Lunch for two

On this Wikipedia the lunch for two links are at the top of the page across from the article title. For the type of cured meat, see Lunch meat. Still life with fruits, nuts, and large wheels of cheese. Lunch is a meal eaten around the middle of the day.

It is commonly the second meal of the day, after breakfast, and varies in size by culture and region. In Britain, a pub ploughman’s lunch includes bread and cheese. Shown here with a meat pie. Luncheon of the Boating Party by French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881. It may have evolved from lump in a similar way to hunch, a derivative of hump, and bunch, a derivative of bump.

It was first recorded in 1591 with the meaning ‘thick piece, hunk’ as in “lunch of bacon”. The modern definition was first recorded in 1829. OED, which they claim is “related in some way” to lunch. Meals have become ingrained in each society as being natural and logical. What one society eats may seem extraordinary to another.

The same is true of what was eaten long ago in history, as food tastes, menu items, and meal periods have changed dramatically over time. During the late 17th and 18th centuries, this meal was gradually pushed back into the evening, creating a greater time gap between breakfast and dinner. A meal called lunch came to fill the gap. The late evening meal, called supper, became squeezed out as dinner advanced into the evening, and often became a snack. The meal was often relatively light, and often included left-overs from the previous night’s dinner, which were often plentiful. Beginning in the 1840s, afternoon tea supplemented this luncheon at four o’clock.