As a child, Tiffany Spegar could keep time by the dinner bell.

"My mom had dinner on the table at 5, just like clock work," said the West Jordan resident.

Today, Spegar and her husband Monty aren't as strict about their own dinnertime. But they are just as dedicated about sitting down to an evening meal with their two daughters on a daily basis.

"Food is important to me, and I've always loved cooking," said Spegar. "But I especially love the memories of family dinner."

That kind of sit-down, home-cooked family meal is an enduring tradition all across America. And not just on Thanksgiving or other special occasions, according to a new Associated Press-iVillage Food poll. On most nights, the poll found, most families manage to eat together.

Democrats and Republicans do. Devout churchgoers and never-goers do. Childless families and those with kids are about equally apt to have a regular family meal. So are families from the suburbs and the country.

Altogether, more than 60 percent of those who live with families said they sat down with family for dinner at least five nights in the week the poll was conducted. Home-cooked meals were the norm, not just takeout and the like.

Hand-me-down recipes determined the menu more than any other source. More than half the people who took the poll have cooked something from an online recipe and TV shows. But these digital delights lag behind recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines. But neither of those holds a candle to recipes passed on from family elders.

But not all is picture perfect. Bonding time during dinner has competition.

Television is a constant dinner companion for one quarter of families, the poll suggests. More than half have it turned on more often than rarely.

Half are pestered by phone calls -- including, it must be said, from the occasional pollster like the ones who did the survey.

For 5 percent of families, texting or e-mailing on a cell phone is always going on over dinner. It's more than a rare intrusion for 15 percent. Nearly 40 percent have the radio or stereo going, at least occasionally.

Surveys over recent decades have generally found the American dinnertime to be hanging in as family time despite the growth of households with both parents working. It might be harder to pull off these days but, for the Spegars, it's all about priorities.

"We make sure we have things in order. It's not overly structured, but we love being able to have a meal together."

Cell phones don't interrupt. Neither does the television, she said.

Maria Licthy and her husband, Josh, rarely go out to eat. If they do, it's for something specialized, such as sushi, which they wouldn't necessarily make at home.

"It's a lot cheaper and a lot healthier to eat at home," said Lichty, who is a certified health educator for the state. She said parents who serve dinner at home find it easier to get children to eat vegetables and understand proper portion sizes.

"A lot of time people think it's quicker and easier to go out to eat," she said. "But by the time you drive [to a restaurant] and wait for a table you haven't saved much time."

For those who can't pull a family dinner together regularly, it's most often because someone is working too late. Almost one in 10 family members surveyed had no dinners with family that week.

Major reasons for offering prepared food instead of a meal from scratch were that the cook was too busy or too beat.