Submitted by jamescookenotthatone t3_127hmlf in todayilearned
Also, agrarian work was often very close to home. So larger midday meals with the family would be easier. If you worked at the factory, you were farther away from home and modern labor laws likely would have prevented a midday respite from a grueling 12 hour shift.
Not necessarily. People would take food with them into the fields and snack.
The main reason why people ate their main meal at midday was simply because they wanted to be able to see what they were eating. Artificial methods of light before the invention of lightbulbs were luxuries that most people couldn't afford so it made more practical sense to eat a proper meal at midday when there was the maximum amount of natural light.
During the industrial revolution, things changed as artificial lighting became more readily available, as things such as coal and candle wax became cheaper for the working classes to use on a regular basis.
Seems like a little of both makes the most sense.
Long factory shifts and employers discouraging long breaks from productive work coinciding with a greater ability to cook and eat at home in the evening.
Seems our ancestors would eat a fat lunch, go to bed at 8, then wake up at 3am to fuck. Kind of like elderly people, but with teenage libidos.
>Kind of like elderly people, but with teenage libidos.
So, the elderly. Just because Gam-Gam is old doesn't mean she ain't getting it from the Grandude across the hall of the old folks home.
Heh, you'd be surprised what I saw in the nursing home I worked at. Yep, they still got libido if they aren't bed bound.
Not to mention the rampant STI issues in aged care facilitites.
Now I'm having flashbacks of the parks and rec episode where leslie tries to teach senior about condom usage and the local maude flanders demands they promote abstinence instead.
If you're in the American Midwest you learn that some rural areas have breakfast, dinner, and supper as their 3 meals rather than breakfast, lunch, and dinner, because like it says in the article, "dinner" was the name of the largest meal of the day regardless of time. Rural, heavily German areas tend to be breakfast, dinner, supper.
Same in the Southeastern US. My older relatives in NC and SC say breakfast, dinner, supper. There was significant German settlement in central SC in colonial times, so maybe that's where it came from.
Grew up in coastal NC and it was usually breakfast>lunch>dinner. Especially since at school theres a big emphasis on "lunch" though people might say supper instead of dinner, was still usually the biggest meal at the end of the day. The area was settled by a lot of english settlers, and some of them on this isolated island basically kept their accents to this day. Bit of a trip to hear.
Coastal SC and GA accents are like that too
Not gonna lie, it took me a while to be able to understand some of the older crowd around here, lol. Especially when they speak at a fast pace. The older folk from Down East/Harker's Island have the heaviest accents that I've heard. Had a few teachers growing up from there and it was a bit interesting at times haha.
When I studied in Germany, many people still eat the largest meal as lunch. The last meal of the day they called the evening bread.
The cafeteria lunches were gigantic and awesome, but I mostly lived off doner kebab.
not to confuse with evening red!
My dad uses that terminology and it drives the rest of my family nuts.
Not so much just using the term "supper" even though I do think that's an odd term, but using "dinner" to mean the meal the rest of us call lunch.
It's made worse because sometimes dinner means dinner with Dad but sometimes it means lunch.
When I still lived at home we had a few incidents where this confusion ruined plans, so every time we're making meal plans, I will ask him now "midday meal or evening meal, dad?".
My mom’s side of the family all does the same. They use dinner to describe a large meal, typically eaten as a family or group. Dinner can be served anytime between 11am and 7pm depending on the setting and details.
What about elevensies?
My parents were both raised in Czech households, and we called them breakfast, lunch, and supper. My wife's family called them breakfast, lunch and dinner. She finally broke my spirit and I know call supper, dinner.
Same in Newfoundland and Labrador up in Canada. It's a running joke in my family as my stepdad is a Newfie and refers to lunch as dinner, while we refer to supper as dinner/supper interchangeably
Here in Spain, the largest meal by far is still lunch. Breakfast is a coffee and a couple of biscuits, and dinner/supper is very light (sandwich, omelet, etc.)
Same in several countries in latin america (...which makes sense considering our past with Spain).
Breakfast can be sightly bigger, with smth like scrambled eggs, cereal bowl/a sandwitch and coffee, and dinner is even lighter, just a biscuit or so. Sometimes its skipped altogether besides a hot drink.
Lunch is the big one. Taking a siesta is less common though
I learned this the hard way when I travelled there. The tiny breakfasts made me so upset.
Iberian and Iberian American thing too, IIRC.
This makes so much sense. But I still think it's funny that grandpa eats dinner at 4pm to be in bed by sundown- to beat the
>abominable habit of dining as late as seven in the evening"
The industrial revolution fucked up a lot about long standing human practices, and our health suffers for it.
My wife will work maybe half the year, then take off for a few months. During that time she settles into a natural sleep/wake cycle of about 8 hours awake, 4 hours asleep, 6 hours awake, 6 hours asleep. That seems to mirror what has been explained from the time prior to industrialiation.
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I used to work with a venture capitalist that put in crazy hours. He was selling his soul to reach a goal, and had insane energy. Up to run/train for marathons at 4am, work from 6am-9am from his room, then he'd hit my office and we'd be up until midnight when he finally wanted to break for supper. I'd get home at 2am, knowing that he may get 2 hours of sleep before he is up and bothering everyone again.
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Eventually i had to point out that i did not have a goal of being wealthy, so my stake wasn't as high as his and I'd be working more reasonable hours.
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The dictionary definition of "dinner" is simply the largest meal of the day. We now just think of it meaning the evening meal. My dad, an ex farmer, still refers to his midday meal as 'dinner'. It's caused a lot of confusion over the years!
Me, currently eating lunch - the biggest meal of the day, as is common everywhere around me - while reading it: huh?
As someone from central Europe this post was pretty confusing to me
That's actually interesting.
Growing up we always had a decent breakfast, big lunch and a small dinner at 5pm. Then a small snack at 8ish
As a adult I still keep to the same schedule. My kids didn't realize other people eat late like 7 or 8.
Lol
Honestly this would be so much better for my digestion and chronic heartburn issues but a strict 30-minute unpaid lunch break during the workweek is not conducive to this.
Dinner is probably the 2nd most important of the 7 meals of the day.
But what about second breakfast?
It was common to wake up, and get a little snack in before work. Then you would have a large meal in the middle of the day, then a small meal before bed. I’ve heard from older generations, and it may not be as common on average, but with people I know, they also had a tendency to wake back up, and hang out and talk with neighbors or family well after dark. Has anyone else heard of this?
Oh yeah, supposedly during the medieval ages it wasn’t uncommon to wake up and be up for a couple hours during the night before going back to bed. It was called Two Sleeps. Here’s a BBC article on it: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220107-the-lost-medieval-habit-of-biphasic-sleep
My family told me how they used to hang out with friends and family late, because of working all day and no air conditioning. Late at night was the only cool time, when nothing had to be done.
Google "second sleep" you'll find some good articles.
Apparently its the more "natural" sleep cycle without artificial light.
If I remember correctly, I think Leonardo Di Vinci would sleep 4 hours, then be awake 4 hours , then sleep for 4. So on and so forth. But it’s been years since I read that article. So it may be BS.
I eat an ok breakfast and then a huge ass dinner when I get home from work. Like stacked plate of food dinner.
Idk why lunch just isn’t my thing. Plus not eating during the day makes me look forward to the big tasty dinner I’m gonna make.
I just love the evening ritual of relaxing and pigging out… then sitting on Reddit for an hour after while I digest.
Dinner is usually my biggest meal of the day, too, but unlike you I don’t skip lunch, I skip breakfast.
If I may ask, how is your weight and your sleep quality? Does a heavy dinner not make you sleep less well?
I weight 130 lbs. I eat like a 4/5 a pound of chicken and 1lb of fries some days.
Other days is like 2 and a half cups of rice.
Back when I was making burgers I’d have 3 3/4 lb burgers and a big side of pasta (half a stacked plate).
I eat a lot. And a lot of times I’ll pass out after eating so much because I’m full and don’t want to move.
I’m probably unhealthy af though.
Yeah, that doesn’t sound very healthy, I admit, but whatever workd for you! You’re probably a man, bigger than me, and likely younger, as well, so you probably have much higher caloric needs than I do.
I hate a big lunch in an office job.
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all my meals are the same size
so this just sounds odd to me
one plate of food per meal. do yall just ... keep eating even if you're full / not hungry?
Normally lunch and breakfast are smaller then dinner.
they adopted the meal part but not tye breakfast part.
wanking_to_got t1_jee8haf wrote
Switching from farming to factory work.
The heaviest load is usually done by midday in farming or keeping animals. So you are starving by midday.