"Ere we will eate our Meale in feare, and ſleepe / In the affliction of theſe terrible Dreames, / That ſhake vs Nightly: […]"
— c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 140, column 2:
"SIR, I was thrice at Lamhith, to haue dined with the Archeb. sins your departure, and still he was to dine, at the Court or with some Bishop. But I must and will finde him assoone as I may: and rather at a meale, then otherwise, because I would haue meanes, to participat at large, about our Collation: […]"
— 1606 February 25, Tho[mas] Bodley, “149”, in G[eorge] W[ilson] Wheeler, editor, Letters of Sir Thomas Bodley to Thomas James, First Keeper of the Bodleian Library […], Oxford, Oxon: At the Clarendon Press, published 1926, page 155:
"Indeed, the worthy gentleman, stimulated perhaps by the immediate prospect of being in active service, was in great spirits and good-humour; in proof whereof it may be here remarked that he humorously drank all the beer at a draught, and did not utter, on a rough calculation, more than four-score oaths during the whole progress of the meal."
— 1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], “Wherein Oliver Is Delivered over to Mr. William Sikes”, in Oliver Twist; […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 15–16:
"After the meal, he rinsed the cans they had eaten from (marveling again at his own water extravagance), and when he turned around, Jake was asleep again."
— 1981 February, Stephen King, “The Oracle and the Mountains”, in Edward L[ewis] Ferman, editor, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, volume 60, number 2 (whole 329), Cornwall, Conn.: Mercury Press, Inc., →ISSN, page 21, column 2:
"Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal."
— 2013 July-August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4: