When I’m getting hungry. I’ve overwhelmingly lived alone as an adult so I don’t need to manage my schedule to others.
I’m also not a morning person. Things like putting in extra time at work and working out happen after my work day. They don’t happen before work that already happens way too fucking early for me. 7-8:30 is probably a good range of when I am most likely to be eating my evening meal. Sometimes it’s earlier or even later.
I also spent a couple years happily working in two different second shift supervisor positions. Dinner time was an Eric Clapton song, “After midnight…”
Interesting. I’m American, and the word “supper” is just not in my vocabulary. We have “dinner.” And had dinner when we were growing up.
But my wife, who is from Newfoundland, Canada, which is probably the most British of the Canadian provinces (or at least they think so), always calls it supper.
I don’t know exactly what the class issues are – care to explain? I’m curious.
Anyway, growing up, we had dinner around 6:30 or so, maybe 7:00, because that’s when my father would get home from work. My mother, being a schoolteacher, was home much earlier.
Today, my wife and I, when we can have dinner together, at home, with both of our children (they’re 5 and 2, so they don’t really have a say in the matter), tend to have dinner around 7:00 or 7:30. Of course, there are plenty of evenings when one or the other of us is working late, and it’s catch-as-catch-can, and takeout may be ordered, or something thrown together by one parent because the other is working late.
It appears that, at least in the past, “dinner” was the term for the midday meal, and “supper” the term for the evening meal, among more rural Americans. When I was growing up, my maternal grandparents called lunch “dinner,” and that always confused me; they came from a rural Wisconsin background.
However, it also looks like “lunch” has become the predominent term for the midday meal in the US, and that, while, for most people, the terms “dinner” and “supper” are now interchangeable (though with regional variation on preference), the use of “supper” has been in a slow, steady decline.
I was born in the late '50s, and grew up calling the three main meals of the day “breakfast,” “lunch” and “dinner.” “Supper” never entered into it. It still sounds odd to me.
But my family’s rural roots are quite a ways in the past – both sides of the family got off a boat from Ireland a few generations back and never went west of the Hudson River.
Usually 7.30, maybe closer to 8 if we’re meeting people at a restaurant. I’ve noticed the east coast tends to eat later than other parts of the country.
I don’t think “dinner” and “supper” are interchangeable for most people. Lots of people use either one or the other - the evening meal is either always “dinner” or always “supper”. For the people who use both, they aren’t interchangeable. For those people, “dinner” always means the largest meal of the day , which is usually in the evening but may be earlier on Sundays or holidays. " Supper " is a smaller evening meal, usually eaten in a day when the midday meal was dinner. I think that the class business is possibly related to the rural/urban divide - but maybe not . I’ve known a lot of working-class people who eat breakfast , lunch and supper every day and only eat dinner in restaurants on holidays
Our evening meal growing up was almost always between 6 - 6:30pm. I remember this because the evening news with Uncle Walter would probably be on in the next room. We wouldn’t watch it as much as listen to it, unless something important happened. Then one of us (usually me) would be the designated watcher. Tet was a real appetite killer.
Just moved into a retirement community. We live in the ‘village’ and fix our own meals- dinner usually between 7:30-9:00 pm. We would like to eat at the ‘big house’ dining room (for apartments and assisted living) but just cannot eat before 6pm. Dont know when the metabolic switch flips to make folks early diners, but mid-60’s is not there yet!
Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, dinner was always around 5 - 5:30pm as my Dad came home around 4 - 4:30. The TV would be off until the 6:00 news. My Dad would say: “Eating time - EAT!”
Since my siblings are all much older than me, they eventually wandered off to eat in front of the TV on those metal folding TV Trays, but I had to usually had to sit with Mom and Dad until much later.
If dinner was delayed past 6:30 or later, it would something simple like fried Spam and white rice or a bowl of soup, rather than a full meal.
I grew up in Ontario in the 1960s. The terms “supper” and “dinner” were interchangeable. Each meant the meal that was served at our house at 6:00 pm.
In later years, when I worked on a swing shift (3:30-midnight), my bag lunch was at 9:00 pm, and dinner at home at about 1:00 am.
Still later, when I was working regular business hours, my (then) wife and I would enjoy a couple of cocktails after work, before eating dinner at about 7:00 or 7:30 pm.
Today, I’m single, and dinner or supper, whichever I choose to call it, can occur any time between 4:00 pm and 8:00 pm. Sometimes later, if it’s a close game.
Me and the Guestling are pretty flexible, anytime from 5 to 730ish. Just depends on how tired I am, what he wants to eat, what I want him to eat, etc. When I was growing up, Mom stayed at home and dinner was at 6 or 630 Monday through Friday
In the UK ‘supper’ if you’re in the upper classes, or aspire to be, means an informal evening meal. You’d never go out for supper, unless it was going round to a close friend or family member’s. If it’s more formal, it’s dinner.
If you’re working class, ‘supper’ generally means a snack just before bedtime, and the evening meal will probably be ‘tea’ (though my family used lunch, dinner and the bedtime snack version of supper, on the very rare occasion we had that).
Aside from the class conflict, this also leads to childhood confusion when reading books where an indication that someone’s getting close to another family is being invited to ‘join them for supper’ when ‘supper’ means having some toast in your pyjamas in front of the television.
Regarding the OP, I never eat dinner (or tea) before 5, and it’s usually before 8, unless I’m going out somewhere, when it can be as late as 9. Depends when I’m hungry and when I get round to it.
Growing up the ideal meal times were the symmetric 6/noon/6 (except for Thanksgiving). Not sure we actually had breakfast at 6.
I usually have my evening meal between 5:30 and 6. I am usually done with work at 4 (7:30 to 4 with a 30 minute lunch)
Last night I realized another reason why we eat dinner at/after 8. My gf got home early, around 6:45. I could have had dinner on the table in 5 minutes. Instead, she changed clothes and took the dogs for a 30 minute hike, while I smoked a bowl and sipped some scotch. When they returned from hiking, it was still light enough for her to clean stalls. We ate shortly after 8.
Eating when it’s dark out makes me feel like I’ve used the day with efficiency.
I’ve overwhelmingly lived alone as an adult so I don’t need to manage my schedule to others.
