In article ,
Bob Hobden wrote:

Surely it goes...
Breakfast
Then croust - elevenses as foreigners know it :-)
Lunch
Afternoon tea (tea and cake about 4pm, still popular in some parts of the
Empire)
Dinner
Supper (late in the evening, cold meats, bread cheese and pickles etc)

Indeed :-) One of the reasons that this whole terminology is such
nonsense is that it varies immensely with time and place. While I
do sometimes eat after 11 pm (being a geek from way back), I still
call the main evening meal supper when it is informal because that is
the way it was used when I was young. Yes, I know that it is
historically incorrect, and have no idea when it started as one of the
innumerable shibboleths invented for the benefit of the English class
system. My reading indicates probably sometime between 1920 and 1950
and, as people point out, it has now almost disappeared again.

Obviously, the only reason I remarked was because it was such a
wonderful lead-in for Tibetan tea :-) Many Web recipes are clearly
modified for western tastes, and I am not sure whether the older
travel documents were correct (i.e. that it uses rancid yak butter)
or them (that it uses fresh butter) were traditionally correct.

Oh, and someone is coming for afternoon tea today - with scones and
clotted cream :-)


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.