Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

CULTURE

Abendbrot: What time do Germans eat dinner?

The traditional German dinner time is much earlier than in other European countries. But that, along with what people eat in the evening, is changing.

Published: 29 March 2023 16:57 CEST
Updated: 25 May 2023 10:33 CEST
A family have dinner at a beer garden in the Upper Palatine Forest in Bavaria.
A family have dinner at a beer garden in the Upper Palatine Forest in Bavaria. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/Tourismuszentrum Oberpfälzer Wal | Thomas Kujat

In other European countries, such as France and Spain, the natives generally don’t sit down at the dinner table until at least 8 pm. In Italy, it’s not uncommon to have a cena (dinner) at 10 pm.

But in Germany, the traditional dinner time is much earlier: you’ll find many German households having their evening meal between 5 and 7 pm. 

Not only do Germans like to eat early, but they also eat cold. One of the most widely used names for dinner alongside Abendessen (evening meal) is Abendbrot: literally “evening bread”. That’s because – traditionally – the evening meal is more of a snack than a hot, sit-down dish and consists of slices of bread with cheese, sausage and pickled vegetables. 

Though that may sound a tad boring at first, when you remember that Germany has over 300 types of bread and a pretty wide range of sausage cuts, Abendbrot starts to look a lot more mouthwatering.

READ ALSO: Five delicious breads you have to try in Germany

The northern Germans also like to add a pickled Bismarck herring, while in the south you’re more likely to get sausage salad served alongside your Brotscheibe (slice of bread).

Where does the Abendbrot tradition come from?

Cultural researchers generally believe that the German custom of eating cold food in the early evening dates back to the 1920s. At that time, industry increasingly dominated everyday life – in contrast to the more agricultural structures in countries like Italy and France.

A table set for a traditional German dinner.

A table set for a traditional German dinner. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Sina Schuldt

Lots of German factories had canteens where workers got a hot, filling meal at lunchtime and no longer needed such a big meal in the evening. The practice of eating only a bread-based snack in the evening became even more widespread after the war when the number of working women also rapidly increased.

Do people really still eat so early in Germany?

While an early Abendbrot and a big, warm, Mittagstisch (lunch) are still popular in Germany, being part of a globalised world full of new eating trends and working patterns has, of course, had an impact on the love of an early dinner of bread and cheese. 

In most major German cities, you’ll find restaurants open until midnight, with food still being served after 10 pm. 

The content of the traditional German Abendbrot is being called into question now too, as many nutrition experts recommend eating a low-carbohydrate meal in the evening.

READ ALSO: Five things that are changing about Germany – and five that never will 

The classic sausage topping is also declining in popularity as more and more people opt for a vegetarian or vegan diet. That said, there is a growing range of vegan and vegetarian meat substitutes available now in German supermarkets.

What about other meals?

As reported in the Berliner Morgenpost, a recent YouGov poll found that the most popular meal of the day in Germany is, in fact, breakfast. 

According to the survey, one-third of the 2050 respondents think that breakfast is the “most important meal” of the day and only one in fourteen adults said they never eat breakfast.

Most people between 18 and 24 eat breakfast in the morning and only two percent say they never do. By contrast, among older people aged 45 and over, eight percent say they don’t eat anything in the morning.

READ ALSO: Is Germany falling out of love with Abendbrot?

What people like to eat for breakfast also varied greatly across the generations. Older people prefer a hearty breakfast with bread, cheese and sausage, while the popularity of fruit and muesli is twice as high among those aged 24 and under than among all adults overall. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

DISCOVER GERMANY

Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

With thousands of years of history in Germany to explore, you’re never going to run out of museums to scratch the itch to learn about and fully experience the world of the past.

Published: 5 April 2024 10:46 CEST
Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

Here are eight of our favourite museums across Germany’s 16 states for you to discover for yourself. 

Arche Nebra

Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt

One day, around 1600 BCE, local Bronze Age peoples buried one of their most precious objects – the Nebra Sky Disk, a copper, gold, and bronze disk that acted as a calendar to help them plant crops. This was a matter of life and death at the time. 

Over three thousand years later, in 1999, it was uncovered by black market treasure hunters, becoming Germany’s most significant archaeological find. 

While the Sky Disk itself is kept in the (really very good)  State Museum of Pre- and Early History in nearby Halle, the site of the discovery is marked by the Arche Nebra, a museum explaining prehistoric astronomy and the cultural practices of the people who made it. 

Kids will love the planetarium, explaining how the disk was used. 

Atomkeller Museum

Halgerloch, Baden-Württemberg

From the distant to the very recent past – in this case, the Nazi atomic weapons programme. Even as defeat loomed, Nazi scientists such as Werner Heisenberg were trying to develop a nuclear bomb. 

While this mainly took place in Berlin, an old beer cellar under the town of Halgerloch, south of Stuttgart, was commandeered as the site of a prototype fission reactor. 

A squad of American soldiers captured and dismantled the reactor as the war ended. Still, the site was later turned into a museum documenting German efforts to create a working reactor – one that they could use to develop a bomb.

It’s important to note that you don’t need to be a physicist to understand what they were trying to do here, as the explanatory materials describe the scientist’s efforts in a manner that is easy to understand. 

German National Museum

Nuremberg, Bavaria

Remember that scene at the end of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, where an unnamed government official wheels the Ark of the Covenant into an anonymous government warehouse? This could possibly be the German equivalent – albeit far better presented. 

The German National Museum was created in 1852 as a repository for the cultural history of the German nation – even before the country’s founding. In the intervening 170 years, it’s grown to swallow an entire city block of Nuremberg, covering 60,000 years of history and hundreds of thousands of objects. 

If it relates to the history of Germany since prehistoric times, you’re likely to find it here.

Highlights include several original paintings and etchings by Albrecht Dürer, the mysterious Bronze Age ‘Gold Hats’, one of Europe’s most significant collections of costuming and musical instruments, and a vast display of weapons, armour and firearms. 

European Hansemuseum

Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein

In the late Middle Ages, the political and economic centre of the world was focused on the North Sea and the Baltic German coasts. 

This was the domain of the Hanseatic League, one of the most powerful trading alliances in human history. Centuries before the Dutch and British East India Companies, they made in-roads to far-flung corners.

The European Hansemuseum in the former Hanseatic city of Lübeck tells the story of the league’s rise and eventual fall, its day-to-day operations, and its enduring legacy.

This museum is fascinating for adults and kids. It uses original artefacts and high-tech interactive elements to tell tales of maritime adventure. Younger visitors will also be enchanted by the museum’s augmented reality phone app that asks them to help solve mysteries. 

Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum

Augsburg, Germany

The Hanseatic League was not the only economic power in the late Middle Ages. The Fugger and Welser families of Augsburg may have been the richest in the world until the 20th century.

From humble beginnings, both families grew to become incredibly powerful moneylenders, funding many of the wars of the 16th century and the conquest of the New World.

The Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum not only explains the rise of both patrician families but also the practices that led to their inconceivable wealth—including, sadly, the start of the Transatlantic slave trade. 

The museum also documents the short-lived Welser colony in Venezuela, which, if it had survived, could have resulted in a very different world history.

This museum has many high tech displays, making it a very exciting experience for moguls of any age.

Teutoburg Forest Museum

Kalkriese, Lower Saxony

Every German child learns this story at some point: One day at the end of summer 9 AD, three legions of the Roman army marched into the Teutoburg forest… and never came out. 

Soldiers sent after the vanished legions discovered that they had been slaughtered to a man.

Arminius, a German who had been raised as a Roman commander, had betrayed the three legions to local Germanic tribes, who ambushed them while marching through the forest. 

Today, the probable site of the battle – we can’t entirely be sure – is marked by a museum called the Varusschlacht Museum (Literally ‘Varus Battle Museum’, named after the loyal Roman commander). 

The highlights here are the finds – made all the more eerie by the knowledge that they were looted and discarded from the legionaries in the hours following the ambush. 

German Romanticism Museum

Frankfurt, Hesse

The Romantic era of art, music and literature is one of Germany’s greatest cultural gifts to the world, encompassing the work of poets such as Goethe and Schiller, composers like Beethoven and artists in the vein of Caspar David Friedrich.

Established in 2021 next to the house where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born, the German Romanticism Museum is the world’s largest collection of objects related to the Romantic movement. 

In addition to artefacts from some of the greatest names in German romanticism, in 2024, you’ll find a major exhibition exploring Goethe’s controversial 1774 novel, ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, and another on the forest as depicted as dark and dramatic in the art of the period. 

Gutenberg Castle

Haßmersheim, Baden-Württemberg

Sometimes being a smaller castle is a good thing. The relatively small size and location of Guttenburg Castle, above the River Neckar near Heilbronn, protected it from war and damage over eight hundred years – it’s now the best preserved Staufer-era castle in the country.

While the castle is still occupied by the Barons of Gemmingen-Guttenberg, the castle now also contains a museum, that uses the remarkably well-preserved castle interiors to explore centuries of its history – and the individuals that passed through it.

After you’ve explored the museum—and the current exhibition that uses Lego to document life in the Middle Ages —it’s also possible to eat at the castle’s tavern and stay overnight!

SHOW COMMENTS