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Party Etiquette

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Bringing food to a dinner party (unless discussed beforehands) is low-class coded. So is taking back the wine you brought. It’s especially low-class coded to bring food and put it on the laid table, rearranging things on it to make space. I’m talking about dinner parties outside the family circle, of course.

The poster mentioned in the comments that she sometimes brings a bag of popcorn from “a random corner store” to a SF dinner party. I feel vicarious pain for this sweet, simple-minded person who has no idea how very country bumpkin she looks to the hosts.

17 responses to “Party Etiquette”

  1. Avi Avatar
    Avi

    She says she’s from New England. Apparently they do things differently there.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      It’s not an issue of geography. This is a class issue. I know it’s absolute heresy to talk about social class in America where it’s somehow magically supposed to not exist but it’s what this is.

      Bringing food to a party is a gesture of recognition that food might be scarce and your hosts need to be compensated for feeding you. It’s a lovely tradition of social classes where hunger exists or has recently existed. But for people who have been outside of that reality for several generations, the custom looks fuddy-duddy and vulgar.

      My parents are from these two social classes and I’ve observed these tensions my whole life.

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  2. Avi Avatar
    Avi

    It’s a very perceptive explanation and it makes sense. Thank you.

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  3. Stringer Bell Avatar
    Stringer Bell

    Have you read Paul Fussell’s Class: A Guide Through the American Status System? Excellent excellent book, and quite relevant even now, 40 years after it was published.

    It’s pretty funny, too.

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Oh yes, what a great book. Put university library was going to destroy its copy and I managed to rescue it and bring it to my own personal library.

      Liked by 3 people

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    2. oldcowboy3 Avatar
      oldcowboy3

      LOL ;-D

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  4. Occasional Reader Avatar
    Occasional Reader

    If it’s a group I don’t know well, I wouldn’t show up empty handed but also wouldn’t bring food. Most of the time, I bring flowers……And I would never bring back a bottle I brought with me!!!!

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  5. Avatar
    Anonymous

    In Chicago, among working class people, we always bring a hostess gift unless it is a pot luck dinner. The gift is usually small. My poor grandmother loved to have people to tea but because she never ate sugar, she would pawn off the hostess gifts that she received of chocolates and cookies onto our family. When I moved out West, I was taken aback when hosts tried to give me back my gift when I was leaving because it was unopened. The popcorn the poster mentions isn’t meant for the party. I read that the best hostess gift is a book of postage stamps. Never tried it

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Forget postage stamps. An actual book, that’s a great gift. If such a custom existed, I’d start throwing dinner parties.

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  6. methylethyl Avatar
    methylethyl

    I always thought it depended on whether or not it was a potluck. Not that I go to a lot of parties. If potluck: bring food. If not: bring flowers.

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  7. Avatar
    Anonymous

    In the south, its not really about that. There seems to be three types of dinner parties here. There is a more fancy one, and its obvious which ones they are. Those are fully hosted and you don’t bring food. Although it is fairly common to ask if the host wishes you to bring something. Typically meaning some type of specialty dish that your family is known for making or a dish you know the host particularly enjoys.

    The second type is a holiday party or similar parties in which case while someone is the host and its not necessary for people to bring food, it is however a custom for folks to bring food to share even if not requested. It’s not a (the host might run out of food,) but rather a I’m excited about this party and want to help make it even better.

    The third type is simple gatherings, game day parties, random get togethers, etc. In this case someone is the host, and while they will likely provide the food, it is extremely common for folks to bring food and drink as well. In this case its a mix of stuff they want to eat/drink and aren’t sure will be available, and stuff they made/purchased specifically to share with their friends and family.

    Now that being said, in all three cases when you leave you typically offer the host and whatever guests are left the remains of what you brought. Some might say yes, some might say no. Most will give similar offers to send you home with extras. After the exchange you typically take your dishware, and whatever is left or being sent with you and head out after half an hour or so of goodbyes. (Seriously, trying to leave a party takes roughly half an hour if done properly. Not joking at all.)

    Its kind of hard to explain. In the South, food is a big thing. Not because of any real lack of it, but because it is so important to hospitality, and that is drummed into us from day one. Hospitality and manners are a big thing. Or at least they were. With society seemingly collapsing, we are seeing less and less. I’m not sure if that is because with broken families stuff is slipping through the cracks, or if its because everyone moves out, which is lowering the number of kin nearby every generation. Or something else entirely. Still for now, these cultural norms are still in place to enjoy.

    • – W

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  8. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “taking back the wine you brought”

    That is defnitely low class (as is bringing food when it wasn’t made clear in the invitation that it’s expected …. though in that case it’s not a dinner party per se and it’s something else).

    A small gift for the hostess is always okay (except, I think, for the highest social class who don’t give gifts as a rule).

    In the US ime you bring a bottle of wine and present it to the hostess who puts it away for a future occasion. In Poland it used to be that if you brought any kind of alcohol it would be opened immediate to be shared with the guest (okay if it’s liqueur but not so good with wine…).

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    1. Avatar
      Anonymous

      Small gift as in flowers/chocolates or something permanent? Because the second would be weird and presumptuous in Romania – you *can* bring a gift on a 1:1 visit, but dinner parties are by their nature involving people of different levels of closeness to the hosts, and it’s a faux pas to bring attention to that.

      Alcohol will be often shared with the guests but not immediately/mandatorily so – just imagine a 12-people dinner party where everybody brings a bottle lol. If you don’t open it

      And food would be incredibly rude no matter the social class – you’re implying that the host can’t feed you. Pretty much the only cases I can imagine food being brought in from the outside outside 8-bed student/army dormrooms or a thin layer of under-30 very Americanized people who don’t give a shit about social conventions are very niche stuff. For example, one of my mother’s friends when I was growing up had a bit of an obsession with baking, so if one of her close friends threw a dinner party and invited her, she’d handle the desserts, but it wouldn’t be her showing up at the party with a bunch of casseroles (would’ve looked horribly rude to anyone not in on her special interest) but her showing up 2 days earlier at your place and baking the stuff out of ingredients you bought.

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      1. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        I haven’t hosted in years but I still remember a nice, well-meaning friend ruining my very pretty table layout by pushing everything around to make space for her Tupperware container.

        If you don’t understand, you just don’t understand.

        Of course, anybody under the age of 5 and over the age of 80, I’d find the Tupperware container cute. But between those ages, sorry, not cute.

        There are also people who, at a restaurant, take your unclaimed leftovers back home with them. Mind you, I said your leftovers, not theirs. I know somebody who routinely does it, and believe me, this is a wealthy person. It’s not an issue of having no food at home. I’m now afraid to leave anything on my plate when we go out because it embarrasses me.

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      2. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        “Because the second would be weird and presumptuous in Romania”

        In Poland it would be flowers or chocolates, maybe in some cases a small tchotchke (like a special candle), traditionally elephants are signs of good luck (don’t ask me..) and so small elephant figure isn’t out of the question. Certainly nothing utilitarian or hard to get rid of by gifting to someone else.

        “showing up 2 days earlier at your place and baking the stuff out of ingredients you bought”

        The mother of a friend (famous for her pierogies… really, world class) became wary of being invited over to friends after a few times of showing up and finding a kitchen full of ingredients…

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  9. oldcowboy3 Avatar
    oldcowboy3

    We were raised that the hostess organised her party while her husband and friends tried to maintain behavior. There was some class difference but it was not hard and fast. The annual neighbourhood outdoor potluck took place about now: the weather was predictable,the evenings were warm, the tree frogs were singing, and there were few mosquitos. My wife was telephoned “requests” including her honey mead(~20% raspberry flavored melomel champagne), my brownies(standard recipe but European chocolate), and our smoked salmon(“bluebacks”, young coho still eating shrimp) plus guitar and pipes to add noise ;-D

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    1. oldcowboy3 Avatar
      oldcowboy3

      Had to add that the host “requested beer nuts” which we made with hazel nuts ;-D

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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