Monday 8 October 2012

What time is dinner?

For a long time now, I have pondered on when the meal called dinner should take place.  Should it be in the middle of the day or is that lunch?  Should it be in the evening or is that tea?

I have always been brought up to have dinner in the middle of the day and tea in the evening.  I think that is a working class 'thing' and that is what we ate at home when I lived with my parents.  Since moving out (almost 20 years ago) I have vascillated between lunch and dinner and tea and dinner, not really feeling comfortable with anything.  I think dinner in the evening is when you go out for a meal (out for dinner) well into the evening but tea is eaten with the children earlier on at 5.30-6.00.  I don't feel right having tea at 8.  Similarly going out for dinner in the middle of the day sounds wrong but it is fine to go out for lunch,  Do I stay in and have dinner at home in the middle of the day?  Not really.  I think it is going to have to be lunch in the middle of the day and tea early or dinner later on in the evening.

I think that makes sense in my steam-rollered mind (crazy day).  It is just the whole middle-classedness of the whole thing that irks me.  Maybe that is just what it is.  I am a working class snob who has moved into middle class but is clinging to her roots, and remembering what Mum used to do.


What time do you have dinner?

2 comments:

  1. Fab post.... I tend to have dinner once the boys are in from school normally between 4-4.30 because they are normally hungry.... Then later we may have something a little lighter to eat eg fruit

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  2. Lol, i like this post. It reminds me of the debates we always seem to have in our house. I'm from London and we live in the Midlands, so i am constantly battling the masses over this sort of thing. For me, it's lunch and dinner.

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