In those days there was an evening church service which would finish around 8.15pm and mum and dad would invite friends for supper, or we would be invited or, when I was old enough for youth group, the group would go to somebody's house or to a local coffee shop. The coffee shop which was frequented by many youth groups around the area was called "yummys" and the shop with distinctive arched windows is still there, now selling yeeros and called "Gyradiko"
Sundays meals were turned on their heads compared to the rest of the week, the main meal in the middle of the day, something light pre-church (this would be eaten around 5pm) and then supper might have made it to the table by 8.45 or 9pm.
These post - church affairs were usually a pretty good spread made up of sausage rolls, cheese toast, crumpets, cakes, pikelets, cheese & crackers and who can forget the old cob loaf which is enjoying a resurgence? For youth suppers, girls were to bring a plate of food and boys a bottle of drink. Such a sexist rule but unquestioned at t he time.
I know that my mum & dad used to have supper of something like Milo and a piece of cake every night, sometime after us kids had gone to bed.
I was just thinking about all of this recently. Was this a tradition which started to keep people fed when church times clashed with normal meal times or did people in the wider community invite people to socialise over a post-dinner buffet? Does anyone still eat supper? Do any of my readers remember this kind of arrangement? What did you eat? when did it fall out of fashion?
Tell me your thoughts!
We eat supper here, but for the blog retelling I call it dinner.
ReplyDeleteYes, I thought supper was the word used for dinner in some places. What time do you eat?
DeleteIt just depends, sometimes as early as 6:30 but most of the time around 7:45-8
DeleteYes, we have supper. Sometimes, it is called dinner.
ReplyDeleteyes, in my family we usually called the evening meal "tea" and supper was a lot later
DeleteI *think* I remember suppers as a later than usual dinner - and usually very light. After a heavy meal at lunch?
ReplyDeleteAnd these days it is called dinner or tea, and we don't have the extra meal (if that makes sense).
yes, this is what i remember and we would never have an extra meal these days, light as it might have been.
DeleteHaving said that, I think the modern thing is a lot more snacking
We just had lunch and then the evening meal, though I was always a hungry little boy and I would have an enormous snack when I came home from school - bread and marmalade, biscuits and whatever else was around. But it never spoilt my appetite for supper.
ReplyDeletewhat time was the evening meal? and did you call it supper?
DeleteI love marmalade
I can't remember, probably about 6-ish. And yes, it was supper.
DeleteThose Indians who can afford it have three meals a day and all Indian languages simply call them morning meal, afternoon meal or night meal. An afternoon meal is called tiffin made popular by the Brits during their time in India. Most Indians have just two meals a day. I do. Anglicised Indians call the three meals breakfast, lunch and dinner.
ReplyDeleteI suspect two meals a day would be smart for me, it's not like I need a lot of food, i just like it.
DeleteWhat times would you eat those two?
Breakfast at 8.00 am and lunch around 1.00 pm. I have one mug of tea at around 6.00 am and another at around 4.30 pm. Nothing else except occasionally some biscuits with the afternoon tea or a mid morning snack of some snacks.
DeleteInteresting! Very different from what I was used to. We had our big meal of the day at noon. It was called dinner. Our meals were usually around noon and 6:00 PM. There are many differences here but that's the way we were in rural areas in the 50's.
ReplyDeleteyes, my mum talks about going home from school in the middle of the day for her main meal. That was in rural New Zealand
DeleteI had to change terminology when I moved to Canada.
ReplyDeleteIn Ireland it was breakfast, dinner and supper (or "tea)
In Canada breakfast, lunch and dinner.
In Newfoundland Breakfast, dinner, supper and late at night before bed "lunch" - i.e. a snack, not to be confused with a big "lunch" late at night which is called a "scoff".
XO
WWW
Now, see I know about tea/ dinner/ supper all being used for the evening meal but "lunch" late at night is a new one! and scoff. I want to have scoff! (correct usage?)
DeleteI'm in Canada, too, but Nova Scotia as opposed to WWW's Newfoundland, and we call them breakfast, lunch and supper. Supper takes place anywhere from 4 pm to 7 pm; for most people I think 6 pm is the average time because work hours for day jobs are usually over at 4 or 5. If you have children, 6 pm gives time for an after-school snack so as not to interfere with supper but also time to get kids to bed by 8, and gives parents time to make the meal after work (as it's usually the big meal of the day). You probably didn't want THAT much detail :)
ReplyDeleteThese days I tend to eat multiple small meals - snacks, really - which seems to keep my acidic stomach happier and probably my blood sugar levels too. (My sugar levels are a bit wonky - not pre- or actual diabetic, but show an abnormal result on a glucose tolerance test.)
Okay, I'll stop now with the minute detail!
I like the detail! I had dinner at 6pm like clockwork for years when I had school age kids, as you say, it's a good time to have them in bed by 8.
Deletei like the idea of multiple small meals but i dont put enough effort in to them and end up eating a lot of toast!
And to return to your post itself, I find it interesting that "supper" could be used as you described. I think food of any kind helps with fellowship. It gives folks something to contribute, something to partake of, something to do with their hands while talking!
ReplyDeleteyes! even if it's a cuppa and a dry biscuit it can work that way
DeleteI'm not a church goer so maybe that's way suppers are a foreign concept for me.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if it was specific to the sub-culture. They seem to have gone the way of the dodo now although I was recently talking to a lady in her 80s who still invites people for supper! She does everything old school, beautiful white cloths and bone china cups etc!
DeleteYou could be right Kylie. I think my English grandmother used to have suppers. So maybe it was a general public thing once but only exists in church communities now.
DeleteSunday roast at lunchtime, followed by teatime - this featured a Victoria sponge cake, and sandwiches, which was fed to us after we'd recorded the Top Twenty from the radio. Happy days!
ReplyDeleteSx
Victoria sponge!
DeleteI wasn't in the habit of recording the charts but when I did it was "Top Forty Australia" and later in the night "Comedy Company" on tv
I was brought up as a in England. We had breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper at my parents house and my parents continues that (albeit with smaller meals) until their 90s. Supper was a cup of tea and cake or biscuits.
ReplyDeleteI still have breakfast, lunch and dinner. However traditionally in the West of Scotland it is breakfast, dinner and tea (tea being a big meal). A mid afternoon sandwich and cake is called afternoon tea. I haven't had supper since I left home. If you hadn't mentioned it I'd have forgotten about it.
Ok Graham, so this is very much the same as the way I was brought up. You talk of afternoon tea as if it might be quite a regular thing but in all my workplaces morning tea has been the break everyone had. Outside of work I might have had a couple of afternoon teas, its usually reduced to just a cuppa and a biscuit
DeleteSo is this a separate meal from dinner? Or just a different way of saying "dinner"?
ReplyDeleteIt's separate from dinner, later and lighter and with more focus on sweet items (though I guess that depends on who organises it)
DeleteThe food you've described is still eaten here as afternoon tea on a Sunday generally maybe around 4.30 - 5.00pm. It replaces an evening meal.It's quite an old fashioned tradition really. We never have it unless we go to my mother-in-laws.
ReplyDeleteYes i thought it was old fashioned. I rather like the idea of it even though I haven't had that style of supper in a very long time
Delete