Publication Date: March 8, 2025
“You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me.”
Dining is an important element of hist roms since it is typically one of the few opportunities heroes and heroines have to meet and talk. For fun, I thought we could explore the schedule of meals that would have realistically occurred. We'll focus mostly on the gentry and aristocracy, but I will include a quick glimpse of the laboring class, as well, for contrast, although the meals and timing of meals varied wildly, depending on if the people were physical laborers, merchants or traders, artisans, etc. The daily life of a miner would differ from that of a weaver, which would differ from that of a solicitor, and so forth, yet they would all be considered laborers since they earned their money from some form of employment.
Generally speaking, the main meal of the day was dinner, with the two most significant meals of the day being breakfast and dinner. Anything else was rare unless there were guests at the house. We'll take a look at the daily schedule first and where the meals fit into that schedule, and then we'll look a little closer at what the two most significant meals are like in terms of dishes offered and dining style. Since we focused on dining in a previous post, I'll link to that for details, but we'll certainly look at breakfast in more detail. Now, let's get started!
Schedule
Understanding the dining schedule for our gentry and aristocrats is most easily accomplished by knowing their daily schedule since food was primarily for sustenance and little else, but amongst the more affluent, it could be used to impress guests or be partaken as a social affair. Town vs country hours and schedules were quite different, the timetable for town being much later in the day and filled with social interactions and parties, and the timetable for country being earlier and including more leisure time. The same went for meal time, as country meal taking would be earlier in the day while town dining would be later in the day.
For our daily schedule timetable, let's focus on someone living in the country:
Morning:
Before about 9-11 am was the time for personal pursuits. Rarely did anyone start their day with breakfast. They might start with a cup of chocolate and toast in their dressing room, but that was rarer than the characters in our historical romance novels lead us to believe. There would be several hours after waking before Georgians would break their fast. This time was devoted to anything from a long walk to conferring with the housekeeper. Letter writing, piano practicing, deciding the dinner menu, studying, reading, you name it, would happen before breakfast. This was just about your only time alone so you would want to make the most use of this time as possible, and the earlier you rose, the more time you would have to yourself.
9-11am was when breakfast was "officially" served. This was, traditionally, at a set time every day and held in the morning room. We'll dive into more specifics later, but by the time you arrived to break your fast, you would be fairly well famished!
After 11am was when "morning calls" occurred, which is a bit of a misnomer since "morning calls" always occurred in the early afternoon, typically 12-3pm in town, but could extend anywhere from 11-6 (give or take) in the country. Each call would be only five to ten minutes in length (to stay longer than fifteen would be an egregious social faux pas). Depending on the day of the week, one could be the hostess/host with "at home" calling hours, ready to receive guests, or could be the guest venturing from house to house to call on whomever.
Lunch did not exist. There was no such thing as "lunch" or "luncheon," not until the 20th century. There was, however, "nuncheon," which remained until the 1880s ,at which time it was steadily replaced by "lunch," but whether someone took nuncheon would depend on their calling schedule and familial obligations. Nuncheon would be the popular choice if a family was entertaining guests in their home, for which they might offer a midday treat, such as a picnic al fresco. Otherwise, this meal simply wouldn't occur during a typical daily schedule. What would occur is refreshments when calling on neighbors during those morning calls. Refreshments were not obligatory, so not every house would offer treats, but if they did, it would be a sideboard of things like cake, fruit, and cold meats, most likely the same offerings for the duration of the morning calls (Personally, I'll pass on taking something from the sideboard as the hour creeps towards dinner since the goods have been sitting there all day. Bleh.). The whole idea of the parlor maid bustling in with a tea tray for guests is mostly myth. This would only happen if (a) the hostess was of an elevated enough status and wealth that she felt the need to flaunt both, and (b) the guest was someone the hostess (regardless of status and wealth) really wanted to impress. Offering tea to guests falls into those same two conditions, and certainly wouldn't be offered to run-of-the-mill morning callers. Sorry, next door neighbor, but you're not getting any of my tea.
Before Dinner was an arbitrary time, as it could refer to around 1pm or as late as 6pm, but let's simply say somewhere between that 1pm-6pm range. This was the recovery time after those arduous morning calls. You're returning home to take a nap, find a quiet corner to read, change clothes, splash some water on your face, or whatever you need to do to recover from the day and transition into the evening.
Before delving into the evening schedule, let's take a moment to reflect on timing. The more rural the location, the earlier all hours would be. The more urban, the later all hours would be. So, if we're in the heart of the countryside, that "before dinner" time just might very well be around 1-3pm with dinner itself being at about 3pm. If we're in a bit more populated area, maybe near a larger village or near a market town, we might be seated for dinner around 5pm, with our "before dinner" recuperation around 3pm. If we're in a larger city, we might be looking more at around 7pm for dinner, and thus our recovering time to rest and change may be more around the 5 o'clock hour. Wealth had a great deal to do with this, as well. The poorer the family, the earlier the hours. The wealthier the family, the later the hours.
Evening:
Before 7pm was dinner time! We'll delve more into this meal later since it was THE meal of the day. What to consider in terms of scheduling is that (a) it should occur before sunset (except in affluent households), (b) it was the only hearty meal of the day, so timing it a bit after midday was important to provide sustenance after a long morning and to make it through the evening. Dinner took place as early as 3pm for most families, especially those in the country, but it could take place as late as 6pm for wealthy families and townies.
After dinner was teatime. No, there was no such thing as afternoon tea, not until the Victorian era. During the Georgian/Regency era, teatime was after dinner. This is when the family came together in the drawing room to spend the evening together. After dinner refreshments, much along the lines of what would have been served for breakfast, would be available, such as cake, toast, tea, and possibly coffee. While I've listed it closer to dinner time here, it was a popular choice for accompanying supper. Whether you enjoyed tea after dinner or with supper in the late evening depended on personal preference and if guests had been invited. Dinner was the perfect time to have guests, but not all guests were special enough to be offered tea. To be offered tea was a great honor. Supper time, on the other hand, was exclusive to family timely, not guests, and so families could enjoy tea without worrying about if their guests were worthy. But by that same token, if a guest was invited for supper (and the tea that might go with it!), that was the greatest honor of all.
Early to late evening was entertainment time, which might flow seamlessly after teatime, wherein the family would entertain each other together or entertain guests, such as with piano playing, reading aloud, card games, theatricals, etc. The family could choose quiet time together over shared entertainment, of course, such as one person writing letters at the escritoire while someone else reads by the hearth and yet someone else does needlework.
Supper was not enjoyed by every family, but if the family tended towards late hours and/or long days, they would incorporate supper, which was light refreshments, such as bread and cheese, fruit, cake, etc., never anything hearty, and rarely at a dinner table, simply on a tray or sideboard in the drawing room. As aforementioned, tea would be a great choice to include with supper or after supper if not after dinner. Something important to note that can often seem confusing is that when a supper was offered at a ball, it would be a substantial and hearty meal, which is entirely contrary to what would normally be seen at home. This was because the attendants would be staying awake far later than normal, be active with dancing, and not have eaten anything since around 3pm that day (or even the day prior!), so to extend their energy, they would enjoy supper at a ball, which could be occurring anywhere from around 11pm to possibly 2am or thereabouts. When you read about supper at a ball and see that hearty meal, don't let it fool you into thinking supper is a large meal or that it's eaten at a dinner table or that it in any way compares to or is synonymous with dinner. Supper at home was not only rare, it would have only been a cheese plate! Only at a ball would supper be substantial.
Main Meals
Now, with the full day's schedule envisioned, it's easier to see which meals were the hearty ones and why, as well as when and why some sort of refreshment might happen throughout the day (or not happen).
For a typical family, be it a laboring family, gentry, or aristocracy, there would only be two meals each day, breakfast and dinner, the latter being the hearty meal and the former being just enough to get through the day until dinner.
Let's break down these meals.
Breakfast
This meal ranged from as simple as toast and tea to as involved as various breads, toast, hot and cold rolls, various cakes, rashers, kippers, kidneys, sardines, trout, pies, sausages, and so much more.
During the early Georgian era, a sparse breakfast was preferred, usually bread, ale, and cheese. After the Georgian era, when we reach the Victorian era of the mid-to-late 19th century, breakfast is a large and hearty meal, the beginnings of that full English we now treasure. It was during the late Georgian and Regency that we have a light breakfast, just enough to sustain us until dinner, but not enough to weigh us down for the day. This light breakfast was, predominately, cold meats, cake, and hot drinks. That was the defining element of it and what people thought of when they considered breaking their fast, be it a simple or involved meal: cold meats, cake, and hot drinks.
In most households of the gentry and aristocracy, breakfast was a social event, typically eaten in the morning room or breakfast room, although it could be in the lady of the manor's dressing room if she preferred to invite guests or family there. Breakfast was not served by footmen at the table or even ready on the table as it would be at dinner, rather the food items would be on a sideboard. You would eye the selections (the lady of the house chose the menu), then indicate to the footman at the sideboard which items you wanted, and he would plate for you, and then you would carry your plate yourself to the table to join the family. Breakfast was held at the same time every day with the family expected to attend, much as they would do for dinner. The time differed for each family, especially if they were accustomed to country life vs town life, those in the country breaking their fast earlier in the day while those in town breaking their fast several hours later.
For the workers, from laborers to merchants, it was more traditional for them to start their day with their work, only resting several hours into the work day to break their fast, which could be accomplished at a public house (aka a pub), at home if they lived close, or a street stall if they were in the city. Their meal would be simple, more along the lines of bread and (weak) coffee, but depending on region, it could be more like pudding and milk or a meat pie and ale. Following this, they would return to work until the work day concluded, and then return home for dinner.
If you're curious what options there might be for breakfast items, consider this list (which is in no way complete, as there were certainly other options, like pudding and oatmeal!):
Brioche
French bread
Toast
Hot and cold rolls
Bath buns (or Bath cakes)
Plum cake
Pound cake
Honey cake
Cocoa/chocolate (to drink)
Tea
Coffee
Kippers (split, gutted, cold-smoked herring)
Rashers (thin bacon)
Kidneys
Sardines
Trout
Cold veal pies
Sausages
Beef tongue
Chops (thin and boneless pork, mutton, or lamb)
Eggs (poached, boiled, fried, or scrambled)
Butter, marmalade, or preserves
Dr. Louis Grivetti, Professor of Nutrition at University of California, Davis (as explored in his article Nutrition Today, vol 30, 1995, and cited in Jim Chevallier's 2003 article on Breakfast in the Eighteenth Century) offers a terrific example of some of the different types of breakfasts we might see in various households:
Wealthy Rural Pattern 1: Breakfast at 9:00-10:00 A.M. that consisted of tea, coffee, or chocolate, with wheat cakes, followed by biscuits and sherry;
Wealthy Rural Pattern 2: Breakfast at 9:00-10:00 A.M. that consisted of fillets of beef, fish, mutton cutlets, poultry and wild game, sausages, omelets and eggs; bread (white and brown flour varieties), fancy breads, jams, orange marmalade, fruits in season; cold meats including beef (spiced), ham, tongue, wild game, and especially game pies;
Wealthy Town/Urban Pattern: Breakfast at 10:00-11: A.M. that consisted of tea or chocolate with bread or toast and butter;
Artisans and Workers Pattern: Breakfast early morning that consisted of bread and butter, cold meat and cheese, and beer;
Workhouse (Urban Poor) Pattern: Breakfast early morning, and food items defined by day of the week, usually only bread and cheese, or broth and bread, sometimes with butter and treacle;
Orphanage Pattern: Breakfast early morning, and food items also defined by day of the week, and usually only broth, gruel, or bread with butter.
To read more about the types of Georgian era breakfasts, including English, Scottish, and French preferences, don't miss Jim Chevallier's Breakfast in the Eighteenth Century: The Unexamined Meal. A truly exceptional exploration of breakfast in this era.
Another great source to check out is the Tasting History with Max Miller video: Breakfast in Jane Austen's England. In the video, he cooks and tastes Jane Austen-inspired Bath buns, so it's a fun vid to enjoy!
Dinner
Dinner was THE meal of the day, the heartiest, the longest, the largest, the most fulfilling and sustaining, and it was entirely a social affair with the family sitting down together at the same time in the dining room.
Dinner is not to be confused with supper. These terms were not interchangeable and described completely different meals. We often interchange them now, but at the time, they were entirely distinct. Dinner was the main, hearty meal at the dining table, taking place usually mid-afternoon, and most certainly before dusk, unless you were of an affluent family or in town and had the candlelight to light the room through the meal. Three in the afternoon was the most common time for dinner, although it could be held as late as 7pm in affluent households. Supper, on the other hand, was not a meal, rather it referred to light refreshments in very late evening that one might have available in the drawing room while entertaining, and by refreshments, think along the lines of a cheese tray. There might be cold meats and bread, maybe fruit, but the bottom line is it was light, finger foods for those late evenings when you're knee deep in a game of chess and realize you've not eaten for about 5 hours or longer, not since that 3pm dinner. Not everyone would have had supper, and not everyone would have had it every evening. Dinner, however, was that hearty meal we so often read about where the family is gathered around the table with their guests, and the hero and heroine are making eyes at each other over the fish plate.
You might think I'm skimping on this section compared to the breakfast section, but not so! I've already covered dinner in detail in another post, so I'm going to link directly to that rather than repeating from it. In that post, I cover what food we might find on the table, the types of courses, the table setting and tablescaping, the dining experience, the table etiquette and much more, including a long recommended reading list, complete with recipe books of the era, all found in this post on Georgian era dining: Dining in the Georgian Era: à la française. Don't miss it if you've not read it yet.
To whet your appetite for dinner, I'm going to include a few videos here that offer terrific information, much of what I don't include in my post, such as what the Georgian kitchen is like, what the cooking process entails, how the oven worked, what the ice houses were like, the street foods in the larger towns, what some of the popular dishes would taste like to our modern palate, etc.
This first video I'll include is an informal Q&A interview with Paul Couchman. This is a bit on the long side, but the topics are marked for easy scrubbing. Paul covers so much wonderful detail that is rarely discussed in Georgian blogs on dining. He looks at the kitchens, the cooking process, the street foods, and so much more. An exceptional interview!
This second video is a taste test of some of the most popular Georgian dishes, like white soup. Now, I must admit that the host is far more critical about the food than I think many of us would be. The clincher here is that the Georgian menu was heavy in meat, meat, and more meat. If you're a fan of meaty meals, you would likely find most, if not all, the popular Georgian dishes quite delicious, but if you're not much of a meat eater, then, the dishes may not be too pleasing to the palate, and I suspect that's the case here with the video host. If you can get past the super critical commentary on the food tasting (someone give the man a salad instead!), the information about the dishes is terrific--and as a bonus, the video is really short, only 11 min!
The final video is the shortest of all at only 4 minutes. It's a quick overview of the geographic and economic popularity of some foods, like white bread.
Closing Remarks
Aside from those two meals, there were no other set times for eating, not even afternoon tea as we enjoy now. As we saw with the daily schedule, however, there were rare opportunities in which one might encounter food throughout the day, such as the evening supper if the family was staying up particularly late, or the light refreshments during morning calls if the hostess was trying to impress, or possibly the nuncheon if entertaining house guests around noon. The menu for all these snack times was essentially the same: bread, cheese, cold meats, fruit, tea/coffee.
If we plotted the meals and refreshment opportunities on a schedule, it might look something like this (keeping in mind the hours listed are the time range in which this meal might occur, not how long it would be enjoyed in a single sitting):
9-11am, Breakfast (decent sustenance)
12-3pm, Tea tray during morning calls (optional)
12-3pm, Nuncheon at home with guests (optional)
3-7pm, Dinner (hearty meal)
7-9pm, Tea time in the drawing room with family/guests (optional)
9pm-?, Supper in the drawing room with family/guests (optional; tea accompaniment optional)
This post has focused almost exclusively on getting to know the daily meals and how they fit into the schedule rather than other details, such as the purchase versus making of the food, popular recipes and cookbooks, popular wines and spirits to accompany the meals, etc. There are ample blogs that cover these elements already, so I encourage you to explore further! While it would be ideal to dig into the sources of the era, such as the cookbooks, the household shopping records, diaries, and anywhere the mention of food appears, including in the literature of the time, it’s certainly more convenient to spot the blogs that have done their research on the topic already.
A great post to start with is from Shannon Donnelly, “The Regency Meal or Food Glorious Food.”
Another great post is from Regan Walker, “The Georgians: What They Ate.”