The FastDay Forum

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?

In the north of England 'tea' is what you guys would call 'dinner', ie the evening meal!

Ha! Salmon tea

Yes, some Australians use 'tea' for'dinner' but that's usually related to socio-economics rather than geography.

Not to be confused with 'afternoon tea' of course, that's a completely different matter!

It can be both for me. Tea, dinner, Dinner, tea.

I dont think it matters either way. For me they're the same.

Tea=dinner

I thought high tea was at 4pm with sandwiches, etc.

I call dinner tea but we eat at 5 pm and it's our main meal. I'm not Northern...

I call it dinner and lucky to get it on the table by 7pm in winter or 8pm in summer. Kids have complained for decades of the delay

We have dinner at tea time!

And don't forget dinner can also mean lunch!

I was in my thirties before I got the hang of lunch, tea and dinner and their proper place in the timetable. I'm from North Wales, so its not just a northern thing. I was also in Australia as a child for 4 years, so that may be where the confusion came from

And some people call dinner supper! And supper can be a snack at bedtime as well.

[Betsysgr8]

I grew up with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Dinner served at about 5-6pm. I grew up in the Los Angeles area of Califoria. My family were raised in South Dakota and Wyoming, where they had breakfast, dinner and supper. Breakfast served between 5 and 7 am depending on the time of year and what needed to be done, dinner served between 11am and 2pm, again depending on what needed to be done with the cattle/fields and supper a lighter meal served aboout 5 or 6 depending on whether there was a high school football or basketball or baseball game going on. They were and still are very much into "community support". In the area where I grew up on southern california, it's breakfast when you get up and lunch around noon and dinner between 5 and 6. We mostly had holiday dinner at 2pm with a supper of hot cocoa and bread and butter before bed, best part of a Holiday!

If I understood right, your "tea" is dinner, but do you actually have tea(like drink) after it? Does it called "tea" for a reason?

Here in Scotland, I have been brought up to refer to the evening meal as tea, and to lunch as dinner. A supper can also have different meanings because here, that is also the term for something bought from a chip shop along with chips (fish and chips for example, is referred to as a fish supper when you buy it from the local chippy).