I learned something today

[Okra]

Okay, 

 

All my life I've heard of English people having tea.  All my life I just thought that they sat down sometime during the day and drank tea.  

 

Then, I find out that tea is the evening meal!!!!  A hot meal where you don't necessarily drink tea. Wow, that one was surprising to me.

[dirty ethel rackham]

Yeah, that was something I figured out this year.  I always thought that "tea" as a mid-afternoon break that may have included snacks. 

[Miss Mousie]

Yeah, that was something I figured out this year.  I always thought that "tea" as a mid-afternoon break that may have included snacks. 

 

Huh.  That's what I thought, too.  You know, 4 or 5 o'clock, a pot of tea and some scones, then dinner a few hours later.

 

So, it's really more like supper? 

[speedmom4]

My dh and I were talking about this very subject not that long ago. I'm still not sure if it means a snack or the evening meal. But it was a surprise to me as well when it finally dawned on me that "tea" wasn't tea.

 

Elise in NC

[Tanaqui]

Yes, and "high tea" isn't fancy and formal with cakes, it's simply late in the day.

 

Though apparently the use of the word "tea" for that word is a dialect issue...?

[Miss Mousie]

All the British people must be sleeping right now.  I sure hope this topic stays on page 1 so we can get some definitive information in the morning!

 

:laugh:

 

 

[ktgrok]

In Anne of Green Gables it appears as if they eat breakfast, then the big main meal of the day around noon, which is called Dinner, then Tea in the afternoon, then Supper before bed. Supper was mostly cold it seemed, more like a snack...maybe some bread and jam. But, I could be wrong. Also, it seemed maybe Tea and Supper were the same thing?

[ktgrok]

Ok, did some googling and I was right. At least part of the world used to have 4 meals a day, breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper. 

[Onceuponatime]

We'll, in many British stories, tea seems to be a substantial late afternoon snack with all kinds of sweets and finger sandwiches if you are wealthy and maybe just toast if you are not. Then there was dinner about 8, which was extraordinarily formal.

 

Also, I've read stories in which tea was the children's last meal of the day, and they went to bed at 6!

 

of course I have no practical experience to draw on.

[BrittanyM]

In India tea is an afternoon snack time, although it is mainly to drink chai. They drink chai plenty of other times throughout the day though.

[poppy]

I read having tea is something working class folks do, others not so much.

Waiting to hear from the Brits...

[Ellie]

"High" tea isn't more formal; it's more substantial, as in "It's high time we had something to eat." :-)

[Trish]

That doesn't completely surprise me, but I DID think tea was involved in some way!

[Happy]

For my British born friend, tea happens about 4pm ish. There is good English tea, cookies, scones if someone wants to bake, maybe some finger sandwiches....and much conversation.

[Maplinmum]

From an Aussie perspective , you have 2 things, afternoon tea which is mid afternoon this consists of a drink and a snack and is something most people would do. If you want to go more fancy it would be called high tea and involve finger sandwiches and fancy cakes, this is not something you would normally do at home but is popular for meeting up with girlfriends or taking elderly relatives too on a Sunday afternoon. Then you have tea which is your main evening meal, this can also be called dinner if you want to be more formal. For example I might ask a friend and her husband over for dinner, or I might say bring the kids over to play and they can have tea together afterwards, both times I mean an evening meal but it is the context that decides which word I use.

[Tammi K]

When we first moved to Australia, my kids were amused by breakfast at home followed by 'morning tea' and then lunch followed by 'afternoon tea' at school. Then home for evening tea with the family. They said they never had so many opportunities to eat during the school day.

 

I remember one filed trip I accompanied. We got off the bus and were walking to the entrance when one of the teachers noted it was 10:00 am - time for morning tea. Everyone walked to a little grass patch by the entrance and proceeded to have 'morning tea' . I don't know if it is like this everywhere in Australia, but let me tell you, at that school it was sacred and you better not mess with the schedule!

[Mom in High Heels]

We had an English neighbor when I was a kid, and she always had me and my friend over after school for tea (we were latchkey kids, and she told our parents she would look after us), which consisted of tea, some digestive biscuits (I love McVities!), maybe some sort of cake (like a coffee cake), muffins or scones, if she was in the mood to bake.  I loved it.  She also taught us to play Canasta, which was great fun.  She and her husband had b'fast, dinner (the large meal of the day), tea (he took his in the LR, while we took ours in the DR), and supper, which was mostly cold stuff.

 

She told us when she was growing up, they had b'fast, morning tea (small snack and tea), dinner, afternoon tea (small snack) and tea, which was their supper, and not taken with the adults.  I know it was done, and some people still do it, but having dinner at a separate time as my kids seems weird.  I mean, we HAVE done it, when James Bond and I go out to dinner on our own, but it's not something that happens very often.

[shukriyya]

We call morning tea elevenses here :D

[Catwoman]

Ok, did some googling and I was right. At least part of the world used to have 4 meals a day, breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper.

It's after 4:00 am here and it's clearly past time for me to go to bed, because I just read your post as "breakfast, lunch, tea, and strippers."

 

I have no idea how I did that, but it's definitely a sign to get off the computer.

 

Good night, everyone -- or good morning to all of you early risers from that "what time do you get up in the morning" thread! I don't know what time it is in other parts of the world, but hello to you guys, too! :)

[Giraffe]

In Turkey we have "beş çay" or 5:00 tea, which is tea and some snacks to hold us until the evening meal at 7:00 or 8:00 in the evening. I always thought that was close to the British tradition but I am likely wrong. If we eat enough at tea, then dinner/supper becomes something simple vs. a full meal. DD's "beş çay" is very often her evening meal, just because she fills up from it.

 

The word for breakfast in Turkish is "kahvaltı", which translates to "before the coffee". It always includes copious amounts of tea and then is followed by, you guessed it, Turkish coffee. I find it interesting that westerners view the morning meal as breaking a fast while Turks view it as preparation for the first coffee of the day.

[Butter]

OK, so you guys don't have morning tea at schools  in the US ? You do, right, you just call it recess ? Do the kids eat a snack then ?

 

No.  Not here (TX) at least, and not where I grew up either (MD).  Kids eat breakfast at home.  Around noonish depending on their grade they have lunch.  Elementary kids (K-5) have recess after lunch for a few minutes.  They have dinner at home some time after school.  Some schools allow snacks some time in the afternoon before they go home from school, but not all do.

[ktgrok]

My son had snack in the early grades of elementary school, but not after that. When I went to school we had a snack in kindergarten only. 

 

Also, remember that even in parts of the US today, dinner is  the noon meal and supper is the evening meal. To this day my father calls that meal supper, although he uses lunch for the mid day meal. 

 

I do LIKE the idea of a main big meal at midday, then tea, then a "snack" late called supper. But given that most people are not home for the midday meal I'm guessing that is why the custom is no longer followed.

[Kathryn]

We never had snacks of any kind in school besides holiday parties. We ate breakfast at home, lunch at school (followed by recess which is playing outside time), and dinner at home. My daycare gave us snacks after school, I think.

[poppy]

Recess is just play.

I do like the idea of sitting down together for a meal as a class.  That's something lacking in US classrooms. Lunch is usually a bit of a free-for-all.

[DawnM]

I grew up in a former British Colony.  We had tea time twice per day, 10am and 4pm.  It was indeed tea and biscuits (snacks, crackers, cookies, that sort of thing.)   Occasionally we had some sort of sandwich with it.

 

Evening meal (supper) was later and was usually a soup or light meal.  What we call lunch in the States was called dinner where I grew up and the noon meal was the most substantial meal.  Supper was the evening meal.

 

Dawn

[Night Elf]

OK, so you guys don't have morning tea at schools  in the US ? You do, right, you just call it recess ? Do the kids eat a snack then ?

 

So kids where you live eat how many times at school? Here, schools offer breakfast but not all kids buy it. It's before school starts. Everyone has lunch, although the time depends on the size of the school. Large schools take a long time to get kids through. Dd16 had 3rd lunch last year which was just before 1:00pm I think. When my kids were in shool, they got a morning snack in Kindergarten, not other grades.

[DawnM]

Some do.

 

Where I worked in CA, we had a 10am break called "Nutrition."  It was a 20 min. break and included food.  I worked in a high school, so it was not a recess like the  younger kids have.   

 

Students on free meal plans were allowed one breakfast.  It was served before school AND at Nutrition break.  They could choose to have it at one of those two times.

 

Dawn

 

 

OK, so you guys don't have morning tea at schools  in the US ? You do, right, you just call it recess ? Do the kids eat a snack then ?

 

When I was in infants school we called it 'little lunch.' I think some primary schools have flipped lunch and recess, so the children eat lunch around 11.30 and then have recess and snack around 1.30.

 

~

 

When I lived in the UK, the children ate 'tea', around 5ish. (We adults ate supper after the children went to bed). Their tea was quite lunch-like, but they had hot meals at school ( the older ones ) or at home (the youngers).

 

Afternoon or morning tea here is generally what you have at home or at work. High tea is a 'thing' you go out for.

Unless you have my daughters, who can whip you up a splendid tea at home :) Ds too - he's working on his scones.

 

I also call the evening meal 'dinner' and 'tea' interchangeably.

 

Tea, the drink, we call 'a cuppa.'

 

~

 

There you go, I've bumped this thread up a little for when Laura gets online :)

 

[pooh bear]

The part of the UK that I grew up in your meals were: Breakfast, Dinner and Tea.

 

Other parts of the UK meals were: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.

 

Same meal, same time of day, just a different name for it.

 

Dinner/lunch is at about 12 and Tea/Dinner is at about 5pm.

 

Then there is supper which was a glass of milk and two biscuits just before bed time.

[Okra]

The part of the UK that I grew up in your meals were: Breakfast, Dinner and Tea.

 

Other parts of the UK meals were: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.

 

Same meal, same time of day, just a different name for it.

 

Dinner/lunch is at about 12 and Tea/Dinner is at about 5pm.

 

Then there is supper which was a glass of milk and two biscuits just before bed time.

 

 

This.

 

I was talking to a teen from Northern England, and he explained to me that Dinner was what we called Lunch, and Tea was what we called Dinner.  He was pretty clear that in his household, tea was the evening meal, usually hot, that didn't necissarily  include tea.

 

Clearly, it is different in other places.  Apparently, tea is a drink with snacks in other parts of the world.  

 

Now, I am clearing up my view on this important time of the day.

[flyingiguana]

Was "Nutrition" only a CA thing then?

 

The quotes are completely appropriate.  I recall very few of my classmates actually eating anything, and those that did ate cake they got from the cafeteria.  It had some kind of crumble stuff on top, so I guess it was breakfast cake, as opposed to the real cake the cafeteria served at lunch which had proper frosting on top.

 

Mostly it was a 15 min time period to hang out with friends.

[TrixieB]

Some do.

 

Where I worked in CA, we had a 10am break called "Nutrition."  It was a 20 min. break and included food.  I worked in a high school, so it was not a recess like the  younger kids have.   

 

Students on free meal plans were allowed one breakfast.  It was served before school AND at Nutrition break.  They could choose to have it at one of those two times.

 

Dawn

 

We had a 20 min break at 10 AM too, but it was called "smoke break" and no food was served.