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?

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!!

Growing up, it was something like digestive biscuits and milk, after tea and before bed.

Sometimes on a weekend evening, my parents would have their friends over for "supper". I think it started out as drinks and snacks, but later became a casual meal (rather than a dinner party). It would be later than kids' tea time though.

It’s just the family evening meal.

If we have people round for supper it would be informal and served in the kitchen, just a family supper with guests.

If we have them round for dinner it would be more formal (the silver and proper place settings) and in the dining room.

A snack before bed, growing up we always had a cup of milk and a chocolate biscuit-Club/Penguin/54321 or similar.

Comes from the word for soup.
In Belgium (and French-speaking Canada I think), souper is the evening meal, the same thing that they call diner in French (circumflex on the i).

It's passed into Welsh as swper where again it just means the evening meal, not posh and not a bedtime snack.

For me (Scottish) Supper = toast/cereal tea and biscuits before bed

It's very much a class thing in England! Regional, too, and that only adds to the class complications.

In my childhood (Black Country):

• Cooked meal in the middle of the day - Dinner
• Late afternoon snack - Tea
• Cooked evening meal - Tea
• Snack before bed - Supper

After I moved to France:

• Cooked meal in mid-day - Déjeuner
• Light afternoon meal - Goûter
• Cooked meal in evening - Dîner
• Late-night snack - encas de soir / collation

After moving to London:

• Mid-day meal: Lunch
• Light afternoon meal - Tea
• Evening meal: Dinner

My posher London friends have lunches, teas, suppers and dinners. Probably not all on the same day 😂 Then you've got hors-d'oeuvres, canapés, amuse-bouches, entremets, palate cleansers and a whole extra minefield of desserts, puddings, afters and sweets!

A lovely snack not long before bed, cheese and crackers with some crisps or fruit. This brings back a nice memory of my childhood, I had supper every evening! It must have just dwindled off over the years because I forgot all about it and definitely don’t do it with my own children

I’ve always understood supper to be a light snack, like a crumpet, with a hot drink, an hour or so before bedtime.

In the U.S., dinner and supper are used interchangeably. Both would be the evening meal.

For me (I grew uo in Oxfordshire) it is your main evening meal.

I’m invested in this, now that I declared that “supper” is the casual thing you have after an unremarkable lunch. If you invite guests (or ask whatever teens in the house you happen to have visiting) you don’t expect them to get out of shorts and tshirts in this weather.

I am south of the M4

A snack before bed if you’re still hungry, something like toast or cereal.

Posh English neighbours invited us for ‘supper’. Which was very confusing because for DH and I (Scottish, not posh) supper is toast and a cup of tea just before you go to bed 🤷‍♀️. Turns out they differentiated between ‘supper’ - informal, in the kitchen, and ‘dinner’ - formal, dining room. Both were the main evening meal, just different levels of formality.

in the end we went for lunch instead which we could all agree on the meaning of 😂.

@GarlicEverywhere my family are in SA and they don't use supper for that meaning...

Dead common me.
I have breakfast, elevenses, dinner (that's common), tea ( that's common too.

Lunch is a light midday meal, which i call dinner. We often had a large cooked meal at dinner time.
I think people who put me right about eating lunch are just pretentious.

Dinner is a cooked meal early in the evening. Usually 8.00 at the latest. Only I call it tea, and it could be beans on toast.

Tea is something that people have in the afternoon, often accompanied by a biscuit.
Common old me loves afternoon tea with a selection of cakes and sandwiches, accompanied by prosecco or champagne.
After consuming afternoon tea, I would skip the meal designated as tea or dinner.

Supper, for me, would be a piece of toast or crumpet, together with either tea, drinking chocolate or cocoa. This would be consumed just before bed. Sometimes with marmite on the toast.
I suppose supper could also be an evening meal/dinner/tea taken later in the evening, after 8.00 o'clock.

Do you know what Ive just had. Sounds poncy but I hope people wont judge because it was really nice. Ive found these lentil flour thick crackers in salt and vinegar flavour. I put creamy full fat cottage cheese on them. Gorgeous.

What does it mean there?

I don't know that I've ever heard them use the term meaning anything.... we say we go out for dinner when we visit them

My friend who always used to say tea for evening meal now says supper instead (to keep up with her posh new friends !!!)

My Scottish friend says supper for her wee snack before bed (we live a very very long way from her native Scotland).

I'm not originally from the UK, so for me it's always been breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The first time I heard someone call dinner "tea," I swear my eye started twitching. 😂😂😂 We live in the South East as well.

He still winds me up now by asking, "What's for tea?" 😒

It's DINNER! 🤣

You are not posh but you dress in summer linens… I suspect posh may be in the eye of the beholder… 😜

When in Ireland, i think we would call cheese sandwiches after returning from the pub supper.

But this is a very normal word in parts of the north.

It’s dinner.