In olden times people took three meals a day breakfast about 9 AM, dinner about 2 PM, and supper about 9 PM. People did a good deal of work in the morning before breakfast. In Crossenbough parish, two men were known to have set a ridge of potatoes 30 pens long before breakfast. Breakfast usually consisted of oatmeal porridge and buttermilk, dinner of potatoes and buttermilk, and supper of oatmeal or potatoes and buttermilk. For almost three months of the year, when the oatmeal was all used up, potatoes were eaten at every meal. At dinner people sat on wooden stools around a flat potato basket made of sally rods, set on a pot on the middle of the floor. In some houses there were folding tables which were fastened up against the side wall when not in use. One of those tables is still to be seen in John McGaharen's, Rockfield, Crossenbough. In later years, potato cakes, boxty bread and oatmeal bread were eaten. Potato cakes were made of a mixture of boiled potatoes, oatmeal, and salt. Boxty was made of a mixture of boiled and raw grated potatoes and salt. This was sometimes made into dumpling sand boiled.