On Your Mark, Get Set, Go to LunchMost Americans share the sense that lunch is the meal that you eat with the William Tell Overture playing in your head by Claudia Figueroa
In many cultures, eating while walking is considered rude. This may be hard for the average American to, well, digest, since so often we eat on our feet with the William Tell Overture playing in our heads. This is especially true at lunchtime, that brief midday period that often gets lost in the rush of doing business.
Perhaps even more foreign to the American imagination than the rule about not eating and walking is the idea that people might actually stop for several hours and enjoy an extensive lunch, and even rest time. The Mediterranean concept of siesta is perhaps the best-known example, a term that we tend to file away under "Yeah, right," along with Camelot, Xanadu, and free lunch. But for many cultures, lunch has traditionally been the most substantial, and longest, meal of the day.
However, like McDonald's on the Champs Elysées, modern socioeconomic realities and tradition are at a standoff. Even in Spain, where it used to be standard for businesses to close for three hours in the afternoon, a one-hour lunch has become more the norm in urban areas. In Mexico, legislation was passed in March 1999 that, in effect, bans siesta for government employees by limiting lunch breaks to one hour. The trend is occurring in the urban areas of most other European and Latin American countries, and beyond, including China, Indonesia, India, and Africa.
On the Arabian peninsula too, the main meal of the day has traditionally been eaten around two or three o'clock in the afternoon, after children return home from school and parents from work. However, the custom is changing for those whose offices stay open all afternoon. Eating later in the day does have some traditional precedent: during the Islamic month of Ramadan, Muslims do not eat, drink, or smoke from sunrise to sunset each day, and the main meal is eaten in the evening. No eating in public is permitted during the day, even by foreigners.
Resistance to a less substantial and more harried lunch seems to go hand-in-hand with a culture's resistance to American fast food, but both are becoming an accepted way of life, especially among the younger generations. After all, fast food is cheap, easy, and tastes good. At the same time, every culture has its own version of fast food, many which now enhance our busy American lifestyles, from rice bowls and noodles, to tamales and pirogi. Even French fries, or frites, are borrowed from the, well, French.
Many would argue that the food itself is not the issue, it is the devaluation of family time. The main meal, after all, represents a time to reunite with family, and revitalize its bonds. To the extent that this holds true, the time of day chosen for this communion should not matter. The Québécois have incorporated the Old World spirit of dining into the evening meal: suppertime is so important to families that a telephone call between 6:00 and 7:30 P.M. is considered rude.
Given the busy work schedules and commuting distances of most people around the world these days, the end of the day is often most viable option for a few moments peace with family or friends. Then there's always the weekend, if all else fails.
On Your Mark, Get Set, Go to Lunch
