What exactly is a potluck
Potluck dinner, BYOB parties. What are they, why are they so popular and how to organize one easily
What is a potluck
Potluck and BYOB parties, what are they and how are they different?
Potluck dinner, also called pitch-in or shared lunches are a form of communal meal, where every guest brings a dish to be shared between all. The origins of the name are unclear, but the composition of “pot” and “luck” hints at it originally having been associated with “the luck of the pot”, a dish brought to a surprise guest. Often during a potluck guests bring homemade dishes. On the other hand the BYOB party is a newer version of BYOL (“bring your own liquor”) and stands for “Bring your own bottle” or “bring your own booze” / “bring your own beer”. This acronym is sometimes used on invitations to indicate that the hosts are not providing alcohol and sometimes restaurants write this to indicate that customers should bring their own wine (often due to alcohol selling licenses). Sometimes a BYOB party also means that guests are expected to bring alcohol, not just for themselves but also to be shared among all - just like with the potluck.
Thus a potluck is in general reserved for dishes and non-alcoholic beverages, while the BYOB party is really mostly about bringing alcohol.
Why are they so popular?
There are a few reasons that potlucks and BYOB are so popular. The main reason is that it spreads effort and costs across all the participants. Especially for students this is a popular way of making sure that the host doesn’t end up with the “bill” for everything, which quickly becomes a problem as the event becomes large. Another reason why they are popular is that the burden of logistics is spread across multiple people. This could be the logistics of carrying dishes to a specific location, such as for a picnic or an outdoor barbeque. Everyone carrying one dish is less of a burden then one person carrying the food for everyone. The same is true for the logistics of cooking. With an invitation for 20 people, even if it is done at home, it is difficult for one household to cook that much. The solution: potluck! The last more subtle reason is diversity. If everyone brings some dishes or some drinks, they will for sure at least bring something that they like / can eat. This ensures on one hand that no one will be left out because of dietary restrictions and on the other hand it makes sure that there is a large variety of dishes. This allows for participants to exchange recipes and good ideas.
How to organize one?
There are two main risks when organizing a potluck or a BYOB party without any preparation: missing essential dishes or drinks and having too many of a kind. The classical example that everyone knows who attended a potluck is the moment when someone dishes out a third dessert, while there is no salad for miles around. What salads are to the potluck, mixers are to the BYOB party. There is less of a risk that there will be no mixers at all, but in general the ratio just doesn’t reflect what is needed for the drinks. Without organization, such parties reach a turning point where the mixers are suddenly out and everyone can guess what happens when the guests start drinking the liquor neat.
To prevent these situations, online polls such as doodle or Whocan are especially helpful. The host can set-up a poll, with options such as appetizer, entree, vegetarian entree and dessert for a potluck or mixers, hard liquor and beer for a BYOB party. Whocan.co on top of that allows the host to set a maximum number to each of these options giving additional guidance to participants on what they should bring.