The Botanicalist
No. 13

Breakfast: the plant is half the recipe

Season I opens with the first meal of the day, and the plants on its table

2 min read

Breakfast History: How the First Meal of the Day Began

Dinner, to begin with, was breakfast. The word comes, by way of the Old French disner, from a Latin verb meaning to break one's fast.

In medieval England dinner came at half past ten or eleven in the morning, and most people did without anything earlier. Then work changed. A statute of 1515 set the summer working day for labourers from five in the morning until seven or eight at night. With supper so late, dinner was probably pushed back towards the afternoon, and the long morning needed a meal of its own. In 1542 Andrew Boorde, a Tudor physician, allowed a labourer three meals a day in his Dietary of Health; a man at rest, he said, could manage on two. Breakfast began as a meal you earned.

Dinner kept drifting. By 1765 King George III was sitting down to it at four in the afternoon, and by about 1850 the English middle classes at five or six. A meal named for the end of the night's fast had wandered off towards the next night, and breakfast had the morning to itself.

That first breakfast was mostly bread and ale, both made from grain, and grain was never meant for us. A grain of wheat is a seed, and most of it is a store of starch that the parent plant packed beside a tiny embryo, to carry the seedling through its first days before it can feed itself. Oats and maize are grains too, and coffee is a seed. Much of the first meal of our day is the first meal of a plant's life, taken over.

The plants on the breakfast table have hardly changed. What people do with them changes all the time, and that is where this season's stories are. It asks how a bitter drink taught Londoners to talk to strangers, and why one line in a dictionary still stings in Scotland. It asks why French law cares how sour a loaf is, why the grain that fed the poor of northern Italy made so many of them ill, and why the finest tea in Japan is drunk from bowls made to look poor. None of the answers is quite where you would look first.

It seemed the right meal to begin a magazine with. Pour something hot, and start with the coffee.

Dinner drifting

Over five centuries dinner drifted from the morning to the evening, but not for everyone.

morningafternoonevening140015001600170018001900Lambeth, c. 1911: dinner at middayand “tea” in the evening
  1. In late medieval England, most people ate dinner at about half past ten or eleven in the morning.
  2. Through the 1500s and 1600s it sat around eleven or noon: in the 1580s gentry dined at eleven, farmers at noon, and merchants seldom before noon.
  3. Then fashion pushed it later. Fashionable London dined at three by 1710, and George III, it is reported, at four in 1765.
  4. Through the 1800s the well-to-do dined later still, into the evening: Queen Victoria’s court at half past seven or eight in 1838.
  5. Not everyone moved. Around 1911, working families in Lambeth still ate dinner at midday, and called their evening meal tea.
Explore all the data
6 a.m.9 a.m.noon3 p.m.6 p.m.9 p.m.140015001600170018001900DinnerSupperBreakfastTeaLunch, luncheon1515: labourers' summer working day, by statute
YearWhose mealMealHourSource and note
1300–1500most people (late medieval)dinner10.30 a.m. to 11 a.m.c. 1300–1500. Secondary (Mortimer 2013): dinner "at about 10.30 or 11". Breakfast mainly for the privileged, old, sick, travellers and very early workers.
1300–1500most people (late medieval)supper3.30 p.m. to 4 p.m.c. 1300–1500. Mortimer: supper "about five hours later" than dinner; hours computed from that (derived).
1515artificers and labourers (statute, mid-March to mid-September)working daybefore 5 a.m. to between 7 and 8 p.m.Context, not a meal: work from before 5 a.m. until between 7 and 8 p.m., with half an hour for breakfast and an hour and a half for dinner at hours the statute does not state.
1542labourer (a physician's advice)three mealsno hour givenNo hours. Boorde: two meals suffice for a man at rest; a labourer may eat three times a day.
1561the Queen's wards, heirs of landed families (planned timetable)dinner11 a.m. to noon"to dine between 11 and 12" (Collier's summary of Sir Nicholas Bacon's articles, quoted by Furnivall). No breakfast mentioned.
1561the Queen's wards, heirs of landed families (planned timetable)supperfrom 5 p.m.After evening prayers at 5; pastimes till 8; bed at 9. End hour not given.
1577–1587nobility, gentry and studentsdinner11 a.m.Harrison, 1577–87: "go to dinner at eleven before noon".
1577–1587nobility, gentry and studentssupper5 p.m. to 6 p.m.Harrison, 1577–87: "at five, or between five and six".
1577–1587merchantsdinnerfrom noonHarrison, 1577–87: "seldom before twelve at noon … especially in London". End hour not given.
1577–1587merchantssupperfrom 6 p.m.Harrison, 1577–87: "seldom before … six at night". End hour not given.
1577–1587husbandmendinnernoonHarrison, 1577–87: "at high noon as they call it".
1577–1587husbandmensupper7 p.m. to 8 p.m.Harrison, 1577–87: "sup at seven or eight".
1577–1587university scholars, out of termdinner10 a.m.Harrison, 1577–87: "out of the term in our universities the scholars dine at ten".
1577–1587the poorestdinnerno hour givenHarrison, 1577–87: "dine and sup when they may". No hours.
1620"our vsuall time" (Tobias Venner, physician)dinner11 a.m.Venner, Via Recta (1620), as quoted in the NED: "Our vsuall time for dinner is about eleuen of the clocke."
1663Samuel Pepys, delayed by businessdinner2 p.m. to 4 p.m.Exceptions: "it being past, two a-clock" and dinner at "four a-clock almost" (14 Aug. 1663); dinners at two to four marked as late.
1660–1669Samuel Pepys's household (London naval official)dinnernoon1660–69. "at noon home to dinner" occurs 194 times in the diary.
1698Peter the Great, a visiting rulerdinner10 a.m.Not English hours: a Russian visitor's, reported by Evelyn's servant. First of two dinners.
1698Peter the Great, a visiting rulerdinner (second)6 p.m."He dines at ten o'clock and at six at night."
1710fashionable Londondinner3 p.m.Tatler No. 263: "in my own memory the dinner has crept by degrees from twelve o'clock to three". The twelve of the writer's youth is undated.
1710collegesdinner11 a.m.Tatler No. 263: colleges "still dine at eleven, and sup at six".
1710collegessupper6 p.m.Tatler No. 263.
1710an "old-fashioned" familydinner11 a.m.Tatler No. 263: the old-fashioned friend "just sat down to dinner" at about eleven. Comic essay.
1711government ministers and the courtdinner5 p.m. to 7 p.m.Swift: dinner at five at Windsor (July, Aug.) and with the Lord Treasurer (Dec.); seven after a journey (Sept.); Harley not yet dined at six (Feb.).
1712Mrs Vanhomrigh's household (a widow in London)dinner2 p.m.Swift went "at two, and dined with Mrs. Van" (30 Mar. 1712); in Oct. 1711, having lost his dinner by staying till four, he had herrings there.
1753Oxford collegesdinner1 p.m.Walpole: "altered the hour of dinner from twelve to one". Compare the Tatler's eleven (1710).
1763Horace Walpole, an early dinner by choicedinner3 p.m."had ordered dinner at three that I might be back early".
1765King George IIIdinner4 p.m.Tertiary (Wikipedia, citing the Royal Collection; not read).
1765George III's infant sons, with their governessdinner2 p.m.Tertiary (Wikipedia). Two dinner hours in one household.
1766George Selwyn, a man of fashiondinner4.30 p.m."strolling home to dinner at half an hour after four" (Walpole).
1776provincial gentry (Mrs Gastrel)dinner2 p.m."desires Mr. Boswell's company to dinner at two".
1786court household staff (Frances Burney)breakfast8 a.m. to 9 a.m.Breakfast after the Queen is dressed at about eight; things sent off at nine.
1786court household staff (Frances Burney)dinner5 p.m."At five, we have dinner."
1786court household staff (Frances Burney)tea8 p.m. to 9 p.m.Tea with the equerry after about eight; over "commonly about nine".
1786court household staff (Frances Burney)supper11 p.m."my little supper at near eleven".
1797aristocratic country house (Lord Chesterfield's)dinner4 p.m.Dr Burney, a guest: "in very good time for a four o'clock dinner". Year inferred from the edition.
1798–1802the Wordsworths, a household of modest meansdinner3 p.m. to 6 p.m.1798–1802. Between three and six as walks, visitors and work allowed; "kept the dinner waiting till four" (1802).
1808the Austens' household (gentry of modest income)dinner5 p.m."we never dine now till five".
1813Edward Knight's country house, before an evening outdinner4.30 p.m."we dined (five in number) at half-past four".
1814Henry Austen's London household, early for a playdinner4.30 p.m."We dine at half-past four to-day, that our visitors may go to the play": usual hour later, not stated.
c. 1817King George III in his last illnessdinner1.30 p.m.Gentleman's Magazine via Ashton (1890). An invalid's regime, not the court's hour.
c. 1820aristocratic London, as recalled by Lord William Lennoxbreakfast9 a.m. to 10 a.m.Recalled in 1866 as the old pattern; Lennox was born 1799, so c. 1815–25.
c. 1820aristocratic London, as recalled by Lord William Lennoxdinner6 p.m.Old pattern: a sandwich or biscuit at lunch, dinner at six. Recalled in 1866.
1832Lady Holland's house (thought too early)dinner5 p.m.Greville: she "fancies she must dine at five o'clock"; inconvenient to her guests.
1838Queen Victoriabreakfastfrom 8 a.m."gets up soon after eight o'clock, breakfasts in her own room".
1838Queen Victoria's courtdinner7.30 p.m. to 8 p.m."nominally half-past seven o'clock … she seldom appears till near eight".
1848John Ruskin's household after his marriagedinner6 p.m.Tertiary (Wikipedia, citing Flanders). His parents thought six "unhealthy".
c. 1849street-orderlies (labourers in a philanthropic boarding scheme)breakfast8 a.m.c. 1848–50, from the Association's Report quoted by Mayhew.
c. 1849street-orderlies (labourers in a philanthropic boarding scheme)dinner1 p.m."four times a week for dinner, at one o'clock".
c. 1849street-orderlies (labourers in a philanthropic boarding scheme)tea6 p.m.Tea or coffee at six on returning from work.
c. 1849street-orderlies (labourers in a philanthropic boarding scheme)supper9 p.m."or for supper, at nine".
c. 1850Elizabeth Gaskell's householddinner4 p.m. to 5 p.m.Tertiary (Wikipedia, citing Flanders). No date given; placed at c. 1850 by us.
c. 1850English middle classesdinner5 p.m. to 6 p.m.Tertiary (Wikipedia, citing Flanders; not read).
1861children's nursery dinner and servants' dinner (with the mistress's luncheon)dinner1 p.m.Beeton §26: luncheon comes "between an early breakfast and a late dinner"; the family's late dinner hour is not given.
1861wet-nurse (prescribed)breakfast8 a.m.Beeton §2442.
1861wet-nurse (prescribed)dinner1 p.m.Beeton §2442: "a good dinner … at one o'clock".
1861wet-nurse (prescribed)supper10 p.m. to 10.30 p.m.Beeton §2442: "for supper, at ten or half-past".
1866society (Lennox)tea5 p.m."served at five o'clock".
1866society (Lennox)dinner6.30 p.m. to 7 p.m.Derived: tea at five comes "within an hour and a half or two hours of dinner".
1892Pooter's son Lupin (fiction)dinner8 p.m.The Diary of a Nobody: "Eight o'clock sharp"; Pooter wants it earlier. Fiction.
1909–1913Lambeth working menbreakfast6.30 a.m. to 8 a.m.1909–13. Husbands' breakfast at 6.30, 7.0 or 8.0; one has only tea at 4.30 and breakfasts at work.
1909–1913Lambeth working families (midday dinner)dinner12.15 p.m. to 1.45 p.m.1909–13. Husband home at 12.15; children from 12.15; mothers at 1.0 or 1.45.
1909–1913Lambeth working men (evening "tea")tea5 p.m. to 7 p.m.1909–13. "very uncertain, between five and seven"; children's tea at 4.30.
1909–1913Lambeth working mensupper7.30 p.m. to 8.45 p.m.1909–13. Where taken: 7.30–8.0 in one household, 8.45 in another.
1916society, in towndinner8 p.m. to 9 p.m."perhaps 8.30 is the most usual hour". Etiquette book; prescriptive.
1916society, in the countrydinner7.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m."In the country it ranges from 7.30 to 8.30."
1916society, in townluncheon1.30 p.m. to 2 p.m.Half an hour earlier in the country.
1916societytea4 p.m. to 4.30 p.m."The tea hour varies from 4 to 4.30 o'clock."
1916country houses in hunting countiesbreakfast9.30 a.m."the nominal breakfast hour is 9.30 o'clock".
1983–1993older adults (mean age 64; mostly women, mostly not employed)breakfast8.22 a.m.1983–93 baseline; mean 8:22 (s.d. 43 min). Self-reported; Dashti et al. 2025.
1983–1993older adults (mean age 64; mostly women, mostly not employed)lunch12.38 p.m.1983–93 baseline; mean 12:38 (s.d. 30 min).
1983–1993older adults (mean age 64; mostly women, mostly not employed)dinner5.51 p.m.1983–93 baseline; mean 17:51 (s.d. 53 min). The paper's word is "dinner".
Dinner drifting. When the English ate, from the late Middle Ages to the 1990s: dinner moved from about half past ten in the morning, for most people in medieval England, to four in the afternoon at George III's table in 1765 and five or six for the middle classes by about 1850. The shaded bar is the summer working day set for labourers by a statute of 1515. Each mark belongs to different people; the hours were never the same for everyone. Sources: Ian Mortimer; the statute 6 Hen. VIII c. 3; Andrew Boorde (1542); the New English Dictionary (1897); the Royal Collection and Judith Flanders, as reported by Wikipedia; William Harrison; J. P. Collier, quoted by F. J. Furnivall; Samuel Pepys; John Evelyn's servant; Richard Steele in the Tatler; Jonathan Swift; Horace Walpole; James Boswell; Frances and Charles Burney; Dorothy Wordsworth; Jane Austen; the Gentleman's Magazine, quoted by John Ashton; Lord William Lennox; Charles Greville; Henry Mayhew; Isabella Beeton; Maud Pember Reeves; George and Weedon Grossmith; Manners and Rules of Good Society (1916); Dashti et al. (2025), CC BY 4.0.

How we know

  • 51sources
Where each part comes from

George III's dinner at four in 1765 and the middle-class dinner at five or six around 1850 are reported by an encyclopaedia. Its own sources, the Royal Collection's note on a Zoffany portrait of Queen Charlotte and Judith Flanders's The Victorian House, were not read.

That longer working days moved dinner later and made breakfast a meal of its own is the historian Ian Mortimer's explanation, which he offers as probably right; others credit the Reformation, or more plentiful food. The 1515 statute itself already allows labourers half an hour for breakfast: working people who started early had eaten breakfast long before, and what changed in the sixteenth century, on Mortimer's account, is that breakfast became the norm. The statute was read in a nineteenth-century printed edition, not in the original roll.

The Latin verb behind disner is reconstructed by scholars, not found written. Botanically, a grain of wheat is a fruit holding a single seed, its wall fused to the seed coat; "seed" is the everyday word, and the one Bread by Decree uses. The essay's lines about the season's pieces rest on those pieces and their own sources.

The 51 sources
  1. A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, vol. III, D–E, ed. James A. H. Murray (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897)
  2. Wiktionary: 'dinner' (English) and 'disner' (Old French)
  3. Wikipedia: Dinner
  4. Ian Mortimer, 'How the Tudors invented breakfast', BBC History Magazine, April 2013 (History Extra)
  5. The Statutes of the Realm, vol. III (London: Record Commission, 1817): 6 Hen. VIII c. 3 (1514–15), "An Acte concernyng Artificers & Labourers"
  6. Andrew Boorde, A Compendyous Regyment or a Dyetary of Helth (1542), in F. J. Furnivall (ed.), Andrew Boorde's Introduction and Dyetary, Early English Text Society, extra series 10 (London: Trübner, 1870)
  7. Wikipedia: Ale
  8. Wikipedia: Endosperm
  9. Alex Whan et al., 'Engineering α-amylase levels in wheat grain suggests a highly sophisticated level of carbohydrate regulation during development', Journal of Experimental Botany 65(18) (2014)
  10. Rob van Treuren et al., 'Rapid loss of seed viability in ex situ conserved wheat and barley at 4°C as compared to −20°C storage', Conservation Physiology 6 (2018), coy033
  11. Wikipedia: Malt
  12. Wikipedia: Oatmeal
  13. Wikipedia: Agriculture in Scotland in the early modern era
  14. Wikipedia: Oat
  15. A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, by Samuel Johnson (1775)
  16. Lane Cooper, 'Dr. Johnson on Oats and Other Grains', PMLA 52, no. 3 (September 1937), pp. 785–802
  17. Wikipedia: Maize
  18. A single domestication for maize shown by multilocus microsatellite genotyping
  19. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy (species match API)
  20. Sol. T. Plaatje, Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since the European War and the Boer Rebellion (London: P. S. King, 1916)
  21. GBIF species API: Zea mays L. (usageKey 5290052), with Catalogue of Life distribution records by TDWG region
  22. Wikidata item Q11575 (maize)
  23. Piperno, Ranere, Holst, Iriarte and Dickau, 'Starch grain and phytolith evidence for early ninth millennium B.P. maize from the Central Balsas River Valley, Mexico', PNAS 106 (2009): 5019–5024
  24. Bruce F. Benz, 'Archaeological evidence of teosinte domestication from Guilá Naquitz, Oaxaca', PNAS 98 (2001): 2104–2106
  25. Maud I. Tenaillon and Alain Charcosset, 'A European perspective on maize history', Comptes Rendus Biologies 334 (2011): 221–228
  26. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913), Project Gutenberg eBook 29765
  27. Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive (new edition, ed. William Crooke)
  28. The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503, edited by Julius E. Olson and Edward Gaylord Bourne (1906)
  29. USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Grain: World Markets and Trade (October 2026)
  30. Wikipedia: Coffea arabica
  31. All About Coffee
  32. The genome and population genomics of allopolyploid Coffea arabica reveal the diversification history of modern coffee cultivars
  33. GBIF species API: distribution records from the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP)
  34. The impact of climate change on indigenous Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica): predicting future trends and identifying priorities
  35. A Dictionary of the English Language, vol. II (London: W. Strahan for J. and P. Knapton and others, 1755): Wellcome Library copy
  36. CooksInfo, 'French Bread Law 1993' (web page reproducing the French text of Décret 93-1074 as published in 1993, an English translation, and the amending Décret 97-917 of 1 October 1997)
  37. Décret n° 93-1074 du 13 septembre 1993 pris pour l'application de la loi du 1er août 1905 en ce qui concerne certaines catégories de pains (consolidated version of 7 September 2020, FAOLEX copy of the Légifrance text)
  38. Andrzej K. Jaworek, Agnieszka Łazarczyk, Przemysław Hałubiec, Monika Leończyk, Filip Staszewski, Anna Wojas-Pelc, 'The history of pellagra', Dermatology Review/Przegląd Dermatologiczny 108(6) (2021): 554–566
  39. Wikipedia: Pellagra
  40. Wikipedia: Gaspar Casal
  41. Wikipedia: Cesare Lombroso
  42. Wikipedia: Nixtamalization
  43. Sam Kean, 'Joseph Goldberger's Filth Parties', Distillations (Science History Institute), 8 September 2020
  44. Wikipedia: Sen no Rikyū
  45. Wikipedia: Sakai
  46. Wikipedia: Tai-an
  47. The Rikumo Journal, 'Tai-an to Today: The Evolution of the Japanese Tea House' (11 March 2024)
  48. Wikipedia: Raku ware
  49. The Met, 827671: Raku Chōjirō, 'Black Raku Tea Bowl, Named Kaedegure (Twilight by the Maples)'
  50. Wikipedia: Chawan
  51. The Book of Tea (1906), Okakura Kakuzō — Project Gutenberg eBook

Further reading

  1. 01Ian Mortimer, "How the Tudors invented breakfast", BBC History Extra (free online): the argument the essay's first half follows, with his examples of who ate breakfast before 1500.
  2. 02Andrew Boorde, A Compendyous Regyment or a Dyetary of Helth (1542), in F. J. Furnivall's edition (1870), free online: a Tudor physician's rules for eating, sleeping and living, read now as history, not advice. Chapter ix is the one on meals.