What Time IS Dinner?

Let’s not pretend CP time isn’t real. It’s never more real than on Thanksgiving Day.

No matter what time dinner is supposed to be, it’s always an hour or two (or three) later than that.

Why?

At this point, it’s almost like a cultural tradition that we’ve embraced and make jokes about. Social media is full of videos doing just that.

But let’s get down to the real: Almost no one cooks the entire dinner by themselves. If others are bringing food, you have to wait for them to arrive with their designated dish. And then you might have to warm it up. And then make space for it on the counter or on the table. And the more people you have bringing stuff, the less control you have over the start time.

So you wait. And listen to everyone complaining about how hungry they are.

If someone actually does cook the entire meal themselves (first of all, God bless ‘em), then that’s even more reason to understand why dinner isn’t on time. We cook a lot of food. It’s never just turkey, dressing, greens and a roll.

With the amount of food on the average Black table every Thanksgiving, the cook begins doing his/her thing on Monday. And continues on Tuesday. And Wednesday. By Thursday, the finishing touches need to happen to make sure everything is perfect. Because the last thing you should say to someone who has been cooking for four straight days is that something is wrong with the food.

Perfection takes time. So wait. Watch football, watch the parades, but do not bother the cook.

But what time should dinner start?

We don’t do late Thanksgiving. No 6 p.m. start for us. The latest we do is 4 p.m. (and that’s even a stretch).

Ideally, we say 2 or 3 p.m. With CP time, we might say grace around 3:30 p.m. Then we grub. We converse. We eat dessert. We clean up. We play spades. We nap.

Then by 6 p.m., it’s time to do it all over again.

We laugh about it. We eat when we eat. And we eat good.