What follows was inspired by the video “Vegetables don’t exist” on the “Words Unravelled!” YouTube channel hosted by Rob Watts from “RobWords” and Jess Zafarris author of the etymology books “Words from Hell” and “Once Upon a Word”.
Meal Times As Tastes Of History is based in the UK our focus on food history and recipes is unashamedly British and Euro-centric. Clearly, however, cuisine and dining in the “Old World” has been heavily influenced by pretty much all areas of the globe. Putting aside arguments about colonialism and imperialism for the present purpose, our diets have been enriched by discoveries in the Americas, Asia and Africa that have introduced Britons to foods previously unknown in the classical and Mediæval eras. With these new ingredients have come innovative recipes and changes to mealtimes and our dining experience.
Today, let us look at how our gastronomic day has altered over time. Most people are familiar with the idea of eating breakfast, lunch and dinner (or breakfast, dinner and tea, if you prefer [1]), but this had not always been the case. Most ancient Egyptians for example, whether rich or poor, ate two meals a day: a morning meal perhaps of bread and beer, followed by a hearty meal in the late afternoon/early evening of vegetables, meat, and more bread and beer. The ancient Greeks and Romans added a familiar third light snack in the middle of the day, but the main repast remained in the late afternoon/early evening before sunset. Indeed, up until the advent of artificial lighting, when people ate was chiefly dictated by daylight since the burning of candles, oil lamps, torches or tapers was an expense most ordinary folk could ill-afford. Naturally, as artificial lighting became more and more commonplace, meals could be eaten later and later in the day. Regardless, throughout history it was one’s wealth and status that dictated not only the access to and variety of foods available but also when they were eaten. In reality, only the richest social classes in the past had the means to illuminate lavish night-time feasts.
Breakfast It should be self-evident that while asleep you cannot eat but that on waking you might want something “to break the night's fast”. Thus “break fast”, or more commonly “breakfast”, entered the language of Mediæval England. Intriguingly, the word has not always meant the first meal of the day but has had a more general meaning of any meal taken after you have not eaten for a while. Thus, for some people “breakfast” might occur at lunchtime, while for others luncheon or lunch was in fact the second meal of the day. Today the contraction of breakfast and lunch into “brunch” is a popular alternative for a more substantial meal taken around mid-morning, especially at weekends or on holiday.
For centuries, however, the daily routine of Mediæval monastic life shaped when people ate. Breakfast would have been eaten shortly after rising, but not before those who could had attended morning Mass. With work to be done in the fields and livestock to look after, farmers and country folk would not have had the time for such services, but pious townsfolk, the gentry and their servants often did attend chapel daily. With their religious observance fulfilled, and the first chores completed, people would pause to break their fast. This small, simple meal typically consisted of cold foods since cooking fires may have only just been lit as the household rose. Leftovers from the previous day plus eggs, butter, bread and small beer commonly formed the Mediæval breakfast.
Church services aside, daily life was governed by daylight as already mentioned. The Mediæval day was therefore structured differently to the present with most people rising much earlier and going to bed much earlier than now. Ordinary working men and women most likely rose at dawn to maximise the available daylight. By midday labourers in the Tudor period would be hungry after toiling in the fields from daybreak onward. They would take a short break to eat what was known as a “beever” or “noonshine” usually consisting of bread and cheese. The farmer and farm labourers would either have their food brought to them as they worked in the field, or they would have carried it with them in a bag. In contrast, a Tudor craftsman may have simply closed his shop and headed upstairs to his lodgings where his wife would have the midday meal waiting for both him, his labourers and apprentices.
Dinner Since breakfast in the Mediæval and Tudor periods was eaten relatively early, those who did not rise early did not eat it. Unless traveling or hunting, the nobility generally dispensed with breakfast in favour of a hearty midday meal. Thus nobles, gentlemen and merchants would sit down for their main meal, commonly called “dinner”, around eleven or twelve o’clock. For the Tudor nobility and gentry, dinner could be the beginning of a round of feasting that might last all day, or it could be a simple and unpretentious repast, depending upon the occasion and the temperament of the diner.
As an aside, while not wishing to sow confusion, etymologically speaking “dinner” is supposed to be the first meal of the day. The word enters English via French whose roots are in Latin. “Breakfast” in French is “déjeuner”, while in Spanish it would be “desayuno”. The “dé-” in “déjeuner” negates the word “jeûner” which itself means “to fast”. The “des-” in Spanish is performing the same function, i.e. to create a negative. So, “déjeuner”, derived from the Gallo-Roman *desjunare, means “to break one's fast”. The word *desjunare had, in turn, come from Vulgar Latin *disjejunare, from dis- “undo, do the opposite of + Late Latin jejunare meaning “to fast” (from Latin iejunus “fasting, hungry, not partaking of food”). Thus, the modern French word “dîner” originally meant to “take the first meal of the day” but it is now the name given to the last meal of the day. In effect, the French are breaking their fast twice, first with “déjeuner” and then later with “dîner”.
Returning to our historical account, dinner in a large Mediæval or Tudor household might consist of two, or possibly three, courses typically consisting of several different dishes. Unlike today where all diners expect to get a portion of everything, not every dish would be within reach of every Mediæval or Tudor diner. Rather, guests were expected to select the things they liked best from the nearest “messe”, a set of dishes usually containing several bite-sized portions intended to be shared between two to four people. Slow cooked soups and pottages, usually made from beef, oatmeal and peas, were served first accompanied by bread. Boiled and roasted meats and pies formed the second course. After the meal, diners in the early Tudor period would have stood and drunk sweet wine and spices while the table was cleared, or “voided”. However, to escape the noise and disturbance of clearing away, it became increasingly popular for the top table to withdraw to another room where special luxuries, known as “banquettes”, could be enjoyed. Today we think of banquets as a full meal, but when banqueting became fashionable in Elizabeth I's reign, the word applied only to a final course of fruit, cakes, biscuits and sticky preserves, all of which featured sugar in varying degrees.
Supper The final meal, eaten at the end of the Tudor working day sometime between 5 pm and 8 pm was known as “supper” which, interestingly, was a term applied to Christ’s last meal since AD 1300. For the commonfolk, this would often be the most elaborate of the day, although “elaborate” is a somewhat inappropriate adjective for the average peasant's daily fare. Nonetheless, the word “supper” is seemingly derived from the French “souper”, meaning literally “to eat soup”. The history of “souper”, however, is convoluted and varies according to the historical period, the region of France, and with people’s social class. The word appears to derive principally from the fact that French country folk ate their main meal at noon and only soup and bread in the evening. Sometime later “souper” would change to mean a lighter meal intended to sate your appetite after the theatre or a night on the town. In all cases, the resulting “supper” was lighter and less formal than dinner (Galloway, 2015).
As yet another aside, the website World in Paris, states the modern version of French onion soup dates from the mid-19th-century originating in Les Halles, the large open-air market in Paris. The restaurants around the market – La Poule au Pot, Chez Baratte, Au Pied de Cochon – served the soup with a substantial topping of grated cheese, grilled and served au gratin. According to one writer, the classic gratinée des Halles transcended class distinctions:
“The soup became both the breakfast of the ‘forts des Halles’ – the workers responsible for transporting the goods – as well as a hangover remedy for the party people leaving the cabarets of Paris late at night to go to the only district really nocturnal in Paris.”
Unlike the midday “dinner” often eaten in the fields, the working family’s evening meal was eaten at home around a common table. To confuse matters, by the Victorian era (1837 to 1901) these midday and evening meals were being referred to as “luncheon” and “dinner”, but hopefully that will become clearer shortly. Nonetheless, at the start of the Georgian period [2], with dinner being a late-morning meal eaten at either 10 am, 11 am, noon or even at 2 pm, breakfast was deemed unnecessary. In the 1700s the evening meal remained supper and was still eaten perhaps around 7 pm. The heyday of supper therefore was in the early to mid-Georgian period but, from the mid-17th-century, upper class Georgians were electing to eat dinner several hours later. Whether this was a move to distance themselves from the lower classes it had the effect of making supper obsolete. In response the canny Georgians simply moved their savoury, uncomplicated supper dishes to the next morning and ate them for breakfast. Indeed, from the middle of the 17th-century fashionable Georgians began using a special room known as the “breakfast parlour” for this purpose. Here family members and their house guests could select not only at what hour they would break their fast but also what to eat. A modest selection of tea, coffee, bread, pastries and fruits were typically set out on side tables for 2-3 hours each morning, usually from around 9 am until 11 am. Now a “fashionable Georgian might rise at 8 am, spend a couple of hours on letter writing or other tasks, and [then serve themselves] breakfast at a fashionable 10am” (www.kiplinhall.co.uk).
In one of those quirks of British society, the middle classes then actively sought to emulate the well-to-do and began to delay their own evening repast. So, at this point the Georgian fashion was for two formal meals per day, namely breakfast and dinner. But with dinner now pushed back to 6 pm or later, it necessitated new mealtimes were introduced to fill the void. Thus, it was that serving “luncheon” and “afternoon tea” was born.
Lunch The origins of the word “lunch” are mysterious and complicated. Most people might assume that the aforementioned “luncheon” is merely an extension of the word “lunch”. Yet the first known citation records “luncheon” and not “lunch” suggesting the latter term is in fact a shortening of the former. Either way, according to renowned food historian Ivan Day: “Lunch was a very rare word up until the 19th-century.” Some suggest the term is derived from the old Anglo-Saxon word “nuncheon” meaning a quick snack between meals, one that could be held in the hands. In the mid-14th-century, “nōn-schench” (from none “noon” + shench “draught, cup”) meant a “slight refreshment of food and/or liquor taken at midday.” It is therefore quite probable that “luncheon” was modelled after “nuncheon” and thus, technically speaking, enjoying a “liquid lunch” ought to be an acceptable practice. Caroline Yeldham, also a food historian, suggests the term “lunch” was in use around the late 17th-century, while others hypothesize it derives from the word “nuch” used in both the 16th- and 17th-centuries for a large piece of bread. Whenever the term entered common English usage, it seems it was the French custom of eating “souper” in the 17th-century that shaped what most of us consume for lunch today.
It became fashionable among the British aristocracy to copy the French and eat a light meal in the evening, it being a more private meal while they gamed and womanised according to Ivan Day. But it was John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich’s famous late-night snack from the 1750s that now dominates the modern lunchtime menu. The popular story goes that one evening, during a 24-hour gambling session, the Earl supposedly ordered his valet to bring him cold meats between two slices of toasted bread. In so doing he could eat his snack using just one hand while avoiding getting grease on anything else. Whether he was engrossed in an all-night card game or, as some suggest, working at his desk is not at all clear; both have been suggested. Whatever he was doing, the Earl’s name has ever since been attached to similar snacks, even if he probably was not the first person to place a filling between two pieces of bread. Oddly, however, if the tale is true then what we now call a “toasted sandwich” should, in fact, be just a “sandwich” and all other versions should be “non-toasted sandwiches”.
Introducing “elevenses” and “afternoon tea” As already alluded to, throughout history the number of meals taken very much depended on a person’s social status. During the Victorian period it was not uncommon for the wealthy, leisured class to be partaking of breakfast, “elevenses”, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and supper. The quantity of food consumed on country estates in the past must have been quite extraordinary, although we think portions were generally smaller. Either way it seems the moneyed probably ate little and often. By this time it seems breakfast had moved slightly earlier in the morning while lunch was still being eaten at 1 pm or 2 pm. A simple snack eaten around 11 am named, unsurprisingly, “Elevenses” was introduced to fill this new gap. Similarly, dinner had drifted further back in the day to around 8 pm, or slightly later, so “afternoon tea” became the vogue, especially among fashionable Victorian women.
While the custom of drinking tea can be dated to the third millennium BC in China, it first became popular in England in the 1660s. The Portuguese Infanta Catherine de Braganza, wife of King Charles II, is said to have brought the tea drinking habit to the Royal Court, the fashion for which slowly filtered down through English society. However, it is interesting to discover that green tea exported from China was first introduced in the coffeehouses of London shortly before the 1660 Stuart Restoration. In 1657, for example, a tobacconist and coffee house owner, Thomas Garway, was the first person in England to sell tea as a leaf and beverage at his London coffeehouse in Exchange Alley. Regardless, it was not until the mid-19th-century that the concept of “afternoon tea” first appeared.
As with Queen Catherine’s connection to tea drinking, afternoon tea is said to have been introduced to English society by Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, in the year 1840. The undoubtedly apocryphal story has it that the Duchess would become hungry around four o’clock in the afternoon. The evening meal in her household was served fashionably late at eight o’clock, thus leaving a long period of time between lunch and dinner. The Duchess reputedly asked that a tray of tea, bread and butter, and cake be brought to her room during the late afternoon. This became a habit of hers and she began inviting friends to join her. Sadly, like many origin stories, the link between the Duchess and afternoon tea is contested and cannot be verified.
Regardless, the quintessentially British enthusiasm for taking afternoon tea became a fashionable social event and the preserve of the rich in the 19th-century. Echoing the Duchess of Bedford’s example, a selection of tea, sandwiches, scones, and cake was traditionally served on low, comfortable, parlour chairs or while relaxing in the garden. This light meal was never intended to replace dinner but rather, as we have seen, to fill the long gap between lunch and dinner at a time when the latter was served as late as 8 pm. During the 1880’s upper-class and society women would even change into long gowns, gloves and hats specifically to partake of afternoon tea usually served in the drawing room between four and five o’clock. Today our changing lifestyles have meant taking afternoon tea is more often saved for holidays or as a special treat rather than a stopgap.
What of “high tea”? The phrases “afternoon tea” and “high tea” are often used interchangeably as many people mistakenly believe they are one and the same. Both tea traditions are steeped in British history but there is a difference, albeit a subtle one. The working lives of many ordinary folk simply did not allow time to sit down and enjoy scones and cakes in the late afternoon. For workers in the newly industrialised Victorian Britain, teatime had to wait until after they had finished work. By that hour, tea was generally served with heartier dishes, often hot and filling and accompanied by a pot of good strong tea as labourers needed sustenance after a day’s hard graft. It seems the phrase “high tea” was coined to differentiate between fashionable afternoon tea and that eaten by working folk seated at table on high-backed dining chairs. Even today, in working-class households the evening meal is often still called “tea”. Nevertheless, as our working patterns change yet again, you may find families referring to their evening meal once more as “supper”.
Conclusion? From the earliest times the daily eating patterns of the lower and middle classes have been defined by daylight and their working hours. The 1700s saw mealtimes begin to change toward the pattern we are familiar with today. In Britain’s industrialising towns and cities of the late 18th-century most people, or at least those who could afford to, were eating three meals a day. By the early 19th-century, however, dinner for the working majority had been pushed into the evenings, after work when they returned home for a full meal. That said, many families today retain the traditional “dinner hour” around noon on a Sunday. Fashionable Victorians supplemented their three meals with afternoon tea and a re-imagined supper much later at night. Since the end of the Second World War most Britons have become accustomed to three meals a day, although snacking between meals is heartily encouraged by food manufacturers keen to sell their snacks and “treats”.
As we have seen, the labels we assign to daily meals have evolved over the centuries. To “break your fast” with “dinner” has given way to an established breakfast. A midday lunch then supplanted dinner which largely remains the name for the evening meal for the middle/upper classes and those living in southern Britain. High tea for the working class survives further north where the lunchtime meal may be called dinner, and the evening one, tea. If by this you are confused, then don’t be as we are certain things will only evolve further to reflect modern lifestyles. Bon appétit!
References:
Galloway, J. (2015), “Quintessential France: George Sand on Soup and Souper”, The Rambling Epicure, available online (accessed 16 February 2025).
Johnson, B., (), “Afternoon Tea”, Historic UK, available online (accessed 19 February 2025).
Kiplin Hall and Gardens blog, “Georgian Mealtimes”, available online (accessed 13 February 2025).
Lemm, E. (2023), “What Is the Difference Between Afternoon Tea and High Tea?”, The Spruce Eats, available online (accessed 14 February 2025).
World in Paris website, (2016-2025), “French Onion Soup – Recipe, History & Where to Eat it in Paris”, available online (accessed 19 February 2025).
Endnotes:
1. A useful guide to which is which can be found at “Breakfast, lunch and dinner: Have we always eaten them”. ▲
2. The Georgian period was from 1714 and named after the Hanoverian kings George I, George II, George III and George IV. The definition of the Georgian era tends to also include the relatively short reign of William IV, which ended with his death in 1837. ▲
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