How do the French sleep at night when they eat dinner at, like, 9pm?

3-4 pieces of bread with toppings. (marmelade, Nutella, peanut butter...)

Are you going to tell us where you live?

sorry I couldn't get back to you, I fell asleep

I eat dinner around 9 or 10
It's just the way it is, during summer it's way too hot to eat a meal earlier anyways

First off French portion sizes are much smaller than US. Second a meal in France is frequently eaten over several courses, even at home. So going from soup to the main course to salad to cheese may take a couple hours and involve a bottle or two of wine. But you're eating slowly, because you're probably engrossed in conversation at the table. The French are busy talking about philosophy, the arts, politics and the food itself. They eat slowly. Si imagine starting a meal off with a small bowl of watercress soup with table bread and maybe butter. Ten minutes later you advance to a modest piece of trout with some warm lentil salad. That'll take half an hour and kill the first bottle of Macon-Villages. Then a salad tossed in vinaigrette gets passed around and the debate over whether the next bottle of wine should be white or red begins. That's another half hour. But you'll end up on red by the time the cheese gets broken out. Which is at least another half hour. After that they're may be a debate about whether or not to have a digestif if the conversation is still lively.

You're eating small portions very slowly. And talking a lot. While we think of French food as being rich it's usually pretty modest except on Sunday night. Also most of it is pretty low carb, because carb intake is determined by how much table bread each individual chooses to eat. Aside from a little meat/fish and cheese most of a typical French meal is vegetable matter.

How do you sleep at night with all those dicks in your mouth?

you're fucking retarded. the normally bodily response to an insulin spike is feeling sleepy. that's why it's called FOOD COMA.

Not this pasta again...

I just wrote this, but feel free to copy for future use.

this is me. doing so my whole life

So a fat slice of toffee cake at midnight will help you sleep?

While I've seen french families eat meals like this I don't know how representative this is for the majority of french people - especially if they live in larger cities.

What part of insulin spike do you fail to understand?

I'll admit most of my French friends are middle aged and pretty bourgeois, but this is how they tend to eat even on weeknights. When they don't have guests they may dispense with the soup course, but there's always a salad after a meal then the cheese. They just nibble at the cheese, but that's how the meal always ends unl;ess it's a special occasion and they're having dessert.

>Doesn't a big meal wake the body right up?
no, no it doesn't

I'd image that's not the typical meal pattern of a suburbian after coming home from his shift.

But it's nice that such a relaxed approach to good food and conversation still exists in our busy times.

Why do they eat the salad after the main course?

blue cheese before bed always turns into trippy dreams

Dinner invites are only before 8PM on Sunday nights, when it might be 7. Regardless everyone hangs out having drinks and talking for at least an hour before sitting at the table. Food is never served before 8:30 or 9PM.
That's just how they do it. Salad comes between the main and the cheese. It never struck me as strange because I grew up always having salad at the end of the meal. Starting the meal with a salad is a restaurant thing to me.