WTF is Supper?

[Adam Balic]

It is at the end of my road. Excellent produce.

[Pontormo]

Once it was:

Breakfast, dinner, supper.

As meal began to be served later (18th century say), lunch was squeezed in. Lunch was as much as you can hold in you hand (see. S. Johnson "Dictionary").

Eventually, lunch became more substantial as dinner was served later. Supper remained the last meal of the day, but in general became much lighter. Variations ocur with location and socio-economic class.

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At least in the parts of the world known problematically as the West, well before the time of the Last Supper, there were only two meals a day: a kind of breakfast served late in the morning and then the main meal when the sun was still up.

Was Christianity's increasing influence and its love of the number three both reasons for the move towards three meals?

Or were changes in the concept of time and systematization of labor behind the new tripartite division of the day into three discrete dining experiences?

In other words, were changes really as late as the 18th century? Why then and not the 19th?

I still remember the days when businesses, government agencies, libraries, churches, etc. closed during a 2 to 4 hour period in Italy so people could go home to eat their "pranza" or lunch and not "cena" as in the Last Supper. The practice has changed, I had always thought, due to horrible American influences and the growth of tourism. (There were nonetheless established traditions of serving a daily pasta and other substantial dishes at bars, markets, and so forth.) Was that ever the case in the U.K.?

* * *

Does Jamie Oliver have suppers in the evening?

His program to change the way British schoolchildren eat mid-day is called School Dinners.

Edited May 10, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[Duncan]

I have fond memories of pizza straight from the freezer into the batter and then the hot oil. They didn't even take it out of its plastic bag first.

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A bit of an urban myth.

True the first low quality supermarket type pizzas were deep fried, but never battered. (maybe only as a one off joke)

The curious thing is that the people who deep fried these pizzas were of Italian decent.

Work that one out !!!

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Not an urban myth at all: they were definitely battered and on at least one occasion included the plastic wrapping. Specifically it was a chip shop in Brechin where we used to stop off when returning from school trips down south.

I'm not telling you something which happened to a friend of a friend: it happened to me.

[Mike Hunt]

I have fond memories of pizza straight from the freezer into the batter and then the hot oil. They didn't even take it out of its plastic bag first.

←

A bit of an urban myth.

True the first low quality supermarket type pizzas were deep fried, but never battered. (maybe only as a one off joke)

The curious thing is that the people who deep fried these pizzas were of Italian decent.

Work that one out !!!

←

Not an urban myth at all: they were definitely battered and on at least one occasion included the plastic wrapping. Specifically it was a chip shop in Brechin where we used to stop off when returning from school trips down south.

I'm not telling you something which happened to a friend of a friend: it happened to me.

←

I'm beginning to suspect this is a bit of an East of Scotland affliction

Never seen them battered in the West.

On a more healthier note, I was in a chippy in South Queensferry about 15 years ago who offered tempura veggies !!!

[zilla369]

Does anyone remember a poem from childhood that went "To bed, to bed, says sleepy head"?

My US Appalachian coal-mining grandparents called the mid-day meal "dinner" - the coal miners carried it to work with them in their "dinner bucket" (lunchbox) - a metal box that flipped open and had a tin cup attached to drink water out of - later versions (circa 1950 plus) had a thermos full of coffee clipped to the inside of the top lid. The evening meal was "supper".

My parents still called the evening meal "supper" but the mid-day meal was called "lunch".

These days I use "lunch" and "dinner" for the second and third meals of the day. "Tea" sounds fancy and nice, though. 'Course, in the south, we drink our tea over ice with sugar in it. None of that hoity-toity Earl Grey or Darjeeling for us. Just good old Orange Pekoe.

I know, I know. Philistines.

[naebody]

I'm beginning to suspect this is a bit of an East of Scotland affliction 

I'd suggest that Edinburgh's brief fad for deep frying everything was, in the main, publicity driven. Offering deep fried (insert random word here) was a very easy way to get a small business into the local paper. It's the same procedure used by all those Birmingham curry places offering the world's hottest vindaloo, or by London eateries that charge £85 for a sandwich.

Incidentally, as a Edinburger now living in the smoke, I'd observe that the average Scottish chip shop is a completely different proposition to its London equivalent. While the Sweaties will be frying fresh haddock in light batter, the Cockneys seem to rely on moving pre-coated reconstituted fish logs direct from freezer to fryer. It's grossly unfair to take a few novelty items on the Jock menu as symptomatic of the nation -- just as it'd be unfair to say that all London's Turkish restaurants are shabby because the place round the corner does a donner-and-chip pizza.

[davebrown]

On a more healthier note, I was in a chippy in South Queensferry about 15 years ago who offered tempura veggies !!!

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Well it's a radical move but at least someone has found a use for vegetarians.

In the chippies in Birmingham you can get a slice of potato deep fried in batter called a scallop. Whilst this label has obvious comic potential, I've never seen it fully exploited. Possibly those Brummies who genuinely believed that Nicky the Greek was battering shimmering molluscs have died out through natural selection. Either that or they moved to South Queensferry.

[Adam Balic]

I'm beginning to suspect this is a bit of an East of Scotland affliction 

I'd suggest that Edinburgh's brief fad for deep frying everything was, in the main, publicity driven. Offering deep fried (insert random word here) was a very easy way to get a small business into the local paper. It's the same procedure used by all those Birmingham curry places offering the world's hottest vindaloo, or by London eateries that charge £85 for a sandwich.

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Deep frying everything is still populat in Edinburgh. Here is the menu from Edinburgh's finest. Deep fried scotch pie, that is an experience.

[naebody]

Deep frying everything is still populat in Edinburgh. Here is the menu from Edinburgh's finest. Deep fried scotch pie, that is an experience.

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Oh deary me. Apologies for keeping this off-topic argument running, but L'Alba D'Ora was my local, and I will not have their good name sullied.

On my last visit, just over a year ago, not a single pie had passed into the deep frier. And, as the website menu highlights, they offer items rarely seen in the supposedly more diet-conscious south (haddock breaded with sage; prawns in ginger; squid; monkfish; stuffed Jalepenos). If I remember correctly, items such as chip butties etc. were included mostly for the benefit of the local schoolkids, who gathered at the door every lunchtime to fling wet chips at each other.

As for deep frying pizzas: yes, it's an appaling idea. But I'd argue that the end product bears just as much of a resemblance to pizza fritta as your average Chicagotown deep pan does to a neopolitan. You can't blame our guests from Napoli (or, in the case of L'Alba, Cassino) for giving it a shot.

Edited May 11, 2006 by naebody (log)

[Adam Balic]

Sure, hence Edinburgh's finest (by a long shot and somewhat unrepresentative). But, I would bet that the majority of chip shop pies in Edinburgh are deep fried.

The is nothing wrong with fried food obviously though, good stuff. Deep fried pizza in Edinburgh is an abomination though. Even for supper..

[JudyB]

Does Jamie Oliver have suppers in the evening?

His program to change the way British schoolchildren eat mid-day is called School Dinners.

I don't know what Jamie Oliver eats at home, but it's worth remembering that he is very much more middle class than his (initial) TV persona portrayed him to be.

As for the mid-day meal in schools, I have to agree that I never heard it referred to as anything except "dinner" when I was at school (in Bolton, north-west England). As far as lunch goes I think that it was at school in Bolton that I first heard people use the term "lunch" to describe a mid-morning snack - more commonly described as "elevenses" etc.

Just to clarify things here: although I went to school in Lancashire (as it was at the time) my parents are from the north-east of England (near Newcastle) so the terms used for meals at home were probably not typical for Lancashire.

[Carlovski]

I was brought up on Breakfast, Dinner, Tea.

Wsn't until I went to university that I stopped referring to my mid day meal as Dinner - not as any desparate desire to turn middle class but rather the fact that almost all my friends wouldn't have a clue what I was on about. My evening meal is still tea though.

Supper to me is something consumed just before bedtime.

[Matthew Grant]

As for the mid-day meal in schools, I have to agree that I never heard it referred to as anything except "dinner" when I was at school (in Bolton, north-west England).

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I never took a "packed dinner" to school

[primowino]

On a more healthier note, I was in a chippy in South Queensferry about 15 years ago who offered tempura veggies !!!

←

Well it's a radical move but at least someone has found a use for vegetarians.

In the chippies in Birmingham you can get a slice of potato deep fried in batter called a scallop. Whilst this label has obvious comic potential, I've never seen it fully exploited. Possibly those Brummies who genuinely believed that Nicky the Greek was battering shimmering molluscs have died out through natural selection. Either that or they moved to South Queensferry.

←

Just as a bit of regional detail. A battered slice of potato is, or at least was in my youth, called a dab in Lancashire.

[primowino]

I'm beginning to suspect this is a bit of an East of Scotland affliction 

I'd suggest that Edinburgh's brief fad for deep frying everything was, in the main, publicity driven. Offering deep fried (insert random word here) was a very easy way to get a small business into the local paper. It's the same procedure used by all those Birmingham curry places offering the world's hottest vindaloo, or by London eateries that charge £85 for a sandwich.

←

Deep frying everything is still populat in Edinburgh. Here is the menu from Edinburgh's finest. Deep fried scotch pie, that is an experience.

←

Of course the Scotch Pie is called Mince Pie on the menu because that's what they're called in Scotland (no need to call them a Scotch Pie here). Now a Mince Pie sounds like something that should have mincemeat in and be eaten at Xmas, which is why these are often called Xmas Pies in Scotland. Still with me?

Edited May 11, 2006 by primowino (log)

[Carlovski]

As for the mid-day meal in schools, I have to agree that I never heard it referred to as anything except "dinner" when I was at school (in Bolton, north-west England).

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I never took a "packed dinner" to school

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Good point - some strange semantics going on here.

School dinners are always dinners - all over the country it seems. hence dinner ladies - I guess it's different in the states based on the ever reliable Simpsons evidence (Lunchlady Doris)

However a packed lunch is always a packed lunch. Some sort of hot/cold food divide.

[Adam Balic]

On a more healthier note, I was in a chippy in South Queensferry about 15 years ago who offered tempura veggies !!!

←

Well it's a radical move but at least someone has found a use for vegetarians.

In the chippies in Birmingham you can get a slice of potato deep fried in batter called a scallop. Whilst this label has obvious comic potential, I've never seen it fully exploited. Possibly those Brummies who genuinely believed that Nicky the Greek was battering shimmering molluscs have died out through natural selection. Either that or they moved to South Queensferry.

←

Just as a bit of regional detail. A battered slice of potato is, or at least was in my youth, called a dab in Lancashire.

←

"Scallop" isn this case most likely comes from "escalope" (slice), in Scotland these ended up in the form of "collop" (maybe extinct now). In some areas slice potatoes baked in cream and onions etc is called "Scalloped potatoes".

"Dab" could be from the flatfish.

[Pontormo]

Regarding the original rant and words used to identify the third meal of the day, it might be interesting to leaf through novels from the 18th century to present day for clues. Moll Flanders to Saturday?

* * *

After your children come home from their school dinners, do they find you in the kitchen peeling vegetables for small, intimate dinner parties with friends?

[davebrown]

"Scallop" isn this case most likely comes from "escalope" (slice), in Scotland these ended up in the form of "collop" (maybe extinct now). In some areas slice potatoes baked in cream and onions etc is called "Scalloped potatoes".

"Dab" could be from the flatfish.

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OK. I can understand how a dish of potatoes sliced and baked in cream etc can end up with a name derived from the French, but a deep fried disk of battered potato?

Did some gang of French navvies present themselves at a Smethwick chippy one lunchtime, recognise a familiar fried object, then order in in their native tongue? Was the chip shop proprietor so taken with the new appelation that it stuck, and spread to other shops nearby?

[Adam Balic]

The word "scallop" is derived from the old French "escalope" which means "shell". Both the shellfish and the cooking term which means 'small thin slices' derive from that. Some where and when, the latter term also got mixed up with the german word "klopfen" (to beat, in relation to a flat piece of meat)

1845 E. ACTON Mod. Cookery ix. 218 Slice very thin the white part of some cold veal, divide and trim it into scallops not larger than a shilling.

1769 MRS. RAFFALD Eng. Housekpr. (1778) 73 "To warm up Scotch Collops."

So "scallop" is just a regional word for a small slice.

There is no need to traveling bands of Frenchman etc, as French, German, Dutch words are part of the English language and have been for a long time. Also, this foreign words do get incoporated obviously, and often in relation to new foods. Look at the origin of "Scouse" for instance.

Edited May 12, 2006 by Adam Balic (log)

[Carlovski]

I always used to order a Potato Scallop when I got sent to the Chippy to eat on the way home.

was many years before I found out there was any other kind.

[erica graham]

My Grandad used to have 3 potato scallops and chips for supper every Friday!!

And, yes it was many years until I too realised there was any other!!

[Pontormo]

At the end of Jane Eyre (1847), when the heroine returns to Thornfield and finds Rochester in need, Charlotte Bronte writes the following, a conversation between her two protagonists in which Jane speaks first:

"When do you take supper?"

"I never take supper."

"But you shall have some to-night.  I am hungry: so are you, I daresay, only you forget."

[Pontormo]

In the real and literary worlds of Charles Dickens, there was breakfast (Oliver Twist); lunch (N.B. negative connotations of lunch here in Hard Times); dinner (Bleak House); AND supper (David Cooperfield).

Especially interesting work of culinary history on Dickens and dinner is reviewed here in The Guardian (April 30, 2005).

Edited May 12, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[Pontormo]

And if any three-year old speaks of supper, she is in the august company of Shakespeare:

KING CLAUDIUS

Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?

HAMLET

At supper.

KING CLAUDIUS

At supper! where?

HAMLET

Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain

convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your

worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all

creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for

maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but

variable service, two dishes, but to one table:

that's the end.

(Act 4, Scene 3 of Hamlet)