In the 17th installment of Mr. B Speaks! Pamela arrives late to dinner with the Darnfords. "Dinner" involved more than just the meal, however. It was meant to be a full-day affair. Pamela's schedule for that day would go something like this:
Learn more about English dinners at |
the Maxwell House website. |
11:00--Leave home
12:00--Arrive at Darnfords
2:00--Eat dinner
Afternoon--Discussion and walks
Evening--Cards
9:00--Supper
10:00--Dancing
11:00--Leave for home
This type of schedule would change in the nineteenth schedule as dinner moved later, to 5:00 or 6:00, leading to the introduction of "luncheon" at noon.
Because Pamela is trapped at home by Mr. B's sister, her new schedule becomes as follows:
11:00--Prepares to leave, sister arrives
5:00--Escapes
6:00--Arrives at Darnfords
7:00--Cards
8:00--Early supper for Pamela's benefit
9:00--Dancing
11:00--Leave for home
Both meals--dinner and supper--would have included mostly meat, soup, pudding, wine, possibly a vegetable, likely no fruit. From a modern perspective--despite Dr. Atkins--this is a rather appalling diet, explaining why the "master" in Manor House tried to get the resident chef to cook meals more in line with a late-twentieth-century diet than a still-meat-heavy late-nineteenth-century diet. The chef was rather annoyed at the lack of historical accuracy. But hey, a person's digestive system is a person's digestive system.
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