Did you know that you used to have dinner in the morning!?
More accurately the DINNER was LUNCH! And if you had lunch then you are a girl!
Now now, put that fork and knife down and read!
In the olden days there used to be only one or maximum two meals! You had a breakfast in the morning and then around noon or so you had a big meal and then the FOOD of the day is done! That meal was called DINNER!
The Original Meaning: “Dinner” originally meant the main, largest meal of the day, which traditionally used to be eaten around midday or early afternoon!
Now practically it was mainly because of the light!
After you eat the meal it had to be cleaned and stored and all this had to be done when there was light!
Then came the shift!
With industrialization, artificial lighting, and longer work hours shifting into the evening, the main meal moved later in the day.
To fill the gap between breakfast and a much later evening dinner, people started eating a smaller midday meal called “lunch”.
In some rural or regional areas (like parts of the American South or Northern England), people still traditionally call the midday meal “dinner” and the light evening meal “supper”!
In fact there was no lunch or until the early 19th century, luncheon was generally reserved for the ladies, who would often have lunch with one another when their husbands were out!
The meal was relatively light, and typically included left-overs from the previous night’s dinner, which were often plentiful.
Lunch was a ladies’ light meal; when the Prince of Wales stopped to eat a dainty luncheon with lady friends, he was laughed at for this effeminacy!
Later on of course with the growth of industrialisation in the 19th century, male workers began to work long shifts at the factory, severely disrupting the age-old eating habits of rural life.
Initially, workers were sent home for a quick dinner provided by their wives, but as the workplace was moved further from home, working men took to giving themselves something portable to eat during a break in the middle of the day!
The lunch meal slowly became institutionalized in England when workers with long and fixed-hour jobs at the factory were eventually given an hour off work to eat lunch and thus gain strength for the afternoon shift.
Stalls and later chop houses near the factories began to provide mass-produced food for the working class, and the meal soon became an established part of the daily routine, remaining so to this day!
Now is most parts of the world the lunch is the main meal of the day! In fact prescribed lunchtimes allow workers to return to their homes to eat with their families!
Consequently, businesses close during lunchtime when lunch is the customary main meal of the day!
Most business which operate thoughtout the day in non emergency or vital care give LUNCH breaks as a norm now! You do not see them giving dinner breaks though!
Then again now there is a revival of this! World over it has been urged to have your DINNER as soon as possible and make it as light as possible!
The next time some asks you if you had dinner; you are not completely wrong if you say you had it in the noon!
You must assume that he or she knows the history of DINNER though or at least read this blog though!
You would also then know that there will be a play of words to get the person who has been sketched today! Play reminds me of the legend Vangipurapu Venkata Sai Laxman!
Now have your late LUNCH and sleep!
SHubh ratri!
