Other essays on this theme

Essay: "Dinner Time"

Any discussion of dinnertime first requires a closer look at what time dinner is.

For a poor, country hillbilly, like myself, dinner is always the noon meal. The evening meal being called supper. It wasn't easy for me to grasp this difference in language. Why would dinner be timed different for country and city folk? In the country we're up before the sun rises and our days begin at first light, if not earlier. By noon a day's work is done and we're ready for a heavy meal. We call that dinner.

In the city people sleep later and only take breakfast after the sun has been up for hours. They aren't hungry at noon and only seek a light repast they call lunch at midday.

Country folk do hard labor and need the influx of calories to restore their depleted energies. A salad won't get a working man through the day. In the evening a light supper is plenty to hold us until breakfast, which comes early.

City people take their heavy meal in the evening to fuel their bodies for the long night ahead when country folk are sleeping. Dinner seems to be the name of the heavy meal, no matter what time it is consumed. It's only an issue of scheduling.