What is lunch?
A: Lunch is a meal eaten around the middle of the day.
It is commonly the second meal of the day, after
breakfast, and varies in size by what?
A: Culture and region.
In Britain, a pub ploughman's lunch consists of what?
A: Bread and cheese. Shown here with a meat
pie.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the
etymology of lunch is what?
A: Uncertain.
Meals have become ingrained in each society as being
what?
A: Natural and logical.
What one society eats may seem what to another?
A: Extraordinary.
The same is true of what was eaten long ago in history,
as food tastes, menu items, and meal periods have what?
A: Changed dramatically over time.
During the Middle Ages when did the main meal of the
day, then called dinner, for almost everyone, take place?
A: Late in the morning after several hours of work, when there was no need
for artificial lighting.
In the early, to mid-17th century, the meal could be
any time between what?
A: Late morning and mid-afternoon.
During the late 17th and 18th centuries, this meal was
gradually what?
A: Pushed back into the evening, creating a greater time gap between
breakfast and dinner.
A meal called lunch came to what?
A: Fill the gap.
The late evening meal, called supper, became squeezed
out as dinner did what?
A: Advanced into the evening, and often became a snack.
Until the early 19th century, luncheon was generally
reserved for whom?
A: The ladies, who would often have lunch with one another when their
husbands were out.
The meal was often relatively light, and often included
what?
A: Left-overs from the previous night's dinner, which were often plentiful.
As late as 1945, Emily Post wrote in the magazine
Etiquette that luncheon is what?
A: "Generally given by and for women, but it is not unusual, especially in
summer places or in town on Saturday or Sunday, to include an equal number
of men.
When the Prince of Wales stopped to eat a dainty
luncheon with lady friends, he was laughed at for what?
A: This effeminacy.
With the growth of industrialization in the 19th
century, male workers began to work long shifts at the factory, severely
disrupting what?
A: The age-old eating habits of rural life.
Initially, workers were sent home for a quick dinner
provided by whom?
A: Their wives.
As the workplace was moved farther from home, working
men took to doing what?
A: Giving themselves something portable to eat during a break in the middle
of the day.
The lunch meal slowly became institutionalized in
England when workers with long and fixed-hour jobs at the factory were
eventually given what?
A: An hour off work to eat lunch and thus gain strength for the afternoon
shift.
Stalls and later chop houses near the factories began
to provide what?
A: Mass-produced food for the working class, and the meal soon became an
established part of the daily routine, remaining so to this day.
