Our family always take home leftovers, why would you dump them?? That makes no sense. As a matter of fact we all bring containers for leftovers. Nothing like reheating great food. This is with family of course, not at all gatherings. But I do always take my leftovers home where ever we go, that is a given.

We've had some gatherings over at DS house. They live on a budget and I know that they enjoy and value whatever is left, sometimes I deliberately make enough so that there will be leftovers for them.

I agree with Sushipup...usually, when cleaning up and ready to go home,

someone will say, "could I take a small dish of your......?" And, I will do the

same to someone with a dish I love, if there are leftovers. This, of course,

only with family and good friends, for me.

Since I always wanted my dishes back , I always asked if anyone wanted any of it and there was usually always someone that wanted some but if not, I would take it home. I always asked first though.

I bring clear, plastic, 2 cup deli containers and zip lock baggies to family gatherings. Everyone can take home whatever they like and no dishes to return.

If it's something I've brought, I figure whatever is left in the dish belongs to me. I have to take my dish home along with whatever is still in it. If there is a large amount left, I'll ask if anyone wants to take some of it home before I pack it up. As far as taking home a plate of leftovers from other people's dishes, I will ask if it is ok first.

"Is it rude to say you will take the rest home?"

I think it is.

Whether the gathering is friends or family, I look at what's been brought as being a gift to the hosts and/or to other guests. It's no longer "yours" when you walk in the door.

A couple we know were notorious for this. The husband, an engineer with sometimes odd sociopathic-like behavior, always acted like someone rescued from a 2 weeks in a lifeboat when he had a chance to eat other people's food. At things like a dinner party, they would bring a dessert or wine as others might but he often kept the items in paper bags, wine often at the back and off to the side. When it came time to leave, he would round up "his" things and take home whatever was left. Often, his hiding efforts were successful and they would go home with what they'd brought, untouched.

The few times they had people over to their home, he would eat like someone on a crash diet.

Needless to say, they dropped off of everyone's invitation lists. We hardly see them anymore.

If the host says "Please take what's left of what you brought, we don't have room", different story. When you hear that, you should first offer it to other guests. I've never seen that said about wine or dessert, these always stay.

I host ‘bring a dish’ meals and parties often. Tomorrow we are expecting 7 families. I hope and pray that everyone takes their dishes (with leftover food) home with them.

Our community pot lucks are are the same. The meat is prepared and paid for by donations. Sides are brought and shared. Everyone takes their own dish home, leftover meat is there for the taking. There usually isn’t much meat leftover.

Elmer -- it may be in different in different areas but in our area, I you bring a dish to a potluck or family dinner, it is YOUR dish -- to be served at THAT meal. Whatever is left belongs to the person who brought it. They may be kind and offer portions to other guests or the hostess but they don't have to! No one here would think that the hostess would keep all of the leftovers.

For me, it depends on whether the item has been kept at the appropriate temperature. If so, I would take home the leftovers minus any portions that others wanted. If not, I would throw out the leftovers at the event if possible and take them home for disposal if no place existed for disposal at the event.

I would never take home an open container of alcohol. That would be left with the host or poured down the sink if the event took place in a public space.

When I host, I have disposable dishes and bags that guests can use to take home leftovers.

Agree, fun2b. Even when offered, I have no interest in a hot dish that's been sitting out for hours. Green salads usually wilt when dressed.

I think we're both in Calif, it's legal to carry an open bottle in a trunk or otherwise away from the passenger compartment.

Interesting. I have never done potluck, but for a large BBQ I always sent friends home with a variety of the leftovers. A good friend always said that she always went home with more than she brought. Some might bring a side dish or dessert, which again would be divided.

Side story: When my older sister used to host Thanksgiving, she never offered leftovers to us. Yet, she was always more than happy to take things home at my house. I would usually bring two pumpkin pies. Maybe one was used. I don't know why it bothered me that she did not even offer us some to take home. In looking at this logically, after all she made the entire dinner so deserved whatever was brought, as Elmer says as a gift, but it still upset me.

Yes, Martha, sounds like it.

Typically when bringing food to someone's dinner event, it's a peripheral item. Almost always wine, or beer, or dessert, or maybe a salad. Even if some kind of main course as a pasta something, these are expected to remain. If the host says about your leftovers "please take it", the polite response is "No, it's for you or anyone else who wants some".

I went to a dinner gathering last night. A propos to what was served (I asked what I could bring when we were invited), I brought two six packs of a good craft beer. I handed them to the host when I went in and from that point forward, it was their beer.

I had an interesting experience many years ago, it was Thanksgiving and we invited a couple over for the meal but he ended up having to work the holiday so I brought my part of the meal over to their house as it was where he would come and go from. I had the turkey and most of the fixings. At the end of the meal she put MY turkey in Her refrigerator with all the things she liked and did not offer me so much as a slice from my enormous turkey nor anything else. We didn't invite them again of course. Usually I have attended potlucks at places like community centers and church basements. People just took leftovers home and dealt with them there. Depending on the person some of them would offer left overs around but not in DH's family. They are mostly on the mingy side so enough to go round is more of a problem than left overs.

In my family, potlucks are a matter of course as it is just too large for whoever is hosting to prepare all the food. And leftovers are always divvied up to any family members who want them. I typically will take home my clean and empty servng dish and various plastic or tupperware doggie bags of assorted leftovers.

With work or other potlucks, you take home whatever is leftover of your dish. Which if you are a good cook, is usually nothing ;-)

I host Thanksgiving and since I'm a vegetarian my stepdad always brings the turkey, ham and roast beef and I do all the sides. I always make enough for an army knowing everyone likes ample leftovers. They come armed with Tupperware and everyone takes their fill at the end to bring home.

My stepdad takes home any remaining meat and I keep any remaining sides and it always works out.

I think it depends. I took a fancy cheesecake over to a friends house, dinner for 6. She and the other guests divided it up and took it home.

If it's a company potluck, I take the pan home and whatevers left in it. If my coworkers wanted an extra serving to take with them....they should have "made a plate" before my shift was over.

I always ask the host/hostess if they want to keep some of the dish. But the people I socialize with, friends and family, are never shy about asking if they can take a little bit of it home with them. I'm always happy to share. I never count on any being leftover and so needing it for another meal.

Years ago when our friend group was much younger, we used to do a "leftover holiday potluck" at our house where you were encouraged to bring whatever items you had left over from your holiday meal to be added to a table full of other's surplus items that would probably have gone uneaten or eventually chunked in the garbage. Of course, it wasn't necessarily spoken but was understood that brought items were deemed to be safe to eat, had been stored properly, and so on. Since this particular group was comprised of mostly middle aged professional singles who had attended or cooked for a family gathering and then ended up with more food leftovers than they could reasonably eat, there were some interesting meals at times and was another chance for a get together without the additional post holiday stress of time consuming food prep.

As to taking a dish to a gathering, I always assume that if my dish has been scraped clean then I've come out ahead and if it hasn't then I'll take home whatever no one else wants of it. I always offer any leftovers to anyone that wants them but have found that like some of you, when I know that certain people are coming to my house that will take anything and everything whether it's offered or not, I tend to put back small portions of certain items so that wife and I can have a decent meal later without having to start from scratch. Right? Wrong? Beats me but after years of watching the same people do the same thing, doing that doesn't worry me anymore in the least.

I host a half-dozen potluck-style meals throughout the year where I prepare the main dishes and others bring a side or dessert. I can unequivocally say I don't care who ends up with the leftovers as long as those who brought dishes, leave with them. I have been on too many post-party goosechases trying to track down the owner of the red platter or the pyrex baking dish with the blue lid, etc. In my grandmothers' days, they always taped their last names to the bottom of their serving dishes so they could be returned. That doesn't happen in my circle, so leaving leftover dishes at my house means more work for me as the hostess.

If I bring a dish to another's home, I leave with it, assuming they're grateful for one less dish to clean and return.

At every family gathering, I make and bring almost everything except the main meat. I most never actually pay for any food. The hosts are always either my parents or my sister. They buy the ingredients and deliver them to my house for me to prepare. I deliver the finished goods to whoever is hosting. My parents hate leftovers. My sister loves them. So it seems to work itself out. She usually takes all the leftovers that no one wants. Of course as its not only family but immediate family, its understood that all the food/leftovers are up for grabs. I usually take a plate home for later. Rarely more than that.

My work has a potluck for Thanksgiving every year. I never partake in the food because I am leery about strangers cooking hygiene. But I still will always contribute. There is always SO much stuff that they provide those styrofoam takeout containers for people to load up before they leave. I dont know what happens to the stuff that gets left because (not that I am tooting my own horn) MY dishes are always empty. I usually bring two huge pans of mac and cheese. And MY mac and cheese is always the first to go. (Toot toot-just a little :) ) Sometimes I'll ask my mom to make her ridiculous cheesecake (its 6 inches tall) and that never has any leftovers either. I'll have to ask what becomes of the stuff that gets left behind. I understand there is a ton of it that no one takes.

If a host asked me to take the leftovers of my dish home, the polite response would be to do it, not argue with them. (Rude) If they ask or tell me to take it than it's obvious that they dont want to deal with the storage or disposal of it. If no one mentioned taking it home, I would leave it. Unless its family, I always bring things in disposable pans or on cheap plastic plates so no one has to keep track and return them to me.

...I am leery about strangers cooking hygiene.

Yes, this is me, too. Kinda neurotically, too. I don't take leftovers from anywhere.

Not even from a family dinner? Do you not eat the food served either?

I said "strangers". I cook most of the food at a family dinner, and am comfortable with my family's cooking. Just not strangers at my large workplace.

Who knows how clean or not the are? Who knows how many animals they have crawling on the counters? Who knows if they allowed their small children or grandchildren to "help" with their fresh from their nose fingers? Nope. Never that hungry.

There used to be a receptionist who worked there. She was always so put together, not a hair out of place. She offered to host the ornament exchange some of the ladies do every Christmas at her townhouse. I didnt go, but I heard the horror stories of how disgusting her house was. Stuff stacked everywhere, roaches, bathroom and kitchen looked like they hadn't been cleaned since the place was built. Bad smell. She couldn't fathom why no one ate the nibbles she prepared and served on top of a stack of pizza boxes, with old crusts molding away inside. You never know.........

Not anything I worry about. What I don't know or see I don't think about when it comes to food or cooking. Otherwise I would probably never touch any meat....or cheese or anything else that is allowed to grow mold or ripen for weeks or months or even years before ready to serve.

But then I would never remotely be considered to be a germaphobe :-)

None of my siblings lives nearby. When I visit, I will eat what they prepare but will not travel with leftovers home. I will eat what close friends prepare, perhaps asking for the recipe but not asking to take home leftovers.

For work, neighborhood, and other larger social events, I usually bypass food and just socialize. That's my own quirk, though.

I'm glad gardengal! Enjoy by all means! I'll happily refrain and leave more for the people like you who don't worry about such things. At worst, it will be my loss wouldn't it?

Feathers, my quirk too. :)

And I'm not a germaphobe, either, Gardengal. Right now, I've got a kombucha scoby and kefir grains fermenting in my office. Those things are pretty gross! I'm not sure why I don't care for food prepared by others, even at restaurants.

I don't think I'm a germaphobe either. Just a gross a phobe.

Before I retired I started purchasing prepared food for the potlucks or bringing something simple as cheese and fruit directly from the salad bar. I had a cat the shed at that time and there was no safe way for me to cook something and guarantee there would not be hair in it.

At our pulmonary rehab pot lucks, anyone is free to take some of anything home with them. We're kind of possessive - we never leave anything for the afternoon group - they bring in their own.

When everyone has taken what they want (rehab provides styrofoam plates/plastic wrap/foil) we take home whatever we brought. If we don't, the staff is left to deal with the leftovers and they're not allowed to save anything in the refrigerator, so it gets thrown out but they still must wash all the containers in which the food arrived - in a sink with no disposal and no dishwasher. So, we just take it home.

I used to belong to a church small group supper club - we did the same thing there.

Amylou, do you eat out in restaurants? Just curious. I've heard some scary stories from friends who work in them!

There is a difference between potluck and a contribution to a dinner someone hosts.

1. Potlucks are really not supposed to be massive amounts of food to feed everyone. A standard casserole or dish is taken or a single recipes worth. The idea is to bring a bit more food in total than one or one's family would consume at the event. No one expects everyone to try every single item at a pot luck. The dish and it's leftovers are taken home by the person who brought it.

2. Bringing something to be shared to a family meal is different. If you are asked to provide a side dish it is generally expected to go along with the menu or main course. If you are close enough to a person to asked to supply part of the meal they are hosting then you are close enough to ask if they want the left overs or not. Bare acquaintances asking guests to provide part of the meal are just plain rude. Host what you can afford.
   
   3. Offering or bringing something unasked for is called a hostess gift. The host may serve it at their meal or keep it for later. You would never take it back home with you. That would be beyond rude.

There is truth in each response. I think IT DEPENDS, is the answer.

In my family, we always say "before I take this home would anybody like some more?" And everybody shares their own dish before they take it home.

At work, church, or other public gatherings I bring a disposable dish and leave it, including whatever is left.

Well, I'm off to my brother's for Easter dinner at noon. I was to bring the dessert, so I'm taking a cake in the shape of a lamb laying down - not a flat cake either - so cute. Also a Key Lime pie, which when I got home it turns out it is a Key Lime Cream Cheese pie. I've never had that, hope others like it. I bought an elderberry pie too just in case.

And yes, I'm bringing whatever is left of the cake and probably the Key Lime pie. I'll leave the elderberry unless it is untouched. Can you freeze berry pies? I don't recall ever trying.

Happy Easter everyone!

This must vary regionally or from family to family. As I said above, all I've ever experienced is that anything brought is a gift to the hosts, no matter the occasion, the attendees or the meal plan. If you brought flowers (frequently done, whether with family or friends) would you take them back home when you leave?

My experience is that it's not done. It would subject the person with a "It's mine again now" attitude to criticism for bad manners, whether publicly or behind their backs.

Edit to add- when the host(ess) says "Please feel free to take your xxx home with you", the message is - what you brought sucks, we'd just throw it away. You must like it so it's yours.