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A few weeks ago, we ate at Kendells rather excellent French bistro in Leeds. They had a ‘tea time’ pre-theatre menu on the go, which I mentioned at the time was a nice little nod to the restaurant’s Northern roots, but it also got me thinking…
The only meal that the entire British nation seem to agree on a name for is breakfast.
After that, it all goes to pot.
Is it lunch? Is it dinner? Is dinner eaten at midday or in the evening? Is the main evening meal dinner or tea? Is supper a proper meal or more of a late night snack? Is there such a thing as brunch?
As with many other things in Britain, the origins of these variations are rooted firmly in geography, economics and class.
In the former industrial heartlands of the North, in Yorkshire and Lancashire and further North, people often use ‘dinner’ to mean a midday meal or lunch. Children eat ‘school dinners’, their parents give them ‘dinner money’ to pay for them. Lunch is widely used and understood, of course, but ‘dinner’ as a midday meal is something that’s stuck around.
‘Tea’ is also still widely used to indicate a main evening meal, but talk of ‘dinner’ in that context and nobody seems to notice the difference
I’ve been covertly conducting a blunt and wildly unscientific experiment in the office over the past few weeks, randomly interchanging lunch and dinner and dinner and tea in any conversation that warranted their use. Obviously, I talk about food a lot at work, so there were plenty of opportunities to play around with…
Broadly speaking, everybody understood which meal I was talking about, regardless of what I called it.
Lunch and dinner? Totally interchangeable, at least informally…where the mid-day meal was even only slightly more formal, it became ‘lunch’. A sandwich from the (excellent) staff restaurant or brought in from home was often ‘dinner’, or more likely, ‘me dinner’, but meeting somebody for a business meeting over a meal is invariably a ‘lunch’.
Tea and dinner were even trickier to get hold of.
There are personal preferences either way, and a sense that formality again has a part to play.
You have your ‘tea’ at home, but if you go out to a restaurant to eat, it’s probably ‘dinner’, but not always…if it’s very informal – something quick in a pub or café in the early evening, it’s still ‘tea’. If there are kids eating too, and its early evening, it’s also possibly ‘tea’.
If it’s a takeaway, it’s also ‘tea’, especially before about 8pm. If you invite somebody to your house to eat, it’ll most likely be for ‘dinner’, and as such, some extra effort will be made. If you know the person very well, and it’s not a particularly planned or spectacular thing, it could still be ‘tea’.
It’s all very confusing.
Supper is even stranger. This one shows a real class divide, whereas the lunch/dinner, dinner/tea situation is as much a question of geography as society. To the very well to do, ‘supper’ often means ‘dinner’ or ‘tea’, or whatever you choose to call your evening meal. To everybody else, ‘supper’ is merely a late night snack, a non-meal like a slice of toast in front of News at Ten.
Brunch, for the record, does not exist. It’s an American affectation.
One thing that struck me very clearly is that people don’t really seem to care what other people call their meal times. Using the traditionally more working class form of ‘dinner/tea’ raised no eyebrows, nor did use of the alternative lunch/dinner. Both forms appeared to be almost entirely interchangeable, in my experience.
I thought a conclusive, cast iron, incontrovertible piece of academic research would be to ask a four-year old, on the basis that four-year olds are less sullied by any ridiculous notions of class or status, and generally tell you the absolute, brutal truth and tell it to you straight. My four-year old understands all variations, but tends to prefer to mix her schemes and use ‘lunch’ and ‘tea’.
So, that’s completely inconclusive, then. It was worth a try, I suppose.
It seems that anything goes.
Nobody uses ‘supper’, though.
Well, they might in Harrogate or Ilkley, but still…
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Have always called it lunch and tea. Since moving up north a lot of people have corrected me! Insisting its dinner not tea!
Is it a north/south thing?
When we used to visit my nan (welsh) we always had supper!
I think it's generally accepted that it's a north/south thing, but that theory is undermined by so many different variations and traditions, even within the same area. Call it what you want!
I find the supper/dinner divide is the most class-based. My understanding is that supper is used by the upper middle/upper to refer to an evening meal that is more informal – like a “kitchen supper”. Just one course, usually, and something fairly easy to prepare – around 7-8pm. Dinner is a more formal – more than one course, taken in a dining room, possibly a bit later. The upper/upper middle classes would “dress for dinner” but not for supper.
I think that's pretty much spot on – 'supper' is a less formal version of 'dinner'…the posh person's version of a bowl of pasta in front of the telly.
I grew up in East Yorkshire and always called it dinner at midday and tea in the evening. Since moving to London (about 15 years ago) I've begun to call the midday meal lunch and the evening meal dinner. This seems to be the complete opposite to what Tricia Ryder says above.
A Northerner marrying into a Southern family has enormous problems, I can tell you. My in laws have breakfast, lunch, high tea and supper. But they do dress for dinner, and woebetide you if you are without a posh frock. Since I am always merrily reporting over the phone to them that 'I am just giving the kids their tea', I think they think that I am bringing them up on cake alone.
Pfffft. You're bringing them up properly. Shame about their accents, though. Could be a bit more northern…
Send 'em up here for some Yorkshire elecution lessons and we'll sort that out in a couple of weeks.
A big meal around midday is dinner. A couple of sarnies at your desk is lunch. A decent but not too large meal around 5 or 6 is tea. Going out to eat a big meal after 6 is dinner. Supper is a late night snack. The easy way to think about it is that your biggest meal of the day is probably your dinner, unless you have a light lunch and your normal tea in which case you missed your dinner and you're going to need a bit of supper later.
This information is only valid within 15 miles of my house at the top of North Yorkshire
…that's it, isn't it? Everybody does this differently!
Hey Rich! Found your blog through Foodbuzz, happy to be your new blogging friend. I recently wrote a historical food blog about the Colonial period in Virginia here in the U.S. I was interested to learn that back then the mealtimes were called Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper. Nowadays we call it Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner (I'm in California), but it does vary a bit based on region– many Southerners still refer to the night meal as Supper. Here's the link if you're interested: http://theshiksa.com/?p=4648
This use of the word “tea” is blowing my American mind. I live in Kentucky which fancies itself a Southern state, and there is a huge debate between “dinner” vs “supper” when it comes to meals eaten on a Sunday. For general weekday chat, dinner/supper both refer to the evening meal. But for a big meal on Sunday afternoon following church? Some say this is “Sunday Dinner” and afterward, in the evening, they will have supper. Theshiksa is quite right, use of supper varies quite a bit regionally. What interesting food for thought.
'Sunday dinner' is quite well understood here, too, but only because many people call their midday meal 'dinner' anyway. In Britain, use of 'supper' seems to be dependent much more on class than it is in America – there are regional exceptions, but generally, 'supper' is used by the upper-middle and upper classes.
Can't say that I've ever used the word "tea" for anything besides the actual drink, but dinner is definitely dominant where I come from. I don't think I've heard the word supper in over 10 years lol
Goodness…how confusing! I like deferring to the Hobbits' use of elevensies for morning tea
Love it! My son was just asking me the other day why everyone calls it something different!
My “dinner” is my main meal of the day – whenever I have it. Usually, that’s about 7.00pm but sometimes on Sundays, particularly if we have daughter/s or grandsons around, it’s nearer 1.00pm.
Lighter food eaten between 4.00 and 7.00pm is “tea”. “Lunch” is a snack around midday or a little later.