After traveling to Brazil, one thing I noticed about the pizza is that it is next to impossible to find a pizzaria (outside Pizza Hut in the airport) that is open for lunch. Consuming pizza at lunchtime is a completely foreign concept to Brazilians.
It got me thinking, is there any food in the United States that is exclusive to dinner time?
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Not that I have ever experienced.
Breakfast isn’t even exclusive to breakfast time. Sometimes it’s just nice to have pancakes for dinner
Generally speaking the whole steak, peas/veggie, and (mashed) potatoes set up is something you don’t tend to see people eat for dinner.
Basically if it looks like a Thanksgiving meal (just replace the turkey with any other meat), it probably won’t be eaten for lunch and solely for dinner.
We even have breakfast pizza with egg on it.
Anything that would be the main dish of a 3 course meal at a fancy restaurant probably.
I don’t think we have as many rigid food rules here, but one food that I more commonly see at dinnertime is mashed potatoes. Less common at lunch and unusual for breakfast.
There’s things I wouldn’t take the effort to make for lunch. But there’s nothing I can think of that I would eat for dinner at a restaurant that I wouldn’t also be able to get for lunch at a restaurant. Like it’s not COMMON to have steak for lunch, but I can definitely find a restaurant that will serve me steak for lunch if I wanted and I live in suburban Maine.
At least in my experience, the only restaurants in the U.S. that aren’t open for lunch are the really fancy places that you usually need a reservation for. But that’s not exclusive to any one type of restaurant.
There’s some things that would be weird, but not like taboo or anything. Pretty much things that don’t make good leftovers and take a lot of effort to make.
Like…. Beef Wellington has got to be 99.9% dinner
Donuts
Not really …. but I would say it’s odd to have a huge steak or cook a roast beef for lunch for example. Unless if you had leftovers most people would cook that for dinner
Not really. I can’t think of any food that you can not eat whenever you feel like it.
Seafood is much less common for lunch than dinner. At least inland.
As far as things you make for yourself? Anything that’s heavily involved. I’m not making a pot roast for lunch. I may warm up left-over pot roast from last night.
But if you’re asking about specific foods that you eat for dinner but would never eat for lunch, then no. I don’t think we have that.
There are foods that you might have for lunch that you wouldn’t have for dinner. I might make my kid a PB&J or give him a Lunchable for lunch, but would never dream of feeding him that for dinner unless it was the only option.
Anything can become a breakfast food if you add a fried egg.
I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, but I definitely have been to a restaurant and decided not to order something for lunch because it felt more like a dinner food than a lunch food.
I think a heavier meal feels more like dinner than lunch. Idk if that makes sense
Generally speaking I don’t eat many lunch meat type of sandwiches for dinner. Not to say one doesn’t, can’t or won’t but generally speaking it’s more of a lunch thing. It’s just not filling enough.
That said we really don’t have anything like this. I will eat almost anything at any time. A diner we go to has really good chicken fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy and my husband will order that for lunch occasionally. Same place has cheese frenchees (a deep fried grilled cheese sandwich- oh yes totally a thing and so damn good!) that I usually only order for lunch but have been known to order at dinner occasionally.
There are more things considered “weird” to eat for breakfast than dinner. Dinner can be whatever is available, whatever you can afford, etc. etc.
In the US, a fancy and formal lunch can have the same menu as a dinner (but smaller), but a typical lunch is more commonly limited to soups, salads, and sandwiches (which would include anything from actual sandwiches to tacos and sushi).
Nothing I can think of. Anything that is appropriate for dinner is appropriate for lunch.
One drink that’s the inverse is Mimosas. People drink this for breakfast and brunch, but never for dinner.
Aside from lox, I can’t think of too many fish based dishes you’d eat for breakfast unless it’s leftovers from the night before
The traditional thing is that lunch is usually more casual, faster, cheaper, fewer courses, and fewer calories compared to dinner.
These are not rigid rules at all. If you go to a daytime wedding or fundraiser event or something, you might have a full on multi course dinner-like experience. Thats just not common on a day to day basis.
In the US there’s almost always many exceptions to the cultural norms.
In my experience, even the word “dinner” does not mean an evening meal in all parts of the USA. It depends on the family and region, but I grew up in southern WV referring to a large meal eaten around noontime, “dinner,” while a large meal eaten in the evening would be called, “supper.” If we had a big dinner, like on Sunday afternoons or Thanksgiving, you’d often have leftovers or a sandwich or something for an evening meal. What most of the country calls a lunch box, I grew up calling a dinner bucket. The kind of food we had for dinner or supper was completely interchangeable.
not really. i mean my family and i all had bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches for dinner the other night. most meals aren’t exclusive, but i personally think pasta for lunch is pretty weird, but that’s just my opinion.
Lasagna isn’t generally a lunch food. It takes too long to make properly.
Lunch and dinner are pretty interchangeable. Breakfast is a thing of its own.
Steak
Hello,
Many restaurants in the U.S. simply serve a smaller portion at lunch than at dinner, sometimes as a combination with a popular (or perhaps a more profitable) side dish or appetizer, such as french fries, salad, or soup. A beverage may or may not be included as well. Lunch specials like these are a good way for restaurants to quickly serve customers, and it lets customers easily figure out what they want to eat and/or budget for it.
The only food I can think of that sometimes isn’t offered at lunch at restaurants is a baked potato for a side dish. A lot of restaurants may only offer them after a certain time, like 4:00-5:00 PM. I always assumed this has something to do with the amount of prep time, space available in the kitchen, or something similar.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
The hospital I used to work at would have meatloaf and mashed potatoes at lunch frequently. I always thought it was odd.
People don’t usually have a heavy meal of steak and potatoes for lunch.
I’m going to flip around your word choice. I’m in a part of Minnesota where “dinner” is a big meal, which could happen at lunch time or supper time. Thanksgiving is a dinner, even if your family has it as the noon meal.
So a lot of the answers people are giving here, like pot roast, beef Wellington, lobster thermador, etc. are never lunch because they would make the meal dinner, even if it is served at lunch time.
Not really at my house because while the evening meal is usually the big meal of the day, Sunday lunch might be anything. No options are off the table, if you will.
Brunch items, for the most part, are strictly for brunch: steak and eggs, eggs Benedict, mimosas, omelettes. You can eat them any time of the day/week, but it’d be a little unusual.
Not really but I’d probably never eat planked whitefish for lunch
Since we often do leftovers for lunch as a culture, not really.
I think something like a steak dinner for lunch could be seen as a bit gauche, but seeing said same steak dinner with smaller portions in a breakroom microwave would just be seen as having leftovers.
Any higher end dish that requires effort and skill to make correctly isn’t as common at lunch. Lunch is often something more light or less labor intensive.
I think a good counter question to this is are there any lunchtime only foods?
I’d say in general desserts are saved for after dinner, but there’s plenty of exceptions like fruit & cream
Lunch and dinner foods aren’t sharply distinguished, except for availability in certain types of restaurants that may or may not serve a lunch crowd, especially office workers or others who have only an hour or less to eat. Portion sizes may differ as well, usually with dinner portions being larger or slightly more elaborate. Variations on sandwiches are especially popular at lunchtime, whereas the same basic foods available as a plate dinner might also be offered only at dinner. It just depends on the restaurant and how the local market is for them.
But we also have a 24-hour schedule in some cases, so there are restaurants called diners, such as Denny’s or International House of Pancakes (IHOP), which are chains, as well as independent diners, that serve all types of meals 24-7. This allows people working overnight (truckers, etc.) to eat breakfast at 8 pm, lunch at 1 am, and dinner at 7 am, if that’s how their schedule is.
I mean, its a bit flexible because if you bust out dinner food from a tupperware for lunch, no one cares. But certainly, specific meals coincide with specific times in our head.
Alcohol is often seen as something to minimize before 5pm. That was the rule for a long time, so much that it created a joke: “Its five-o-clock *somewhere*!”
I’m gonna go with meatloaf
No.
I think American’s 24 hour breakfast and regional diners restaurants have shown that no food is taboo at any time of day.
No because very often dinner on one day will be eaten as leftovers for lunch on the next day. Doesn’t matter what it is.
I don’t know of any exclusive foods by custom. It’s more of a personal preference. The first time I expressed wanting eggs, bacon, and hash brown potatoes for dinner, my husband was somewhat appalled. Because, you know, that’s *breakfast.* This is the same man that as a child refused to eat the meatloaf his mom gave him for lunch. He refused to eat it, then went to school and told his teacher that his mom refused to make him lunch. (Meatloaf is *supper* food. LOL) No, she refused to make him a second meal. As in “This is what I’m serving. Eat it or don’t” She is ended up getting called to the school to explain why she didn’t fix him lunch. This is also the man who thinks it’s weird to eat left over pizza for breakfast, but perfectly reasonable to eat leftover spaghetti.
He has learned to like eggs and bacon for dinner as well as not teasing me about my preference for pizza for breakfast.
peas
Steak. I suppose you could find a steak for lunch if you really tried but it wouldn’t be easy.