Phillip Hernandez

Setting the Table: A History of Dinner Time in America 

Dinner time has always been an integral part of the American household. This pastime served not only as a time to replenish from daily work, but also as a time for family members to converse with one another. Dinner gave parents and authority figures the opportunity to teach younger members of the household the values that the family represented and acted as a safe space from the outside world and its ideologies. However, the dinner experience that we have now is not the same experience as it was in the past. Dinner in American society has had an interesting evolution as over time it went from being a practical meal time to being a reflection of a household’s status to now a form of a family activity as a result of growing diversity in family dynamics and socioeconomic statuses. 

In the colonial era, meal times in general were heavily influenced by European practices. Every family’s dining style varied depending on their location and food preferences. What was common in every household was that dinner was the heaviest meal of the day and it was eaten around midday. Part of the reason for the early dinner was because of the work schedule that was followed in this time period. Many families had to wake up early for the daily chores, meaning that they ate breakfast upon waking up. After the early morning chores were finished, the family would meet again at midday for mealtime.(1) For most families, dinner in the afternoon was usually the last meal they had for the day. Any meal that they ate after dinner would be in the evening known as supper, and it was seen as an optional snacking of leftovers from earlier in the day. For women, servants, and slaves of owners who did not cook, food preparation was very labor intensive as they would have to make everything from scratch or trade a food commodity in exchange for ingredients.(2) 

Many colonists were Puritans, and in this time period, the household was not very child focused. The Puritans believed that children were living in sin the minute they were born.(3) And so, children were raised with a strict upbringing in all aspects of their lives to ensure moral favor. Even in dinnertime, where it was common for the extended family to commune at the table, children were not given a break from this rigid form of parenting. For example, though some households may have seating arrangements for its members and guests, children were not allowed to sit while eating. Instead, they were made to stand by the table for the entire duration of dinner. In some families, children stood behind their parents or other grown adults and waited patiently for food to be handed back to them, very much compared to a person giving food to an animal. In addition, children were ordered  to never bring themselves at the table until after the head of household had said grace. Other etiquettes included secular conversation being not allowed, and children being not allowed to speak unless spoken to and eye contact with people is discouraged was also expected to be followed.(4) Overall, the colonial dinner was more seen as a way to reinforce the strict moral codes that the Puritans followed and as an opportunity for the children to learn what godliness looked like. 

Around the mid-nineteenth century, there started to become a shift in the meal pattern for families. With industrialization leading to the fast growth of cities and shifts in occupation for men, the distance between home and work increased as well as the number of hours in a single shift. (1) For most families, this made it impractical to commute home for a midday dinner and return to work. As a result, the meal times were pushed back, with dinner taking place in the evening after work and lunch being the meal time to take place during the afternoon. 

One of the benefits from this change in time was that dinner could now be experienced at a more relaxed pace compared to colonial times. As dinnertime became a time to relax, so did the formality for certain classes.(5) While dinner time in America has always been reflective of gender expectation since the colonial era, the rising differences between social classes as well as increase in immigration had caused the family dinner to reflect another layer of identity. In this period, dinner time was one of many opportunities for families to flaunt their status and wealth. (1) Extended family members were no longer the only people limited to have dinner with. Instead it was very common for upper class families to invite friends over for dinner parties.Though the purpose for inviting was to relax together, the dinner parties were anything but casual. 

However, for the working class families,dinner time was not as lavish as their upper class counterparts. In the late 19th century, working class families often spent between 40 and 50 percent of their income on just groceries alone. (5) The poorer the family were, the more money they lost buying groceries. Cookware such as pots, pans,and stoves were very expensive; many low income neighborhoods often did not have utilities such as hot water or gas. While the rich families had the time to plan for lavish dinner parties, many men, women, and children in working families were often at their jobs for long hours of the day, leaving little time for cooking. Working families did not have time or money to read or write articles about cooking or etiquette. For the majority, dinner was practical and impossible to elevate given the run-down conditions many low-income homes were in.

Coordinating dinner was rather difficult for industrial workers. It was rare for working families to be at home together in the evening as a result of the work schedules. For homes with people working different schedules, mealtimes in general were nonexistent. Many workers still practice the tradition of having the heaviest meal in the middle of the day. This often meant that dinner was a small meal consisting of either beans, bread,or coffee that was left in the kitchen to help oneselves. For families, meals often had to be cooked in a rush.(5) It wasn’t uncommon for a working woman to go grocery shopping immediately after clocking out of her shift. The content of the evening meal varied, but many working class dinners usually consisted of a starch and a protein. 

Immigrant families around this time experience a culture shock in their dining experience. This is because many immigrants were coming from European countries where meat, coffee, and bread were luxury goods.This accessibility allowed for immigrant families to experience a dinner that was comparatively more lavish than the ones in their mother country.This exposure to American diets however, created an issue for immigrant families. (6) They were often left with the choice of continuing to eat their traditional cultural foods for dinner or to eat American food for dinner. 

In terms of gender roles, working women did not have the luxury of being a stay at home wife, even if they wanted to. While the upper class uphold the traditional roles of a family, many working class families were not able to. With poor mothers, married or not, having to leave the home for long working hours, the traditional family unit was incompatible with the schedule. Even if the woman wanted to be a stay at home wife, the economic uncertainty did not allow for working families to rely on a single stream of income. (5) This led to many working families being forced to delegate the duties of preparing dinner to every member of the family and not just the mother. It meant sometimes the mother would her older children buy groceries needed to make the dinner, or for the husband to do the prep work so that either the mother or even the daughter could readily cook. It is at this point where the ability to be a stay at home mother and cook dinner for the family becomes associated with economic stability. 

Following the turn of the 20th century, dinner continues to be an indication of a family’s economic status. However, new innovations in technology and social consciousness had evolved dinner to be viewed in a more practical and scientific light. Up until the 20th century, the American diet consisted of eating fresh food that came directly from the grocer with no knowledge of set regulation for what was safe to consume and food storage was fairly primitive. While food preservation had been widely practiced for centuries, it wasn't until 1912 when canned food became a staple in the American pantry. (6) 

Progressive reformers would also take part in the culinary revolution around this time. While dinner was seen as a private matter, progressives argued that food influenced the evolution of society and that it was imperative for women to be educated on what food was best for the family to eat. Many reformers claimed that good citizenship was correlated with how a person was fed. High quality food was believed to turn people into morally upstanding citizens, but lower quality food caused youths to become delinquents and men to become drunks. (7) It is this belief that drove reformers to advocate for a standardization of food manufacturing and nutrition, which becomes a success as the traditional American dinner becomes evolved from scientific papers establishing the criteria of what makes a dinner healthy and sanitary. (8) The creation of the TV dinner enforces a representation of the scientific approach for a family dinner. Many advertisements boasted TV dinners not just for its convenience, but for the nutritional value it provided. It was seen as the pinnacle of efficiency as American businesses claimed that science had led to them finding the ideal portions of the food groups. The TV dinner quickly became a favorite among American families. With a frozen tray containing meat, gravy, and vegetables costing around 89 cents, its affordability was attracted by not only working class families but also wealthy households.

While frozen food was a popular choice for evening meals, the frequencies that families had during meal time was not the same for all demographics. For most middle class and upper class families, the TV dinner was a meal eaten about on average once a week. Despite its convenience, there was still the expectation of a woman to have a giving nature for the family. A woman was considered a good wife and other if she put effort into the cooking. If she began to shirk her household duties, she was seen as lazy and uncaring for a family. Values such as this were heavily enforced in not just magazines but in films and shows. One of the biggest tropes in family sitcoms was the family dinner. Shows such as Leave it to Beaver were one of many shows that enforced the domestic bubble that women were expected to be in by portraying June Cleaver as a stereotypical housewife and an example how a moral woman behaves.

In addition to gender values, family sitcoms often portrayed the family dinner as a time when the children that were faced with a moral dilemma would reach a resolution. During these resolutions, it would be the father that would impart wisdom during this mealtime and it overall contributed to the protective nature of the family dinner.  The children would then take the words to heart and practice the father's wisdom. Portrayals such as this become influential in the value of the family dinner. Family magazine articles often claimed that frequent family dinners was important for the moral development of children. Articles often argued that children often learned valuable lessons from adults and having meal times with parents ensured that the child had a good moral foundation. 

For the middle class families, the family dinner was an activity possible because of economic stability. Lower middle class families, on the other hand, did not have the privilege to experience dinner together. Much like 19th century working families, parents working long hours did not have the time or energy to prepare meals. As a result, among the low income families, there is a high reliance on frozen and convenience food because of the time constraints they have with making dinner.. Even now in modern times, dinner choices among most working Americans have become based on what takes the least time to prepare. 

While the tradition of the sit down family dinner has been practiced for centuries and valued by all classes of people, these complex barriers that families faced had caused dinner to be partaken differently by all households. What was a simple mealtime, has become a struggle that families fight to have now because of growing responsibilities. Even though dinner was seen more as a practical meal time to have, the consciousness of childhood development has caused dinner to be seen as important for the personal development of families. But while dinner is not identical in every household, the amount of options that are available for making dinner has given families the opportunity to design the family dinner to what works best in their house. Dinner in a modern context simply refers to the time that a meal is eaten, but it no longer decides what the menu should be, giving much of the personal food choices for dinner back to the family. 

Endnotes 

1. Smith, Andrew F. "Meal Patterns." In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. : Oxford University Press, 2012. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199734962.001.0001/acref-9780199734962-e-0507. 

2. Demos, John. 1999. “Parents and Children.” A Little Commonwealth, September, 100–106. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195128901.003.0007.

3. ‌Broke Blower. "Baby Time." Lecture, Boston University, January 26, 2023.

4. Weeden, William B., and Alice Morse Earle. 1900. “Child Life in Colonial Days.” The American Historical Review 5 (4): 765. https://doi.org/10.2307/1832790.

5. Katherine Leonard Turner. 2014. How the Other Half Ate : A History of Working Class Meals at the Turn of the Century. Berkeley, Calif.: University Of California Press.

6. Steinberg, Stephen. 1986. “Bodnar, John. The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America.” Urban History Review 15 (1): 117–18. https://doi.org/10.7202/1018919ar.

7. Ziegelman, Jane, and Andrew Coe. 2016. A Square Meal. HarperCollins.

8. Nearing, Scott. 2016. Financing the Wage-Earner’s Family. Palala Press.

9. Horowitz, Daniel. 1992. The Morality of Spending. Ivan R Dee.

10. “Who ‘Invented’ the TV Dinner?” n.d. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/food-and-nutrition/item/who-invented-the-tv-dinner/.

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