class doesn't matter as its just nomenclature.

Growing up it was an informal family meal eaten in the kitchen around 7pm. As opposed to going out for dinner or a dinner party (usually later 8pm onwards). I am a Londoner.

A bowl of cereal before bed!

When I was growing up in a northern, very working class household of Irish heritage, supper was a late evening snack, maybe a slice of cake or a bit of bread & cheese or jam. Served with a mug of tea, obv.

Now, supper isn’t a thing in our house.

Supper for me (Irish) was a lighter evening meal if you had your main meal in the middle of the day. So breakfast, dinner and supper.

We mostly have our main meal in the evening now (breakfast, lunch and dinner), except on Sundays when it’s at about 2 or 3pm. It’s still called Sunday lunch though 😁

Before I saw the evening' appointments in her diary I thought it was some sort of tea and crumpets type thing after the evening meal.... but then I was really confused as I thought that is not the sort of thing she is going to eat with her posh mates!

Supper is casual dinner

Supper is a light evening meal.
Very useful when entertaining - if you say ‘ would you like to come for supper?’, you can keep it very casual. Dinner is more formal

This, pretty much. And if they want to be WC or ‘up North’, they will call it tea…

If she’s posh then I think it means dinner but something informal so something like lasagne or chilli rather than a full 3 course sit down.

Where I live supper is a snack before you go to bed if you are still hungry after your tea (tea being the main evening meal).

If friend is posh its evening dinner eg with wine

In our home we had our main meal after school so supper was cereal or toast about 8pm (not posh)

I have always called my main evening meal “supper”, because that’s what my mother called it when we were growing up in the 1960s.

To me it was the opposite of posh. “Dinner” sounded like the sort of meal you would have only if going out to a posh restaurant (which was very rare in those days) or if you were giving a dinner party.

Supper was a normal family meal eaten in the kitchen.

My father grew up in Lancashire and we learned very young that when our paternal grandparents talked about supper they meant a glass of milk and a piece of parkin before bed.

It’s a little snackity snack before bedtime (in our house; toast, cereal, crackers, maybe a bit of cheese).

In our house it means that we had an early tea, before going out to one of the kids after school activities, then supper is a pre-bed snack when we get back. Usually features a glass of milk and toast.

However, I suspect that is not what your boss is meeting clients for, and she probably means an evening meal.

Stuart Maconie writes about this in one of his books.

to us working class northerners/Midlanders supper is a piece of bread and dripping or cheese on toast with your cocoa in your dressing gown before you go to bed

If you are properly posh, then dinner is a formal evening meal eaten with guests in the dining room, and supper is the family evening meal. There was a trend in the late 80s/early 90s to instead invite friends for a kitchen supper rather than a formal evening meal.

For the rest of us, supper is a snacky extra small meal eaten late in the evening.

Cheese and crackers before bed for me too.

In his analysis of north-south misunderstanding, Pies and Prejudice, the Wigan-born broadcaster Stuart Maconie recalls how he first moved to London and was puzzled by his producer's invitation to supper. Though he was pleased to have arrived in metropolitan circles, he could not understand why he was being asked to sit in his dressing gown and have milky drinks in front of the television.

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/may/04/tea-is-an-evening-meal-review

Posh people it's the evening meal. Normos it's a snack before bed.

My boss is posh. He has people round (well his wife does) for supper. They go out for it too. I consider it to be a small meal, eaten late, a bit after dinner.

When I was a child supper would be something later on in the evening after dinner if I was still hungry like cereal

Seems that was the original usage according to Wikipedia.

Supper was originally a secondary lighter evening meal. The main meal of the day, called dinner, used to be served closer to what is known as lunchtime, around the middle of the day, but crept later over the centuries, mostly over the course of the 19th century. When dinner was still at the early time, eating a lighter supper in the evening was very common;

I know it as a small savoury meal you have in the evening if hungry later on after dinner, e.g crackers/cheese on toast or cereal, a banana etc
I am guessing your boss doesn't mean that!!

Northern girl here so if referring to kids having supper it’d be milk & a biscuit before bed. If I had supper it’d be cheese & crackers or toast &pate if I was peckish before bed. We have breakfast, dinner, tea & optional supper if hungry.