A question about European late dinners

Us too - aim to eat at 6pm ish . Then I try to fast till 11 a,m ish next day .
coincidentally - from Wales too ?

Approx 6:30. I dislike cooking in the evening if I’ve been decorating or gardening all day; I’m cream crackered. The best meal gets prepared early in the day, in one pan, and allowed to “mature”. It should stretch for another meal. Eating too late leaves both of us feeling uncomfortable all night.

We eat when it's ready, don't have a set time

I now work from home so our dinner is at six. My husband has choir practise etc so it’s good to get it out the way. Ideally he’d like to eat later but I want it out of the way and the kitchen tidy. I tend to cook from scratch. Funnily enough, we used to call it “supper” in my childhood home, which is a late night meal. Niw, it’s dinner.

Cindylou

Us too - aim to eat at 6pm ish . Then I try to fast till 11 a,m ish next day .
coincidentally - from Wales too ?

I'm afraid I'm not from Wales if you mean me.
We are from what was a big mining community. My cousin lives near Cardiff and still refers to dinner at 12 p.m. I think meals were planned around the shifts. Any man who had been at work early in the morning wanted a substantial meal when they got in at what is now called lunchtime. This must apply to lot of parts of the U.K hence the term used to be School dinners, not lunches. Which came into being during WW11 to let the women fill the men's jobs who had been called up.

We had a really tricky time travelling round the Basque region in Spain. Bars were full but restaurants often didn’t open til at least 10pm. I think we retreated to our bed a few nights with no supper!

Sharina, you brought up another question. You say your husband has choir practice. What time are most evening activities or meetings planned, and how do you manage with late dinners?

Here most evening events or meetings are planned for 7 or 7:30. Some excercise classes are earlier, so you can go right after work.
If most are eating at 7 or 8, how do you fit in activities?

This thread has been such an eye-opener for me.. It used to drive us mad when we were in the States and you couldn't get a meal after 8 pm, and even then, you are presented with the bill (without having asked for it) when your plate is still half full and told to "take your time". In the UK, too, chairs are going up on tables just as you are settling down to a nice evening's chat over a glass of wine or even just finishing up the bottle of water.

This is so "foreign" to me. Here in Germany we wouldn't normally book a table for earlier than 8 pm (unless young children were involved) and there would be no signs of staff getting impatient even at 10 pm.

At home we eat late, too, but that is because I am an owl and can't really start getting going till late afternoon and I hate having to drop everything to start on dinner. DH is very sweet about it, although I appreciate that he would probably prefer to have had dinner before the 8 o'clock news starts.

JackyB

This thread has been such an eye-opener for me.. It used to drive us mad when we were in the States and you couldn't get a meal after 8 pm, and even then, you are presented with the bill (without having asked for it) when your plate is still half full and told to "take your time". In the UK, too, chairs are going up on tables just as you are settling down to a nice evening's chat over a glass of wine or even just finishing up the bottle of water.

This is so "foreign" to me. Here in Germany we wouldn't normally book a table for earlier than 8 pm (unless young children were involved) and there would be no signs of staff getting impatient even at 10 pm.

At home we eat late, too, but that is because I am an owl and can't really start getting going till late afternoon and I hate having to drop everything to start on dinner. DH is very sweet about it, although I appreciate that he would probably prefer to have had dinner before the 8 o'clock news starts.

Tangentially, I remember some years ago an Australian friend visiting the north of Scotland in the summer. He told us that he went to bed hungry several times because he was so hard-wired to eat when the sun set he found himself looking for food at 11pm.

I aim for 6pm but …………….. usually around 7:15!!!! My DM always had a meal on the table for 6:00pm. On the dot! Lifestyles now mean a range of mealtimes to fit in with busy lives.

Might be of interest!

I lived in France for many years. The children used to have a very long lunch break, which included a nap, they then had snack time at the end of lessons at 4.30pm, this was often hot choc or choc milkshake, with fruit and a bread cake.

I picked them up after work at around 6.30, and we would then often go to the park before going home. Dinner was at around 8,,pm but different to England. We started with crudités (often raw veggies), followed by a broth soup, or other starter, we then had protein eg.meat or fish, followed by veg (usually a green veg but not necessarily spuds or rice etc), next would be cheese and green salad, followed by pud. Which was yoghurt, or perhaps fruit.

It sounds a lot but in fact portions were small, and we would take time.

Around 6.30 usually, when we’re at home. We like to get everything cleared away by about 7 so we can have an evening. But if friends or family are here, it would be later…a nice meal together usually takes up ages as lots of chatting!

Jacksgrandma123

Might be of interest!

That map is very interesting. As you might expect, the average eating time in the evenings gets later as you go south to hotter, sunnier regions, earlier as you go north to the colder, darker ones. Logical!

I think in the UK it depends what time you get home from work. It must be difficult if you finish work at 5pm to get home and make a meal thats ready much before 7pm (unless you live very close to your workplace).
We are farmers and I've noticed we tend to eat later in the summer, so maybe daylight has an input?

A lot of European diners eat quite late and their youngsters too.
Although when holidaying in America as we arrived at 8pm they were practically closing for the night!

Nobody prescribed Omerazole? Not popular with British GPS. No indigestion since prescribed by a Spanish GP.

Omeprazole even.

When back in Spain we have a siesta and dinner around 9.

MiniMoon

I like to have my supper before 7pm. My husband and I have our main meal at about 12:30pm - 1:00pm.
He grew up on a farm, and keeps to the way he ate as a child, breakfast, dinner, tea and supper.

Me too, we farmed for many years and lunch was always 1pm.
MIL religiosity cooked 3 meals a day plus a substantial tea, she was horrified that I had no intention of doing so! I worked part time and my DH had to learn to fend for himself, there was always plenty available to eat.
Nowadays I cook at lunchtime and have a very light tea about 5pm. I don’t eat breakfast but DH gets himself porridge and fruit.
I really couldn’t eat much later let alone a big meal!

We tend to have a late lunch if we eat out but at home we normally eat between 5 and 6 p.m. OH has breakfast but I only have yogurt and fruit mid morning if we're not going out for lunch..