Lunch, Dinner, Tea, Supper?

See previous thread on this topic

Yes, odd isn't it. I was brought up with Dinner and Tea.

I think most people still call it Christmas Dinner even when eaten at 'Lunch' time

Yes, Lunch Ladies just doesn't sound right does it?
When I was a child I had breakfast in the mornings, stayed for school dinners, had tea after school and supper before bed. Sunday dinner was in the early afternoon - around 1pm, tea was around 5pm and it was still referred to as 'teatime' even though Dad would come home to a cooked 'dinner'.

In my early working years the office manager would ask what time we all wanted to go to the canteen for our dinner, after work we all went home for our tea.

I don't recall when things started to change particularly but now, MrP and myself have 'lunch' around midday and dinner in the evening. Funny old world isn't it??

Breakfast, dinner and tea here. The term 'Christmas lunch' drives me mad. It's dinner.

Kate it would have to be Christmas tea then with us as we always eat our main meal at 7pm even at Christmas 😉

Breakfast, light lunch, and supper at about 6 pm at our house. In the village, the old ways rule breakfast sometime between 6.30 to 7.30, Dinner at 12 pm. light tea at 4 and supper.

It was always breakfast, dinner and tea around here when I was growing up, still is mostly. If I’m meeting friends at dinner time we do tend to say ‘lunch’

Dinner was only ever the meal served in the middle of day when I went to school, hence school dinners, other than that I've always regarded it as an evening meal, except at Christmas, when dinner for us is the middle of the afternoon and we tend to refer to it as dinner not lunch.

Breakfast is generally the first meal of the day but I eat mine late anything between 11 am and 1 o'clock so it can morph into brunch.

Lunch is the middle of the day meal, if at home it usually consists of soup and a sandwich. If out in a restaurant it can be a full blown meal with wine and can go on till 4 pm, but in that case, for me it will then be the last meal of the day.

Tea is a middle of the afternoon type affair, my childhood memories of that would be with older relatives a delicious high tea affair complete with homemade scones and cake, the sort of thing we occasionally hanker after now and again and costs a considerable amount in some swanky establishment served with lashing of nostalgia and for a special treat a glass of Prosecco.

Supper is really posh talk for dinner, it was very well used when I lived in West London having received such invitations along the lines of "Do come to supper" never knowing whether to expect spag bol in the kitchen washed down with plonk or a formal dinner party affair in a dining room with place settings and all the cutlery for umpteen courses. that was all years ago though for the latter, I don't know anyone who can be bothered with all that palaver anymore, I know I can't , I prefer my entertaining to be informal lunches but they can, go on well into the evening, particularly if it's summertime and we are in the garden.

Oh dear, I have an evening meal. Am I on my own? I do not bother to have lunch because eating then puts me off my evening meal.

We had high tea in Scotland and that was supper or whatever one calls it!

What we called supper was a cup of milky drink and a few biscuits or a slice of toast
Anyone remember “ night starvation “ ? P

So regional too.

I had always understood that dinner was main meal of the day, so when I was junior school age, it was school dinner, and tea later (the bread, butter and cake kind.).

When I was a bit older it was school dinner, and a cooked evening meal at home, so two ‘dinners’.

Some northern friends call their evening meal ‘tea’, which is equally fine as far as I’m concerned. I do dislike it when regional usage is turned into some sort of ‘class’ thing.

Lunch is usually a lighter meal, to me, anyway.
The big Christmas roast is always Christmas dinner here, no matter when we have it. I know it’s VVVU of me, but ‘Christmas lunch’ does irritate me.

Yesterday, for the first time in goodness knows how long, I served afternoon tea to some friends of dh - a sponge cake made right after breakfast, and two different lots of triangular sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Was exceedingly nice - must do it more often!

Yes definitely agree, different interpretations tend to be regional. Supper for example was often mentioned in a story book context when I imagined it to be something like some bread, cheese and milk. Then somewhere along the line it morphed into a full blown evening meal. Apart from the "afternoon tea" the other context of tea would be the meal children have after school.

I never came across supper growing up. We had breakfast dinner and tea.
Now we have breakfast lunch and dinner ( still not sure quite what supper is but it always sounds ‘posh’).

aggie

What we called supper was a cup of milky drink and a few biscuits or a slice of toast
Anyone remember “ night starvation “ ? P

I do - I had to have a milky drink before bed when I was a child and hated the skin that formed on the top.
Stopped it as soon as I could and dislike anything made with hot milk to this day.

We must have been 'posh' - breakfast, lunch and tea here, though midday 'dinner' at school. Something to do with a hot meal I think as it was always school dinners or packed lunches.

In my parents house "dinner" was a meal in the middle of the day and "tea" was what you had when you came in from work. "Supper" was a hoit drink and possible a biscuit before bed.

In my grandmothers house the mid day meal was "lunch". Tea was something you had around 4pm and comprised cakes and sandwiches. Dinner was a meal from 8pm onward.

Nowadays I stick with my grandmothers rules.

I had some friends who had supper in the evening when I had "dinner". To me, supper was between dinner and bedtime.

If I went to some of my school friends' homes (straight from school) I would have what I considered to be early dinner but they called it tea.
I still feel that tea is earlier than dinner - but not the cake and sandwiches thing we call afternoon tea.

Some of this is a class thing, some regional. Supper was definitely only used (in terms of dinner) by more privileged families when I was growing up.

I think I'm an in-betweeney person!

For those who apparently take breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and then Dinner/Supper, how on earth do you get through it all?

Well of course breakfast and lunch can become as one, the later the breakfast, has a knock on effect, lunch morphs into afternoon tea, maybe a sandwich with a cup of tea, and tea can be just a cup of tea mid afternoon, the good thing are meals are less likely to be set in stone. The younger generation love the brunch I think it' s the favoured eat out meal at weekends if my 30 somethings are anything to go by.

A while ago my DH said to 4 year old GD what would you like for dinner and very hautily she said Grandad it’s lunch not dinner. I always say breakfast, lunch tea and supper.

It`s breakfast,lunch,dinner and supper to me.
But Dh says it`s breakfast,dinner,tea and summat to eat,lol.
I think it`s where you live/come from.

I realise my grandchildren refer to hot meals as "dinner" when they come and stay with us which would be a weekend and usually starts around Friday 6pm, my granddaughter "WhatsApps" me with "what are we having for dinner?" and then they usually ask for roast dinner on Sunday before they go home, but that would be served between 3 and 4 pm, I tend to call it dinner too. If I were having friends on a Sunday from say 1 pm onwards then it would be lunch, so I'm realising I'm pretty inconsistent.

Fleurpepper

So regional too.

Never heard of 'tea' as a meal when I lived in London or Surrey.

Discovered it when I moved to the Potteries and other parts of the Midlands.

We had breakfast, lunch, maybe tea and then supper. Lunch was always substantial as my mother was French.. Early supper for all us children, then my father would eat a proper meal with her later.. Which maybe they called Dinner ...
Now I have a late breakfast and then one meal before 6pm.. I don't know how we all ate so much but it was all home cooked food and much of it home grown