Babi - in this country what you call your meals is still a huge indicator of class (as we have discussed before).
When I was a child we had our evening meal as soon as my mother came in from work (I remember her starting to cook before she even took her coat off - though our kitchen
was freezing!), and it would have been referred to as "tea". People like Nigella Lawson (ie posh people trying to sound informal) would call it "supper" - as in inviting their friends round for "kitchen supper" in their artfully styled kitchens, complete with Aga and lots of Italian food labels.
We now call our evening meal "dinner" and tend to eat very late - a hangover from when my husband worked locally and always wanted to wait until the children were in bed. Now he works away all week and the children often go to bed later than I do, but it's a habit I find hard to break.
My parents-in-law eat very early because father-in-law is diabetic and has to eat regularly. They then have "supper" about 9pm, but this would be cheese and biscuits, not the kind of "supper" that really means posh dinner - I hope you are keeping up
I don't have any particularly fond memories of childhood meals - when I was very young there was a lot of mince, and later a lot of new convenience foods like instant mashed potato. The food at my grandmother's house was truly
awful. I do, however, thank my mother for teaching me how to bake - we always had home baking and home made puddings (usually crumble or something like apple charlotte, as we had fruit trees), and I have as a result always baked for my own family. now my daughters also make cakes - though sadly not my son, despite my best efforts.
As we saw in Barbara Pym, she was well aware of class distinctions in food. if anyone reads "No Fond Return Of Love", there is a priceless chapter in which Dulcie (the middle class spinster) asks Miss Lord, her cleaner, what she had for her lunch (she eats out every day);
"I tried a new place for lunch today" she said
"Oh? What did you have?" Miss Lord always told Dulcie exactly what she had eaten for lunch on the days when she came in the afternoon.
"Egg on Welsh and a Russian Cream" said Miss Lord, "Quite nice really."
"It sounds ..." Dulice hesitated for a word "
delicious," she pronounced with rather more emphasis than she had intended. "What exactly is Russian cream?"
"It's a kind of mousse with a sponge base and jelly on the top" said Miss Lord, "The jelly can be red, yellow or orange".
And in these few lines, BP says it all.
Rosemary
