What do you call your evening meal?

[GilliAnne]

Just curious to know what people here call their evening meal.

I think most people here in Northern Ireland call it 'tea', but if we go out for that meal, it's 'dinner'. I know in some places it's known as supper, but supper here is a drink, usually hot and a biscuit/cookie or a piece of bread or such like. If you have people in for supper it might be a bit more substantial, with an array of biscuits/cookies, cake and/or scones.

Gillian

 

[GotGarlic]

Dinner.

 

[JustJoel]

Ditto. Dinner. I grew up in SoCal, and “supper” seemed a bit old fashioned.

 

[CraigC]

Dinner. I thought supper was something done in the early afternoon.

 

[Steve Kroll]

I call it dinner, and when I was growing up my parents also called it dinner. But I noticed that in the small town where I lived, a lot of my friends, and especially those who came from farming families, called it supper. Either way, we all understood it to mean the meal at the end of the day.

 

[larry_stewart]

Dinner for me, Supper growing up ( My mom ).

 

[CakePoet]

Tea is evening meal, a cup of char is the drink.. half scottish household here.

In Sweden it is Kvällsmat or mat or middag i kväll which evening food or food or dinner in the evening. Kvällsfika is the sandwich and tea/coffe/ milk you have before bed..

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Supper, if I go out to eat, I order off the Dinner menu.

 

[dragnlaw]

I (same as my Mom) would "fix dinner"

But then we would "eat supper" We pretty much used both but dinner was more common.

For French-Canadians lunch is "diner" and supper is "souper". I always have a hard time remembering that for some reason.
- pronounced 'din-nay' and 'sou-pay' (well, sort'a)

 

[Andy M.]

I read a "technical" definition of supper vs. dinner.

If you have your big meal of the day midday, that's dinner and the evening meal is supper. If you have your big meal of the day in the evening, then it's called dinner. (and the midday meal is lunch)

 

[RPCookin]

6 days (Monday thru Saturday) the two terms are interchangeable for the evening meal. On Sunday, "dinner" is the big meal eaten around 1 PM after church, and the evening meal is supper.

 

[Kayelle]

Dinner is the term I use the most, but I really like the word Supper better. Supper sounds so comforting somehow, but I'm not sure why.
You're right Joel, Supper does sound old fashioned. Maybe that's why I like it.

 

[dragnlaw]

but we dine at 9

 

[dragnlaw]

Back in the day before "commuting" kids walked to school, back home for lunch and walked back to school for the afternoon.

And even before that Dads would come home and have a hot meal at lunch time.

Farmers often had their biggest meal at lunch and then a light supper. Except perhaps at harvest time and even then the hot meal was often taken out to them. (or so I believe)

 

[roadfix]

My wife says dinner, I say meshi...

 

[Whiskadoodle]

Growing up, lunch was lunch except Sunday, then it was dinner. Dinner was supper, except if we went out (rare) or if there was some kind of doings.

As kids we could get away with lunch with no shirts on in summer if dad wasn't around. PB&J and cool aid. But at supper/ dinner we had to be fully dressed. I s'pose that's a big identifier of what meal you are having.

I can't identify ''when" we all changed to calling it to Dinner as the evening meal. Sometimes I still like to call it supper, even in the wfd thread. I think Supper could be kind of elegant, if served late enough as a planned event, not just raiding the refrigerator after a night out.

 

[CakePoet]

I remember when Lunch started being used here in Sweden, before that it was middag... which mean midday..

 

[msmofet]

Dinner

 

[Just Cooking]

Over the past 70some years the evening meal has been called various things..

My only preference is that I be called in time to eat whatever it is..

Ross

 

[Cooking Goddess]

Things haven't changed much at Chez Goddess since this query six years ago:

"Dinner" or "Supper" / "Lunch" or "Dinner?"

Going through an old thread is sometimes a "where's who" of missing members... Interesting how many of us are still hanging around, though!

...My only preference is that I be called in time to eat whatever it is.. ..

My Mom's version was "I don't care what you call me, just so long as you don't call me late for supper".