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When was the standard meal and course system invented and popularized?

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R

Reichcube

Corporal
Apr 11, 2015
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Prehistoric people had no concept of breakfast, lunch and dinner, nor did they keep sweet foods for last as "dessert". I'm sure medieval peasants didn't either.
Ancient Roman patrician families had a meal system, but it was quite different from the modern standard.
When was the breakfast-lunch-dinner, two courses-and-dessert invented?
 
I don't know about the rest, but the course system was adopted by the French from the Russians in the middle of the 19th c. and the practice spread from there. Before that, everything was disposed on the table and picked half randomly by the guests.
As for the meals, I just know that workers who had to make the heavy lift privileged 'breakfast' as the main meal, so that they even fragmented it at different hours of the morning, till the 20th c.
 
There were multiple courses with dessert proper last in the French service already, apparently as early as late 17th century. What the Russian service refers to is serving individual portions straight to the diners. Most family meals today would actually fall under the French service.
 
The history of dining is a function of time and space.

With limited foodstuffs, medieval meals varied widely on when the two meals were eaten and what was consumed, was the early meal heavier like in England, or was the late meal heavier such as in Spain - it varies widely in its limited form.

With the influx of the treasures of the New World, cuisine begins to diversify. The pope has, iirc, the first comprehensive Italian recipe book published entitled Opera, about the same time Catherine de Medici imports Italian cooking into Paris, which takes the art form and raises it to new heights of delicacy over the next hundred years or so. And French Haute Cuisine is, I daresay, the gold standard of dinner service and its fortress is Le Cordon Bleu.

So the 16th century is a nice dividing line between old meal service and new in the West - understanding this does not apply equally around the world for a wide variety of reasons.
 
16th Century sounds far too early. Nobles still ate like pigs at a trough then, and days were not regulated by clocks.

I would say there is no regularity or idea of courses until the advent of the dining room. Which puts in the 18th Century at the earliest.

As for the modern three-meal system, I think you might have to wait until the 20th C.
 
My guess is the industrial revolution.
Eat something before you go to work, then eat something in between and finally something when you're back home, go to bed, repeat.
 
Abdul Goatherd said:
16th Century sounds far too early. Nobles still ate like pigs at a trough then, and days were not regulated by clocks.

I would say there is no regularity or idea of courses until the advent of the dining room. Which puts in the 18th Century at the earliest.

As for the modern three-meal system, I think you might have to wait until the 20th C.
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Courses were very much present in those medieval and early modern feasts in which nobles ate like pigs. The difference is in that they were thematically different and generally less coherent than moden idea of courses.
 
Antediluvian Monster said:
Courses were very much present in those medieval and early modern feasts in which nobles ate like pigs. The difference is in that they were thematically different and generally less coherent than moden idea of courses.
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Unless you're changing the plate, I would not call it it a "course".
 
Abdul Goatherd said:
Unless you're changing the plate, I would not call it it a "course".
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That is 'Service al la Russe", where each course is placed on an individual plate and brought out as hot as possible from the kitchen Russian style, and this is not adopted until the 19th century in Paris and introduced by a Russian ambassador which became the default mode of service for restuarants. Family style dining where all the courses are placed on the table and each person or a servant fills the plate sitting on the charger is traditionally is called 'service al la Francaise'. 'Courses' are offered in both dining styles, but you are definitely applying the restaurant nomenclature to your definition.

Again, modern 'china' and 'plates' don't appear until the 16th and 17th centuries, and matching sets of china are ubiquitous by the 18th century, so this remains the tipping point between the vast majority of history and today since 'Charger Plates' as the base on which the trencher was placed or the soup was poured were already common in the 14th century.
 
An excellent book that goes in to this exact topic is "At Home, a Short History of Private Life" by Bill Bryson.
 
Three meals per day can be traced far back in the stipulations made in employment records. Since you were paid in food the terms of what, when and how much was often described with care. For example the clause on Ösel which spared the milkmaids from having Salmon more than 5 days a week.
3 meals per day per day weren't invented as they are approximates of our shared capacity to process food. The distinction between those meals have been entirely liquid both over time and geographically. The idea of having a hot, large supper seems mostly connected with city and sedentary work whereas you'd find large, hit midday meals in the peasant tradition, in some places this is still the norm.
The invention is rather the invention of a norm and that has an easier answer: When Hollywood got syndicated.
 
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There is no standard number of meals in a day. Different cultures, different socio-economic strata have different set-ups. And you only need to look at the changing names for the meals in English to realise that nothing's set in stone.

As for courses, again this is a cultural thing. But in western Europe, it's mostly due to Carême who imported the idea from Russia, as Bolkonsky said.

But many - probably most of the world by population - maintain a hybrid system.
 
Emre Yigit said:
As for courses, again this is a cultural thing. But in western Europe, it's mostly due to Carême who imported the idea from Russia, as Bolkonsky said.
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Again, courses were there long before the Russian service was adopted. As in, there was first a serving of variety of food, then the food/empty dishes were taken away, then (in a feast) there might be some kind of entertainment with some side dishes and finally another serving of variety of food was brought in. Rinse and repeat.

Or search for Eliza Smith's the Compleat Housewife from 18th century on Internet Archive. You'll find French service in two courses there (and specifically referred to as "courses"), though dessert is not in a course of it's own (yet).
 
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Antediluvian Monster said:
Again, courses were there long before the Russian service was adopted. As in, there was first a serving of variety of food, then the food was taken away, then (in a feast) there might be some kind of entertainment with some side dishes and finally another serving of variety of food was brought in. Rinse and repeat.

Or search for Eliza Smith's the Compleat Housewife from 18th century on Internet Archive. You'll find French service in two courses there (and specifically referred to as "courses"), though dessert is not in a course of it's own (yet).
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Except a "course" a la française, and a "course" a la russe are two different things.

Also, a puplar cookbook is perhaps also not the best source; aspirations versus reality kick in. I mean, today, at home, do you plan your meals specifically by course? Probably not. And yet here we are talking about courses in the modern context. And while I have a dozen or more cookbooks, I very rarely make use of them. :)
 
Emre Yigit said:
Except a "course" a la française, and a "course" a la russe are two different things.

Also, a puplar cookbook is perhaps also not the best source; aspirations versus reality kick in. I mean, today, at home, do you plan your meals specifically by course? Probably not. And yet here we are talking about courses in the modern context. And while I have a dozen or more cookbooks, I very rarely make use of them. :)
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Latest experience I had with two course French service was a lunch a while ago. The first (main) course had spaghetti, some of yesterdays pilaf and some kind of tomato sauce. The second (dessert) had sweet roll and... fresh peas for some reason (I think my dad lifted them there, then some of the kids started eating them)
 
Antediluvian Monster said:
Latest experience I had with two course French service was a lunch a while ago. The first (main) course had spaghetti, some of yesterdays pilaf and some kind of tomato sauce. The second (dessert) had sweet roll and... fresh peas for some reason (I think my dad lifted them there, then some of the kids started eating them)
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I don't want to eat at that restaurant.
 
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