Potluck Recipe for Success
Coming Together Around a Table Builds Community - The Two Key Ingredients: Hospitality & Reciprocity
The world is a whole lot of oof right now - we all know it, see it, read it and feel it in every aspect of life, work and our overall existence. The looming collapse of democracy, while our friends, family and neighbors go through crisis - whether climate or personal seems to be at every turn. It can feel at times like, what’s the point … to fight for freedom or get out of bed or write about food and drink and hospitality. And while we’re all feeling some kind of way, no one wants to be a Debbie Downer, but that’s how haters want you to feel - shameful and guilt ridden about feeling bad, while still wanting to create and connect and live. As if feeling weighed down by the crumbling of patriarchy, as well as potential dismantling of worlds we’ve known for most of our lives doesn’t come with a roller coaster of feelings.
But see that’s what outdated, oppression wants, what haters want - for us not to write and get curious about old systems that don’t serve as they once did - so despite feeling all the feels, this is a reminder to keep telling stories and questioning and doing the work to fight for collective wellness. And as I mentioned in Communi-Tea, find ways to get connected to folks over tea and creativity or in one of my favorite ways: the Potluck Dinner.
Now, when I say Potluck Dinners, I’m not talking about the current trend in legacy food media featuring Dinner Parties. Those are fancy - the host has a perfectly clean house, with eclectic mismatched dishes that look thrifted but we all know are designer expensive - which is the farthest thing from what potluck was and can still be today.
A Bit of History
While most Americans have a general understanding of the premise behind a potluck dinner - the origins of it have been somewhat lost in our current day connections. The word potluck, has multiple origins - one from 16th Century England and another from the Indigenous tribes of the Pacific Northwest. In England, the term came from the idea of unplanned visitors or travelers showing up during dinner and getting the ‘luck of the pot’ and whatever was left over, often simmering in a pot. From the Chinook trade language of the Pacific Northwest the word potlatch means to ‘give away’ or ‘a gift’; a potlatch is a gift-giving ceremony in which rites of passage, life, death and seasons are celebrated - which includes a feast.
In the 1930s, the idea of the potluck took hold due to the Great Depression, as a response to lack of food and resources - because feeding a community is much easier when skills, energy and access are pooled. It was in the 1950s and 60s, where the potluck hit its stride, especially in the Midwest and South - which many of our mother’s and grandmother’s recipes boxes can attest to with classic casseroles passed down across generations.
As the economic times changed, so too did potlucks for those that grew in wealth opportunities - the more money folks made the less potlucks occurred, which is rooted in two things: class first, and then race. But that’s a topic for another time - because we’re here today to talk about the potluck power of connectivity.
Hospitality
Growing up Gen X, the Chef at Chez Mendez and I often talk about the front row seat we had to what potluck dinners looked like in the Midwest. They varied, from more formal dinners with friends and family like the one’s referenced in Line Cook Chronicles to those with friends getting together on Friday night after a long week, ready to crank some tunes and make tacos, or if the money was really flowing pick up a couple of pizzas - which was always a crowd pleaser. And don’t forget the BBQs in the park - those were, and for some still are some of the best potlucks around.
There were times when opening our doors meant the house had to be spotless - usually when grandparents were coming over. But on those potluck Fridays, where the kids were running around, playing games or finally settling down after dinner to watch some newly released movie on a VHS tape from the local video store - those nights feel like safety. Because for one more day, during both tough and good times - everyone was fed, and for a few hours taking a collective deep breath - together.
Our current democracy imploding times call for more potlucks - and less fancy dinner parties (even though those can be fun too). More communing even if the apartments are small, and the baseboards aren’t perfectly clean or yesterday’s unopened mail is still on the counter. And while the menu can be planned or hodgepodge - the recipe for success isn’t necessarily in the dishes you make or the leftovers you send home - it happens in breaking out of the grind to make a buck and instead making time to show up as we are, flaws and all to share a meal, and be hospitable to one another.
Reciprocity
In theory, coming together around the table sounds lovely - but we’re also living in a world of jam packed calendars, the capitalistic need to make money to survive, and health that needs tending to, all while we chase the elusive and essential criteria to show up at all - rest.
A dear friend of mine often reminds - friendship isn’t transactional. It also isn’t filled with perfect, fifty-fifty give and take. At the same time, both of those truths don’t alleviate us from the dynamics of healthy reciprocity - which is absolutely needed if folks are going to engage in the ethos of potluck dinners again. Those dinners back in the day came out of necessity - providing physical and emotional sustenance, for the working and creative class. Now, where the middle class is vast and drastically different from end-to-end, all of which is under attack from the crushing realities of oligarchy - potluck dinners have the opportunity to reintroduce us to reciprocity and accountability, with training wheels. There is no formula for reciprocity, and accountability looks different for everyone - but using the framework of potluck dinners can move us out of the post pandemic, hyper ‘me’ focused, easily cancelling plans culture, and into cooking and communing for the greater good. Potluck is about coming together to nourish ourselves and others - not for personal gain and social clout - and definitely not for the faux life of the ‘gram. It also works out that the same ingredients that help a potluck dinner find success, also happen to be similar groundwork for building inclusive community.
Rules Are Arbitrary
Potluck has the opportunity to take on new meaning in this age of expensive, limited purchase eggs - while it can also look like those dinners of our elders or even more ancient times. The only rules are to come together in a hospitable and reciprocal way - where one person isn’t doing all the heavy lifting, and everyone can walk away feeling replenished. Maybe that’s breakfast, maybe it a simple lunch of what writer Khushbu Shah calls R+2: rice, plus two low effort toppings. This gives current day Meat & Three vibes, and has been an absolute staple in my house for the last year - because hassle free nourishment is a game changer for resiliency, and can easily be the centerpiece to any potluck gathering.
We don’t have to be fancy to come together, sharing meals in our homes and parks; pooling resources and energy to make something nourishing - can look different than it has in the past. How we were forced to convene and create during the first few years of the pandemic taught us deep lessons about what’s most important in life - now we get the opportunity to test what we learned and apply it in how we care for ourselves and one another - and the potluck is a perfect place to start.
If potluck were a song - this version of The Weight, just might be it.
The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker is excellent for diving deeper on this 👌