When is dinner time in the States?

[Elrond]

I was watching the Daily Show and a reporter was having a dinner with some elderly jewish folks in Florida. It was about how they were statistically unlikely to vote for Obama, or something. Well the reporter said something like "we sat down to have dinner, at four in the afternoon".

He said it like it was weird to have dinner at that time, and it also seemed to be laughter in the background. So it is weird? I live in Scandinavia and use to have dinner at 15.50 at the earliest, but maby as early as 14.00 in the weekends. I've heard that my uncle in the States has some... weird times (by my standards) at which to eat dinner, maby as late as 21.00.

So is there a cultural difference?

[MSC2471]

I don't know if it's a cultural difference in dinner time as much as the family you grow up in and the types of work you may do to have dinner time. For instance, my mother had a stay at home day care growing up and my father was a supervisor in a fire alarm factory, so he would be home by 4pm and we would have dinner at 4:30pm. When I married my wife, her family was used to having dinner between 6pm-7pm due to their work schedules.

Now with two children that usually have lunch early in their schools (both before noon), they like to have supper by 5:30pm and sometimes we push it to 6:30pm so we can all eat together as a family.

I work overnights so it doesn't matter to me when dinner time is...

Matt

[Dharma]

I'd say dinner will typically start between 5-6:30 pm in the states.

[Michelle]

Sometimes Europeans get their meal vocab mixed up.

In the states dinner is the evening meal. When I lived there we ate dinner at around 5 or 530.

Now that I live in Switzerland the evening meal happens normally between 7 and 8, with tea time around 4.

[Still Growing]

This was a joke poking fun at old Jewish people trying to save money by eating what they call the "early bird" special.

Some family style restaurants that are based around retirement communities typically have this special for people above 60 if they come and eat early.

We had sitcome a few years back called Seinfeld and they made jokes about it once or twice as well.

By making a point about sitting down to eat at 4:30 it was a subtle inside joke about these 60 year old, Florida, Jewish retirees trying to save money for that delicious "early bird" special. This joke is even more prevalent in New York City. I think the Daily Show is based in New York and certainly their writers are using some of this local humour.

Hopefully this clears it up.

[Honeywith4bees]

My Canadian in laws have dinner at mid day and supper in the evening. Same thing with my German ancestry grandparents that lived in the midwest. Here on the north east coast, most folks call dinner their evening meal and eat anywhere from 5-8:30 PM. They eat lunch at mid day and alas, we have no tea time!

[PianoManGidley]

Originally Posted by Michelle

Sometimes Europeans get their meal vocab mixed up.

In the states dinner is the evening meal. When I lived there we ate dinner at around 5 or 530.

This is true--some people call their evening meal "dinner," and others call it "supper." If someone calls the evening meal "supper," then there's usually another meal earlier in the day (anytime between noonish and early afternoon) called "dinner." From what I've heard, most of the Americans calling the evening meal "supper" live in more rural areas.

Also, if there's a time discrepancy--I don't know, but since you live in a country that's further north, perhaps because daylight (at least in the winter time) ends sooner for you, you have your "evening" meal sooner?

[Elrond]

Originally Posted by PianoManGidley

Also, if there's a time discrepancy--I don't know, but since you live in a country that's further north, perhaps because daylight (at least in the winter time) ends sooner for you, you have your "evening" meal sooner?

That's true, but I don't think that has much to do with it. It still seems like we sleep at the same times as most others. I don't know if there is a tendency for commercial initiatives and stuff like that to stay open at differen hours than here. It is late summer now, and the days stays fairly illuminate for... I don't know, 20-22 hours. It doesn't seem to affect the daily rythm much, even when on vacation.

Thanks for all the replies! It has shed a great deal of light on this subject

[Little Deb]

I live in Canada, and I visited my brother in Louisiana, USA last January. He was all smiley around his wife when I mentioned "dinner" as opposed to "supper" - I didn't mention "tea time", as we rarely had a "real" tea-time (with lots of food, that is) unless it was at our Grandmas or the farm families we used to visit (they needed that extra meal because they woke up at 4:00 Am to milk cows, etc.) "Ah, memories!" my brother cried, in reference to our quaint Canadian expressions. Anyway, I figure "dinner" is a term that can be exchangable with either lunch or supper. In Canada we can have dinner or lunch around 11:00 am or Noon - or get real fancy and attend a "luncheon" which is usually an extravagant after-church function. "What time's dinner, Mom? (Or is it suppertime?)" Its usally 5:00 pm at Moms place, 6:00 pm or 6:30 at my other brother's house. My apartment is too small for more than a couple of guests, plus my guinea pig who eats all day, but I have supper around 5:00 pm or 6:00 pm, sometimes 7:00 pm depending on how long it takes to cook. Dinner, supper, chowtime, whatever.

[dbstraight]

I don't think I have ever heard anyone refer to lunch as "dinner." The only possible exception is a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner eaten at normal lunch time. If you are not native to the US and don't want to be misunderstood when you speak, then I would recommend using "lunch" to refer to the midday meal and "dinner" (not "supper") to refer to the evening meal. Also note, of the two, dinner is generally speaking, the larger meal.

(A simple way to confirm this as common usage is to look at restaurant menus. Restaurants generally have lunch and dinner menus, as opposed to dinner and supper, lunch and supper, or midday dinner and evening dinner menus.)

As to the question at hand. I generally eat slightly later than normal, and have lunch around 1 and dinner around 6:30-7.

[ProjectX]

Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner

[Barcs]

Growing up, my familly usually ate dinner somewhere around 5:30-6:30. Today that does seem kind of early. I usually eat around 7:30-8:00 these days. My dad eats even later (he said he learned it from his trips to Europe) around 8:30-9:00.