Meal times are one of those habits you take for granted based on your country's traditions: who would even bother checking to see if they match yours when you travel around the world? In fact, it's one of the very first habits you should check, because meal times vary greatly from place to place, and if you're not aware of them, you might find everything closed because people eat very early or very late.
This is because the time at which breakfast, and especially lunch and dinner, is eaten depends on a whole series of geographical, social, and cultural factors that cannot be the same in every nation in the world. If you think about it, there is a notable difference even in the U.S. itself, where mealtimes also vary by region, work habits, and local culture. In many parts of the Northeast and Midwest, dinner often happens relatively early, around 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., especially in suburban and family settings. In parts of the South, meals can feel more flexible and social, with dinner sometimes stretching later, particularly on weekends or during gatherings. Large cities across the country also tend to push dinner later, while lunch is often shaped more by work schedules than tradition, usually falling somewhere between noon and 1:30 p.m.
The difference in meal times becomes even more apparent when you travel outside of the U.S., where you may encounter habits very different from those you're familiar with. Adapting to a culture, therefore, means not just tasting local food but eating like a true local, including meal times. Where does this cultural difference in meal times and what time people eat around the world come from? Here's a guide to help you avoid being caught off guard when you travel.
Meal Times' History
The main reason mealtimes vary so widely around the world is undoubtedly a geographical factor, with climate playing a significant role, significantly influencing the eating habits of locals. However, this isn't the only factor underlying these differences: part of it is also due to a combination of historical, social, and cultural factors stemming from a past characterized by marked differences between mealtimes among the ruling classes and the aristocracy and those of the rest of the population, as well as the differences in eating habits between residents of large urban centers and those of the suburbs.
Historian Alessandro Barbero addressed these very issues in his book What Time Do We Eat? Historical-Linguistic Approximations of Meal Times, a very interesting essay that explores the social motivations that led meal times to differ so greatly from one nation to another. In the 18th century, Barbero tells us, the main meal of the European upper classes (called dîner in the international French used by nobles) was eaten between noon and 2 pm, but it was precisely during this period that we witnessed a progressive shift in meal times and the emergence of other meals during the day.
In the early 19th century, in fact, the nobles of England and France began to postpone the main meal time as a symbol of belonging to a certain social class: having a late lunch meant having stayed up late the night before, with dancing, card games, and other enjoyable activities, and being able to wake up much later than those who worked from the early hours of the day and couldn't make it until five or six in the afternoon without eating. Thus, gradually, between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, lunch became dinner, and breakfast (déjeuner) became lunch.
How did it happen that today there is such a clear separation between lunch and dinner, and that in England everything is eaten earlier, with dinner on average around 6 pm? It all stems from the advent of the twentieth century, when social class differences gradually ceased to be a significant factor: this was also reflected in meal times, which adapted both in England and throughout Europe to the schedules (and names) of the common people, accustomed to breaking up the day with a meal around midday after the first and last meal of the day upon returning home.
From here on, each nation adopts its own habits, significantly influenced by the environmental and geographical factors we mentioned previously. And what about the rest of the world? In many cases, meal times are the product of colonialism: nations like our very own U.S. or areas like South America, in fact, were influenced by the first settlers in many ways, including the time of day at which meals were consumed.
What Times Do People Eat Around The World?
The current variability in meal times around the world is primarily linked to environmental and geographic factors: once social class differentiation has been eliminated, these two conditions have most influenced people's dietary behavior. Mealtime habits, in fact, are people's response to meeting energy needs relative to their environment, which are very different in the Global North than in those further south.
Light and temperature strongly influence eating times: in very northern countries like the aforementioned Great Britain, but even more so in Scandinavian countries like Sweden, Norway, and Finland, winters are very long and the sun sets early, which is why people don't wait long to eat dinner, and so the evening meal is usually around 6:00-6:30 pm, a custom that persists even in the summer when the days are longer. So be careful if you travel to these countries: it's very likely that if you go to a restaurant at 9:00 pm, it will already be closed.
For the same reason, but in reverse, the further south you go, the longer the timetables become. Spain is a perfect example: it's a very hot country, where the sun sets late, a characteristic that creates a certain discrepancy between the time indicated by the clocks and solar time. These particular climatic conditions, combined with a series of cultural factors, have favored a sort of "slippage" in all lifestyle habits, including meal times: if you go to Spain, be prepared not to have lunch before 2:00 PM and not to have dinner before 9:30/10:00 PM.
And what about the rest of the world? Nations that have been directly influenced by specific European cultures have maintained their original traditions regarding meal times: thus, in a bit of all countries of Anglo-Saxon origin the custom is very similar to that of Great Britain, with a large breakfast, a frugal lunch at a variable time, and a more substantial dinner starting at 6:00 PM. In South America, on the other hand, the influence comes mainly from Spain and, also thanks to a very hot climate similar to that of the European nation, meal times are all "shifted," with lunch around 2:00 PM and dinners starting as early as 10:00 PM.
In Asia, meal times vary greatly and are closely linked to local lifestyles, particularly work commitments. For example, in China and Japan, it is customary to eat early, so lunch is eaten around 12:00 and dinner between 18:00 and 19:00. Evening meals are more flexible in terms of timing and can be brought forward or postponed depending on parents' commitments, especially in families with children. Southeast Asia, on the other hand, has meal times and habits more similar to those in Italy: lunch is usually between 12:00 and 13:00 and includes a large meal, while dinner is eaten between 19:00 and 20:00 and includes a lighter meal. Snacks between main meals, mid-morning and mid-afternoon, are also common.
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