Supper

Do you say supper or dinner for the last meal of the day? Me? I’m a little bit of both.

Mamaw was firm: it was supper, plain and simple. But Mama? She called it dinner. So I grew up bouncing between the two, saying whichever one flew out of my mouth first. I haven’t changed much.

For a while, I chalked the difference up to geography. Mamaw was from the mountains of WNC, and Mama grew up down in SENC. But that theory didn’t hold for long—Brandon’s folks say supper, and most of my cousins in New Hanover and Brunswick counties do too.

Eventually, I got curious: how did we end up with two different words for the same meal? So I did what any smart Southern girl with a question does—I pulled up Google and let my fingers do the digging.

Turns out, dinner comes from the Old French word disner, meaning “to dine.” Back in the day, it referred to the biggest, most formal meal—served around midday.

Supper also has French roots, from the word souper. That one described the lighter evening meal, often something simple like soup—more casual, more homey.

I couldn’t find a solid answer on why dinner is more common outside the South—or why it tends to show up more in cities than in the country. But I’ve got a hunch: maybe Southerners held onto supper because of its ties to tradition, even faith. I mean, think about it—the Last Supper, not the Last Dinner.

And while I still use both, I have to admit—I’m partial to Mamaw’s version. Supper just sounds more Southern. More rooted. More like cornbread and sweet tea and sitting around the table long after the food’s gone, still talking.