An extension from my previous elevenses post, I guess you can see where my train of thought then headed ?

Although all these naming conventions for mealtimes exist, most have fallen into disuse or misuse, it is quite likely in the UK today for people to eat at times which are most convenient to them, and three / four square meals a day are no longer necessarily observed, I personally am around the two meals a day mark at the moment, not good for my glycemic index ?

At certain points in history, and if you belonged to a certain genteel class, it was possible for ones entire day, to be fully occupied and merrily spent observing an unending parade of mealtimes, that could span rising in the morning until retiring to bed of an evening, possibly as many six meals a day, and two prescribed points at which alcohol was specifically imbibed, for a few very privileged people whose lives were very genteel and who never had to labour.
For instance an extremely genteel itinerary for those born to a lifestyle of leisure might be :

Breakfast
Elevenses
Lunch
Afternoon tea
Sundowner (alcohol)
Dinner
Late Supper
Nightcap (alcohol)

Of course all this over indulgence, would most likely lead to Gout, liver disease, heart attack and an early death.

Sadly consistent meal times in modern culture are no longer really the norm in the UK. These mealtimes, and rhythm’s of eating and conventions were invented when households and family’s were a great deal more stably structured than they are today in the uk.

RISING at the beginning of the day:

Breakfast : everyone agrees on the timing of this meal, the first meal of the day, which Breaks the Fasting of the sleep period during the night (except if one skips breakfast, and partakes of brunch that then being the first meal of the day)

Elevenses or Elevensies : A light meal with tea struck midway between breakfast and the midday meal, therefore in a regularised household routine directly at 11.00am, rarely if ever would anything warm be cooked for elevenses, often served with tea similar to ‘afternoon tea’, as later described. Some may attemptively mis-describe this event as ‘tea’, ‘going for a tea’ or taking a ‘tea break’ all of which, may in no way be classified as ‘Elevenses’. ‘Elevenses’ might rarely even be taken in a garden, though nowhere nearly as much as ‘Afternoon Tea’ which would frequently be taken in a garden in the summer, Elevenses will most often consist of cold light snacks sandwiches etc, combined with tea, but does not contain generally the ‘full sweet edge’ in its fancy’s foods, that ‘afternoon tea’ is so typified by. Also though very often guests maybe invited to ‘Afternoon tea’, elevenses would generally be taken by those resident in the household at the time, and rarely if ever would one invite guests to elevenses, often this would not include the working men of the household. One cannot for instance partake of elevenses in the same way one can go for an afternoon tea. Elevenses now an almost extinct mealtime remains if it exist at all, as a rarefied routine of unusually large houses, and wealthy and genteel households, which have a permanently resident matriarch in charge who runs the household to a very genteel timetable, though elevenses in its origins is supposedly lower class, it then crept up the classes and became more elaborate, some may well inform that elevenses was very simple just biscuit and tea and it has certainly evolved that way, but I in my distant youth did go to a household where it was strictly observed and involved sandwiches, biscuits and tea, not as extensive as afternoon tea can become but certainly allot more than tea and biscuits.

(though a mid morning ‘tea break’ or ‘break’ in an office may well be the pale orphan ghost of the real ‘elevenses’ (elevenses is a tradition almost exclusively operated by people in wealthy and genteel circles) the working man would probably scoff(an edible pun) at the pomposity of the idea of ‘elevenses, yet might strike if ‘tea breaks’ were not observed at some point during the day.
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