I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. In between or later are snacks.

But most of the time I graze throughout the day. So whatever or whenever I sit down to eat a balanced meal I call my main meal.

When DS was young child and lunch was delayed he would call it linner.

We eat breakfast at around 10:00 and dinner at 7-7:30ish. If we eat anything in between we call it a snack, but it wouldn't be a regular meal. It would be something small like some nuts and cheese, apple and peanut butter or chips and dip/hummus.

My grandparents had a large cattle ranch in Alberta and I remember my grandmother calling their main meal (which was eaten early) supper. There wasn't another meal after that, but there was always dessert an hour or two after supper. Being ranchers, they went to bed early and got up early. I remember my grandfather leaving the house to check the fences and the cattle when it was still dark outside. He always had a bowl of oatmeal before heading out and supper when he came home.

During round up and branding time, they hired extra hands to help and my grandmother would make lunch for everyone, but I don't recall lunch ever being served except for when the round-up was taking place.

I grew up in the midwest. Lunch was called dinner and dinner was called supper.

I don't eat a meal between lunch and dinner. Sometimes I don't even eat lunch or a proper dinner, but just scrounge the fridge - generally not on the same day, tho.

I sometimes have a little nosh (cheese, nuts, fruit), or nibble on (taste test?) what I'm making dinner.

Here in the midwest farm country, dinner is at noon and supper is the evening meal. I grew up having dinner in the evening and lunch at noon so I was a bit taken aback by this custom! And between lunch and dinner is tea!

Elmer, there is also soper(French) in contention and it means last meal some how or other. I wonder about the soup thing. Soup is most often hot which requires a fire or perhaps just a brazier. We think nothing today of firing up the stove but there was a reason supper was often cold left overs. I suppose by now we will never know. We grew up with breakfast lunch and dinner at home and breakfast dinner and supper at my grandmother's farm, all southern. She would typically work two or three hours before breakfast but that makes sense when you want to avoid the heat of the midday.

Imagine having your last meal of the day at 3:00 and then not eating again until 10:00 the next day. Working class people would not be eating all those extra meals. Workers in the great houses of the medieval period ate over two pounds of meat a day. Imagine that! About 2 1/2 lbs raw was what was allotted per person!

Here, when we combine lunch and dinner as one often does with breakfast and lunch (brunch) we call it linner. Just a made-up word like lupper. :-)))

"What is on your plate today?"

Fresh green beans & grilled salmon steaks.

I call that meal 'supper'. Growing up, lunch time was called 'dinner'. I call it lunch now. For my supper today, I had pizza. Don't do that too often, just sounded good today.

Omigosh, there is a meal between lunch and dinner? I've missed out all these years!

When I was a child, in the late 1940's we would visit my relatives in a small Arkansas town. Dinner was the "big meal" of the day and it was at noon. My grandfather would close his real estate office (everyone else did the same thing!), and walk home for this meal. It was at noon as it was HOT in the south in the summer, and there was no AC. It was far cooler (cooler being a relative term - it was still bloody hot!), to cook a big meal in the morning than in the late afternoon. "Dinner" at my grandparent's house was either fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans cooked with bacon and its drippings (always a pot going on top of the pilot light), sliced homegrown tomatoes, sweet onions and cucumbers. There were always hot biscuits that were light and just fabulous. Or it might have been fried thin pork chops with milk gravy. No potatoes - just put that gravy over those hot biscuits. Oh my, but this was good! Dessert was usually a fruit pie made from whatever fruit was in season. Sometimes, it might be chicken and biscuit dumplings if my grandmother had a hen that had quit laying and was "ready for the pot".. They lived right in town, but everyone kept chickens. Everyone also had a vegetable garden, some berries and a few fruit trees.

After "dinner", my grandfather laid down and took a nap, and then put his trousers back on and went back to work.

The evening meal (usually around 5:30-6PM, was called "supper" and it was cold leftovers from the main meal at noon - too danged hot to cook again. After dark, the men might all go to the ice house (huge blocks of ice sold there) and get a good ripe watermelon. They'd have it "plugged" to be sure it was a sweet one, bring it back, and we'd sit out in the back yard on old white Adirondack chairs, and eat icy cold sweet watermelon, spitting the seeds into the grass, the juice running down our chins. I've never again had watermelon that good.

Noonish = lunch

Evening or late afternoon =dinner. But I will at times say supper. Growing up it was always supper.

late lunch/early supper?

When I grew up, mid day was dinner. Evening was supper.

Although that sounds strange to me now.

We, too, had dinner at non and supper in the evening.. On the rare occasion that we would eat an afternoon meal, my mother called it "dinnupper"!

Breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner are my usual meals. My understanding is dinner is the name given to your largest meal, so if your main meal is at Noon, that is dinner with supper at the end of the day.

Ooops, Just saw Anglophilia covered this dinner/lunch difference.

A friend calls it Lunner!

Here in Michigan we always had breakfast early, before chores, the midday meal was dinner and it was the biggest meal of the day, and supper was after the day's work was done.

I still have the farm I grew up on, but now only have breakfast at about 9 am and supper at 5 pm. The supper time is the preference of my husband, I'd wait a little longer but he wants supper at 5 pm, always, and is cranky if it's late. He'll have "lunch" sometime between those two meals, often a sandwich and some fruit, or a tortilla filled with something, and a "snack" at 9 pm. The dog gets a couple of biscuits at 9 pm so that's their shared snack. (grin) I usually skip the lunch and seldom have a night time snack.

Hmmm. I should be thin, but I'm not. Today breakfast was a slice of that low calorie cardboard bread with half an avocado and an over easy egg, with black coffee. Supper was refried beans on a tortilla and the first tomatoes from the garden. Elery had made supper, it was supposed to be stuffed cabbage but something went awry, LOL, and now the chickens are having stuffed cabbage tomorrow!

Annie

Sorry, but he gets cranky if dinner is late? And you accommodate that?

Breakfast, lunch, dinner and all else are snacks.

Elmer, we accomodate you.

We live in the Midwest and my family always said lunch and then supper, reserving dinner for more formal meals, such as Thanksgiving or funeral meals or when eating the late meal in a restaurant. I don’t know the why but that’s the what. My husband’s family , who is also from the Midwest, always said dinner as the noon meal and then supper as the evening meal.

As a night minion who lives with a chronic undereater, we have no set meal schedule. Most days I wake up at 3 PM. So my first meal is around 6pm. Today it was a taco salad, no shell. Is that breakfast? I don't know. I may eat again before my midnight walk,so I suppose that would be lunch, even though it's usually not a full meal. It's either an Atkins shake or a string cheese and a peanut butter or something like that. Then, depending on if SO is still at home in the morning when i get off work, I will make his breakfast,my dinner. If he's gone already,I probably just go to bed. That's a work day. My off days, really anything goes. We may eat once at 7am and again at 7 pm and again at midnight. Or I may just eat once. So weird i know.

Growing up our evening meal was called supper. I always hated that word. I would say dinner and be swiftly corrected. "Supper" just reminds me of slopping pigs for some reason...... I just don't like how it sounds. Also weird I know.

As for the OPs question,I wouldn't call it anything. I would just eat it and enjoy.

If you're happy, that's all that matters. My reaction was as it was because I don't think I've ever heard someone speak of an adult getting cranky because of being hungry. Or demanding dinner at the same set time every day, much less someone else accepting that and doing so.

I grew up on the east coast, and it was breakfast lunch and dinner.....but my grandfather was a carpenter and my grandmother fixed dinner at noon, but packed a lunch for him to take to work.
At my house it was breakfast, lunch and dinner....but at one period my mother decided to have the 'main meal" at noon, so lunch was meat potatoes vegetable a roll etc.
I went to college in Massachusetts and we had breakfast lunch and dinner....but for Sundays when we had Sunday dinner at noon and Sunday supper at night.
I have lived in Iowa for the past many years and most people I know, but for people who actually farm, call it breakfast lunch and dinner ( but for Sunday).
Oh and then there is brunch and coffee time, and cocktail snacks....it's all good!

This is interesting. Perhaps the differences are both regional and class based? Old timers in Maine often referred to breakfast, dinner and supper.

I spent time in High School staying with a friends family farm. Her mom and stepdad got up very very early. So when the lazy kids got up at 7 or 8 they served dinner - steak and eggs. I don’t remember lunch but supper was often a soufflé. In retrospect the soufflé was probably for the visitors - myself and my friend’s befuddled grandparents who had been moved to Maine unwillingly. Two senile somewhat snooty semi-southern Latin professors wandering around a funky Maine farmhouse.

Last meal of the day, but just way early? Dinner.

Or, Linner, if combining lunch and dinner...

Or, a separate meal from the other two? Afternoon tea, taking a page from the British?

Having grown up in the same area as Marilyn Sue, we always had breakfast, dinner and supper. My husband and I still do the same and almost never snack between meals.

Hi Jackie! Email sometime :)

In adulthood: breakfast, lunch, dinner.

Growing up in the 1960s/70's: breakfast, lunch, supper. Men went to blue collar jobs with "dinner pails" but kids carried "lunch boxes" with tv stars or cartoons on them -- well, on tv shows they did. In real life Dad and us kids used brown paper lunch bags to carry our sandwich, apple, and cookies to the office and/or school, as did lots of people we knew.

I seem to remember a series of young adult books set in the early 1900s in which an evening gathering with sandwiches was called a "lunch," which seems super odd. Words: why won't they ever stay the same? lol.

Elmer, don't misunderstand Annie's statement. She is not submissive in any sense of the word. She and Elery have nothing but love and respect for each other.

Anglo - that was a lovely memory you shared.

Marilyn I sent an email to you with a copy to each address I have for you.

When I was growing up we had breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week except Sunday. Then we had dinner at 2 or 3PM (no lunch) and "supper" later which could be leftovers or a sandwich. I don't do that, but have the usual 3 meals at the regular time every day of the week.

bragu_DSM 5 - Loved the Hobbit reference.

I was serious about "breakfast". :) I sometimes don't eat my first meal until 2-3 pm. Growing up, it was breakfast, lunch, dinner, with lunch being a light meal usually of sandwiches or soup or salad. Other than soup, it was rarely hot, though if one of my uncles or other non-"company" company came, my mother might go so far as to make spaghetti or similar. Something meatier that could be whipped up fast. Dinner was the main meal, at 6 p.m. Anything between lunch and dinner was a true snack, like a piece of fruit.

The men in my family were similar to Annie's husband. There was a medical term for the way it happens, but they'd get hungry at regular intervals and turn into growly bears until fed. They also worked hard, and sweated buckets. The service only reinforced mealtimes. Breakfast was at 7 a.m., lunch at noon, dinner at 6 p.m., mid-afternoon snack was usually an apple, pear or plums, ice cream was at about 9 p.m. (the most dessert at dinner was a cookie or some cut fruit). Get a few of them in a room when lunch wasn't going to be until 1:00 p.m. and just stay away. They were intolerable hungry and often snapped or blew up.

I live according to my own time clock with some moderation to play well with others. :) If it's not a gathering, dinner is when I feel like making it. ;) Don't like it? Make it yourself..

Isn't the word for what you are describing 'hangry?' (angry/hungry) It doesn't happen here, but I have a friend whose husband and eldest son become 'hangry' while she and their younger two do not. They are fine once they have some nutrition and calories again. One of my BILs came close to that. I say close, because he's mellowed and isn't as rigid since taking an earlier retirement. When working, he got off work at 4:30, was home in about 20 minutes and wanted/needed to eat at 5. Wife tried to accommodate him even though no one else was really that hungry yet, and they had two children with various practices, events going on where it wasn't always possible to sit down as a family at 5 PM. (side effect too was eating that early, everyone was a little hungry again by bedtime and were late evening snacking, making weight more of an issue than it needed to be).

We are a big close family who eats together, gets together, frequently. It was difficult for all of us for years to be thoughtful of that one (important) person who wanted to eat before 7 PM ;0)

I get hangry too. Not at a specific time though,as I don't really have a set eating schedule. But the hanger is real.....Like the Hulk. If the Hulk were pink not green. Yeah, that's me....

Happy Hour!

My father, who grew up in a rural small-town farming community, wanted dinner no later than 5:30 his entire life. He finished work at 5PM - he retired in 1965 so his working years were when everyone left the office at the same time and it was 5PM for most in our area. Either my mother or I picked him up from work, and he got home by 5:15. He changed his clothes and washed up while my mother finished up our dinner, and wanted to sit down at the table by 5:30. He wanted to get dinner "over with" so he could go down the basement and work on one of his many hobbies. My mother was a wonderful cook so referring to it as something one needed to "get over with" always rubbed her the wrong way. They were married for about 45 years. I think that people who were brought up either on a farm or rural enough to have livestock that had to be fed on a pretty rigid schedule, tended to eat on the same. It's just the way life was in those days.

I hated that early dinner! I was always hungry again by 8:30 or so and in the kitchen looking for ice cream or left-over dessert. I had to fight my father for it as he was hungry, too!

I vowed no 5:30 dinners when I was grown and had my own house, and I kept that vow. When my children were little, we ate dinner (they had already been fed) right after their 6:30 bedtime. Later, dinner was at 7PM. After then left home, it moved to 8PM. With my husband gone, it might be anytime, depending on how late I slept that day and what I'm doing on the computer. It's usually between 8 and 9. If I eat late, I don't go back in the kitchen and snack.

"Hangry" is a recently popularized coinage which refers to what happens when you poke the hungry bears. :) There is a genetic something in their metabolism (the men in my family), which has a name I don't remember, which kind of flips a switch to put them into the state where they're liable to become hangry. Even when they're not there, even when they still have their equanimity, they're still grumpy when they're unfed. :) OTOH, they also assume everybody is hungry, so they're likely to feed all and sundry when it's feeding time. :)

Growing up we called it supper. Now we tend to call it dinner.

When I was a child it was breakfast, lunch, and supper if it was only immediate family. If there were guests or extended family it was called dinner and it did not make a difference what time it was. For holiday meals that dinner would be mid afternoon in the winter but evening in the summer. That way the guests could return home while it was still light if there was bad weather such as snow or ice.

I'm definitely not submissive, I smile just thinking about that, LOL.

Because there is no one here except Elery and I, no one else is impacted or inconvenienced with his choice of meal time. Since I don't really care all that much and he does, I'm happy to let him choose his preferred meal time. Marriage works much better when there is compromise, I think.

Now I have to go bake a carrot cake for our Township Clerk, who is retiring from the position after 32 years. I'd prefer an old fashioned hot milk cake, but I guess I'll just "accommodate" her and bake her favorite instead. Since the meeting is at 7 pm, I guess we'll call it "happy hour", because how can you be unhappy when there's cake? (grin)

Annie

I didn't use the word submissive. To be honest, what got my attention was reading about an adult (not a child) described as being inflexible regarding a meal time and getting cranky if it's late. Huh? And that conduct being accommodated.

Hopefully, we all can be in situations we find make us happy and no two are the same.

Being Hangry normally is a sign of low blood sugar. Followed in my case by the "Wibilely Wabblies". It can happen at any time with me. It also can have nothing to do with mealtime although there are people who do become angry if their time schedule is upset. Then it does have more to do with control than with being hungry.

When I was growing up it was breakfast, lunch and dinner. During the school/work week, breakfast was hot or cold cereal depending on the season and lunch was a sandwich and whatever in a lunch box...with a thermos!! Rarely a hot school lunch, usually when we needed a trip to the grocer. And when we were old enough, we made our own lunch to take to school.

Weekends, we had a hot family breakfast, usually eggs and bacon in some form, occasionally pancakes made by my older brother.

Dinner was always a sit down meal with the whole family and eaten at around 7 pm. Often nothing very fancy during the week but Sunday was always a roast of some kind or meatloaf or chicken and dumplings. And dessert, which we never had during the week. When we got older and my older sibs had a social life, mom and dad and I often went out for dinner on Saturday, usually for Chinese.

Now that I am single and don't have to cook for a family, my meal times and what I decide to cook or eat are very flexible. I am a very early riser so other than coffee first thing, I may not eat for 4 or 5 hours after I get up. And if I have breakfast, I often skip lunch. And dinner may or may not happen at all. I almost always have a few nibbles - what my mom called "blotting paper" - with my evening glass of wine, some cheese and crackers, hummus, guacamole and chips, etc., and that may be dinner. And sometimes I just graze on whatever might be available....leftovers, a baked potato, soup, an omlette, a grilled cheese sandwich, deli take-out. Last night it was a deli chicken tender and cherries. I probably only cook a "real dinner" once or twice a week.

Hypoglycemia. When your blood sugar is low you do in fact get cranky. It is just one of those things. Some peoples systems are more regular than others and don't do variations well. It isn't something to get all fussy about. they need to eat at regular intervals. The cranky is not some personal thing, it is biological. Diabetics can have similar issues.

I grew up in a city in the Midwest. We ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which was served at 6:30.