Just curious. Do all countries have the equivalent of breakfast, lunch and dinner mealtimes in their cultures, or do some do it differently?
They’re definitely not standard. For instance, in Spain (and by extension, many Latin countries) the midday meal is the largest of the day and is taken after 3. The evening meal is usually taken very late and is typically fairly light.
Traditionally, in Japan, breakfast was the main meal. You’d eat a lot when you got up and only munch a bit around noon and when you got home from work. Nowadays people have generally adopted a more American approach to meals but it’s still a common thought that people should be taking a big and varied breakfast.
Perhaps the question that astro is asking is whether all cultures eat three meals a day. It’s fairly clear that they don’t eat their meals the same time as Americans do.
That was the original question re if “3 squares” was a universal standard, but the timing of meals is interesting also.
Obviously, in some third-world countries, they don’t even have “1 square.”
panache45 writes:
> Obviously, in some third-world countries, they don’t even have “1 square.”
True, but I don’t think that the inhabitants of any place, if asked, would say, “Our tradition is that we starve to death.” There is presumably a tradition in each region of how many meals a day they eat and what time those meals are.
I just got back from a month in Europe (Spain, Italy & UK) and the one thing I noticed was that most normal places to eat were not even open for dinner until 7:00 pm and the crowd didn’t start arriving until 7:45. Even pubs in the UK would have strict hours in which you could order lunch and dinner, unheard of here in Michigan where you can order food at a bar all day until 10:00 pm. There were of course exceptions (fast food, street vendors and such), but if you showed up for lunch at say 2:30 at a Thai food place you either wouldn’t get served or you would be the last person served while they closed up shop.
Lunch in Spain, for workers with a midday break: around 1:30-2 pm
Lunch in Spain, for workers in the morning shift of a 3-shift factory: around 2-2:30pm
Lunch in Spain, for workers without midday break (for example government workers): 3-4pm
Lunch in Spain for people on vacation: as if they were working for the government
Meal names I can remember without thinking too hard:
desayuno (breakfast)
almuerzo (midmorning snack or lunch, depending on region)
aperitivo (pre-lunch snack)
comida (lunch in areas that don’t call it almuerzo)
merienda (mid afternoon snack)
merienda-cena (early dinner, too late and heavy to call it merienda, but too early for a cena)
cena (dinner)
recena (post-dinner snack)
Which ones are eaten depends on things like age: as a 14yo I ate 5 meals; at the same age but during the summer festivals it would be 6 or 7… now I eat 3