Once I identified this community ethic in Granada, it became clear why we eat when we do here in Spain.
At around 2 p.m. every day, the public sector of Granada essentially closes; this includes most businesses because this is when people go home for lunch. For example, morning classes end at 2:10 for my study abroad program, and evening classes do not begin until 4:45, leaving two hours in the middle of the day for students to go home and have lunch with their host families. To enable this, my host mom gets off work at 1 p.m. every day for lunch, then has to go back to work at 3 p.m. This kind of eating schedule is designed so families can enjoy lunch together every day and catch up on what has been going on. This habit was a major adjustment for me because I have spent the past two years in college treating lunch as a food-eating competition so I could have more time to study! But I enjoy how lunch works in Granada more than back home because it gives me a chance to take a break in the middle of the day and connect with my host family.
Since lunch happens later in the day in Spain, dinnertime is adjusted accordingly. I found this out in the first week I was here when I went to a restaurant for dinner around 5 p.m. and it was still closed! Normally, we do not eat dinner here until 9 or 10 p.m., and the portion sizes are much smaller than in an American dinner. Why? Because lunch rather than dinner is our main meal in Granada. Also, dinner is viewed as an individual meal here or shared with one or two friends. The one family meal of the day is lunch. In a way, lunch and dinner here are the reversal of what is the social norm in the United States.
