The FastDay Forum

[Debs]

We're breakfast, lunch and dinner round at our place. Supper is a later and smaller meal. AFternoon tea is a whole different ballgame, cake, biscuits and a vatful of tea. In fact when we are home we always stop for afternoon tea at 3pm whatever we are doing and have a nice pot of leaf tea.
We were off biscuits etc with it for a quite a while, but now I am on 5:2 we have reintroduced them and were in fact just having a discussion about what to make for tomorrow, flapjack, ginger biscuits, anzac biscuit? Hmmm!

Well, color me confused because I thought when speaking of tea that it was the 4pm tea time thing and I always thought it peculiar when someone mentioned an entree (like salmon.) In my mind I guess I was picturing high tea with biscuits or crumpets or a pastry of sorts. However, it is somewhat normal for older folks (think nursing home) to eat their "evening" meal at 4:30pm. So, I never thought too much about it.

We have breakfast, lunch and dinner here. But, as I understand it, it is a regional thing in our country and many would instead call lunch dinner and/or dinner supper depending upon where they were born or where their family originates.

[Debs]

Nowt as queer as folks eh?!
Yes afternoon tea could comprise crumpets, butties etc. now you come to think of it, I could make some crumpets for tomorrow.
I think the 'upper classes' of which I am NOT one, would have a high tea at 4ish and then a later supper. No wonder they all look as though they have indigestion! The Tudors had their main meal about 11am from what I recall. All manner of sweetened meat pies etc.

[janeg]

And don't forget elevensies and, in Shetland 8 o'clocks! Kind of like 'supper' and mostly sociable ie with visitors, standing on the floor! Well, they do sit down!
And *cue for a song* da da da da da da dee, when the clock strikes three, everything stops for tea!
Although I can't stand the stuff and have coffee. Afternoon tea with coffee works for me.

I didn't realise it was so regional over in the US as well! I grew up with breakfast, lunch and dinner (occasionally called tea if it was a light one), but my OH is from Cheshire, so for him it's breakfast, dinner, tea and then supper before bed (toast!). I have sort of aquired his thinking, even though we live in the South - because we had to decide one way or the other so our kids didn't get confused, and he was NEVER gonna change!! (very stuck in his ways whereas I'm more adaptable!). When my son says lunch (which I think is fine - all his friends say it) my OH says they have dinner ladies at school and it's called dinner money, the stuff that pays for it, so should be dinner! (although think they're now called lunchtime assistants!). And I have to adopt the lunch and dinner phrases talking to other people or they get confused!!

[carieoates]

Just a silly question, when you guys say: "for tea I will have salmon", does that mean that you squeeze the fish and drink it in a cup, or does it mean that you drink tea with a side of salmon? or none of the above?

I can imagine that it's quite confusing but...
Tea, can mean a drink or a meal. Tea time is a meal, usually in the evening.
You can have breakfast - dinner - tea
Breakfast- lunch - tea
Breakfast - lunch - dinner.
So as long as you're referring to a meal it's time for your evening meal
In my house it's breakfast, lunch and tea. If that helps. And

I just googled to find out more about how these terms originated and it makes fascinating reading - apparently in Roman times eating more than once a day was frowned upon as they were obsessed with digestion and it was considered gluttonous to eat more than one meal a day.
Three square meals originated from the navy when sailors were promised three plates of gruel daily and the plates that contained it were square shaped. As for the word lunch that seems to have come from the old Anglo Saxon word nuncheon, a large piece of bread that could be held in the hands, and then of course we have ploughman's lunch, tiffin etc. Lord Sandwich ordered his butler to bring him meat wrapped in bread, so he could continue whatever he was doing (playing cards?) and hey presto we're still eating sandwiches for our lunch, or should that be luncheon, or dinner, tea, supper, high tea, afternoon tea, elevenses....

When my son says lunch (which I think is fine - all his friends say it) my OH says they have dinner ladies at school and it's called dinner money, the stuff that pays for it, so should be dinner!

Ha! My husband is exactly the same. We are in Leeds, Northern England. I tend to say lunch and dinner but often get told off for being posh!

I think it's to do with the social class structure. When I was a child we had breakfast, dinner and tea because dinner was the main meal and as Toffees OH says, we had school DINNERS (main meal eaten at lunchtime, a word of which we had never heard) and tea after school.

We had our main meal in the evening on Saturdays but it was still called tea. Be too confusing otherwise! We had our Sunday Dinner (roast) at lunchtime and our tea called Sunday Tea because it was different to tea on any other day. It consisted of shell fish, bread and butter, salad and TEA. We usually got together with family for this meal.

As I am now grown up and able to make my own decisions, we have breakfast (or not) lunch and dinner. This is because our main meal DINNER Is eaten in the evening.

In summary...... I think that lunch was for the middle and upper classes whilst dinner at lunchtime was for the working classes. Now that modern times have allowed us to become socially mobile we have got confused over what we call our mealtimes. Got it?

We don't drink tea with or after our tea, but who knows what others do!
I say tea if we're eating early, and dinner if eating later.

This just about sums it up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_(meal)

Not sure really whether what it says about 'high tea' and the working classes is quite right tho. In most working class northern families of the first half of the 20th C they would have been lucky to have all this. More likely to have a hot dish - then followed by bread and jam to fill up. Only would have a dessert on a Saturday or Sunday.

As a southerner, I have breakfast, lunch and dinner (or supper if it's lste evening and as a child I had tea because my parents ate dinner later by themselves).

I live in the north and all these years later still get confuzzled when people say dinner, meaning lunch. Tea id less confusing, obviously. But in my world dinner can only be eaten in the evening.

In hotels you book for BB&Evening Meal!

In hotels you book for BB&Evening Meal!

Haha! They are hedging their bets there!

I guess that there is even an argument for saying that breakfast doesn't always have to be something that you eat in the morning because the word breakfast is actually made up of two different words (breakand fast) because it is the first meal of the day which breaks the overnight fast.

However, there is nothing to say that we can't have that meal later in the day and call that breakfast for the same reason, if that is the very first thing that we eat during that day. That is particularly true with a 5:2 diet fasting day because for my normal fasting day, I will usually only have one meal a day in the evening.

I would normally refer to that as my tea or evening meal and others would refer to it as their dinner or supper. Technically speaking though, I could also refer to that as breakfast because that for me, is the meal which is breaking my fast from the previous day.