Timeline for What is the origin of 3 meals a day?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
13 events
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| Sep 24, 2018 at 13:54 | comment | added | SC for reinstatement of Monica | This doesn't mean they didn't eat at all during the rest of the day: there'd be a bit of snacking involving whatever edible things were around. A friend of my grandmother's (1950's) sometimes complained of her son, because he would eat all her (raw) onions (which weren't many). He was that hungry and there was nothing else to eat at home. Which means that, just because the first meal is at 9, it doesn't follow people wouldn't eat whenever they felt hungry (and had food available). | |
| Sep 24, 2018 at 13:53 | comment | added | SC for reinstatement of Monica | @SJuan76: That's a good point. Since 'fast breaking' with a bit of bread wasn't considered a proper meal, perhaps it means that peope would eat it only when they woke up much earlier than 9 am or when they needed their strength for long, hardy tasks. Going back to the field workers, they were often unemployed during winter (no fields to tend to), which meant it was a season of hunger and some families might have only one proper meal (at around 12pm). | |
| Sep 23, 2018 at 2:12 | comment | added | user18968 | @SJuan76 I agree with you about the original state of things. I suspect that clocks preceded artificial lighting in setting work hours for many (certainly not all). | |
| Sep 22, 2018 at 23:20 | comment | added | SJuan76 | @AaronBrick But that is not my point, my point is that people would not start working at 8am each day. In summer with an earlier sunrise they would awake earlier and start their activities earlier, in winter they would awake and start later. They were not going to an office or factory, they would live near their workplace (often in top of it) and they did not have to catch trains or buses. See Sara Costa point about field workers (in the 20th century!) setting their routines in relation to sunrise. | |
| Sep 22, 2018 at 21:21 | comment | added | SC for reinstatement of Monica | ...are similar to the meal hours observed in the 14th century (according to Fernão Lopes's chronicles). | |
| Sep 22, 2018 at 21:20 | comment | added | SC for reinstatement of Monica | @JamieClinton: A description of the life of field workers in the early 20th century in Alentejo (a region of Portugal): in summer, the workers would start working shortly after sunrise (c.6am) and have their first meal at 9am (lunch), then their second meal at 12pm (dinner). There might be a snack (merenda) in the mid-afternoon and at night they'd have the ceia (supper). However, the workers might eat some bread and olives in the field before the work started, or just some olives if they had no bread. This 'fast breaking' wasn't mentioned as a meal, though. Curiously, the hours are similar... | |
| Sep 21, 2018 at 23:34 | comment | added | user18968 | @SJuan 8AM as a start time could work for a lot of people. I looked up a northerly city at random, Glasgow, and it has sunrise after 8AM only one week a year. | |
| Sep 21, 2018 at 13:02 | comment | added | chepner | I'm pretty sure they ate; they just didn't sit down with other people to do it. Grab a loaf of bread, head out to the fields, takes bites when possible and as necessary. | |
| Sep 20, 2018 at 19:09 | comment | added | Jamie Clinton | Good answer, but I'm curious about people in 1501 not eating until 11am. Wouldn't they have mostly been farmers, waking up early and doing lots of manual labor? I would think they would be famished by 11am. | |
| Sep 20, 2018 at 15:38 | comment | added | alephzero | The implication in the quotes is that Mortimer is only talking about townspeople. These were in the minority in 1600. Population of the UK was about 4 million. Population of London, 250,000. All the other towns were tiny by comparison - the second largest had population of only around 20,000. (One reason towns didn't grow bigger was regular epidemics of fatal diseases) | |
| Sep 20, 2018 at 15:22 | comment | added | SJuan76 |
Nice answer, but I am not sure what to think about: By 1600 [...] went to school or work for about eight o’clock.... AFAIK, before artificial lighting became widespread, timetables were dependant on sunlight, so it would have been difficult to keep the same routine at the same hour all year round. Maybe the author is just simplifying his explanation, but still it seems a bit odd.
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| Sep 20, 2018 at 13:41 | vote | accept | Lance Pollard | ||
| Sep 20, 2018 at 13:35 | history | answered | MagTun | CC BY-SA 4.0 |