Potluck Lunch @ my office

by Vin · March 8, 2016

Potluck

We had a Pot’luck’ lunch in our office last week. When I mentioned it to few of my friends and relatives, they were curious as to why it was named ‘POTLUCK’. Did we get lucky to get some special food? or is it that some lucky person got the maximum food? This got me thinking and I searched online.

noun: potluck[1]

a situation in which one must take a chance that whatever is available will prove to be good or acceptable.

“he could take pot luck in a town not noted for its restaurants”

North American

a meal or party to which each of the guests contributes a dish.

There were a lot of references to Potluck but the following one is interesting.

According to one source[2], the word can be traced back to Middle Ages in Europe. ‘Potluck’ supposedly came from the practice of keeping leftovers of meal in pots. These pot would be kept warm. This was particularly popular in the inns of that time. When people came by for food, they had to be lucky to get something good from the pot. It was a meal that had food available that was the ‘luck of the Pot.’

One of the original meaning of potluck, meant a meal with no planned menu. So an unexpected guest might have to accept pot luck instead of a meal planned with the guest in mind.[3]

But our modern day potluck is not done in the fashion of olden days.

Our Lunch

Our Potluck was a sort of pre-planned, team food event [In this case Lunch]. We made a list of everyone and got another list of what all they can bring from home such as

Starters
Rice [Plain & Variety]
Chappathi/Roti
Different Curry
Cakes & Sweets

Everything was covered, and on the day of the potluck, we blocked some seats in our cafeteria. The whole meal was a treat in itself. People from different backgrounds got a wide variety of food. Everything was delicious. And for people like me who stay in PG [as a paying guest], any home-made food is like divine nectar. 🙂

The only problem we had on the whole was, since people were so enthusiastic to bring food and so a lot of rice items were wasted. We gave it away to the cafeteria staff. But still it was a lesson for us to plan carefully for next time.

Few pictures from our lunch…

Potluck Lunch