THE TIME OF MEALS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 6, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 18.

THE TIME OF MEALS.

DINNER WAS ONCE EATEN AT TEN IN THE MORNING.

It is believed by some that it (the word "dinner") springs from a corruption of the word "dixheures," indicating the time at which, in the old Norman days, this meal was taken. The mere idea of having dinner at the barbarous hour of 10 o'clock in the morning would, in all probability, send a modern chef into a fit, yet it was at this early time that persons of quality, both in this country and France, partook of the meal. Froissart mentions waiting upon the Duke of Lancaster at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, after he had supped, and during the reigns of Francis I. and Louis XII. of France, fashionable people dined from 10:30 o'clock and supped at the latest at 6 o'clock in the evening. And again, from a Northumberland household book, bearing date 1512, we learn that the family rose at 6 o'clock, breakfasted at 7 o'clock, dined at 10 o'clock, supped at 4 o'clock, and shut the gates at 9 P. M.

Speaking generally, though the dinner hour then, as now, was later in this country than in France, Louis XIV. did not dine till 12 o'clock, while his contemporaries, Cromwell and Charles II., took the meal at 1 o'clock. In 1700 the hour was advanced to 2 o'clock, and in 1751 we find that the Duchess of Somerset's dinner time was 3 o'clock. In 1760 Cowper speaks of 4 o'clock as the then fashionable time. After the battle of Waterloo 6 P. M. was the time at which the beau monde took their substantial meal, while at the present day many of the nobility do not dine until 8 or 9 o'clock; so we see through 400 years the dinner hour has gradually moved through twelve hours of the day—from 9 A. M. to 9 P. M. When the dinner hour was so early, often no previous meal was taken.—Chambers' Journal.