Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our gatherings, we all just ask during cleanup “What do you want to keep? What do you want to take?” Doesn’t matter if you’re the host or guest…it’s all up for grabs. These parties with rules about leftovers sound stifling.

It is for the host to offer up leftovers. It may be semi-polite for the person who brought the dish to simply ask what the host prefers—this gives them the out to say “please take it with you” if they don’t want it. But ew…honestly, the only person who should discuss or offer up leftovers is the host. I can’t imagine. Some of you are honestly so ill-mannered.

Good thing we’re in different social circles then.

Anonymous wrote:At our gatherings, we all just ask during cleanup “What do you want to keep? What do you want to take?” Doesn’t matter if you’re the host or guest…it’s all up for grabs. These parties with rules about leftovers sound stifling.

It is for the host to offer up leftovers. It may be semi-polite for the person who brought the dish to simply ask what the host prefers—this gives them the out to say “please take it with you” if they don’t want it. But ew…honestly, the only person who should discuss or offer up leftovers is the host. I can’t imagine. Some of you are honestly so ill-mannered.

According to Seinfeld it’s wrong:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GiznhKTF4hA

At our gatherings, we all just ask during cleanup “What do you want to keep? What do you want to take?” Doesn’t matter if you’re the host or guest…it’s all up for grabs. These parties with rules about leftovers sound stifling.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who is bent out of shape over this should not be entertaining. When you invite people into your home you are taking on all kinds of risks that people may not adhere to your customs or have different sets of manners. They may drop something on the rug or break your grandmother's heirloom teacup. People like OP should just meet friends at restaurants.

I am always fascinating by people who revive a two year old thread with a comment like this. How did you find this thread? Were you browsing the archives and this caught your attention for some reason? Were you in this situation recently and searching online for the proper etiquette? Are you the guest in the OP and someone just tipped you off that there was a post about you two years ago on DCUM?

Anonymous wrote:around here, nobody would think anything of the person who brought something picking it up and taking it home. guess we are just low class.

i am on the bench of why leave all the leftovers for someone who probably doesn't have room to store them and can't eat them before they go bad.

<shrug>

I've observed that there are plenty of folks who aren't bothered by being perceived as being rude or low class, so if that's you, then you do you and let the chips fall where they may in terms of how others think of you.

For those who might care but just didn't know better, the way people who care about manners and etiquette would handle this would be for the host to say "oh please, take some of this home with you, we cannot possibly eat all these leftovers." Then the guest would say "oh are you sure? do you want to keep a slice or two for the kids later" (or some version of this). Then the host might agree to keep some or again demur, and then and only then does the bringer of the half eaten pie or the half consumed bottle of wine get to take it home.

Anonymous wrote:Etiquette is that she takes her food back, and you are to ask if you can keep some.

Where were you people raised?

What? No.

Anyone who is bent out of shape over this should not be entertaining. When you invite people into your home you are taking on all kinds of risks that people may not adhere to your customs or have different sets of manners. They may drop something on the rug or break your grandmother's heirloom teacup. People like OP should just meet friends at restaurants.

I look at as the polite thing to do- taking whatever you brought back home. Less I have to package up (or more realistically toss), clean out the dish, then track you down to return it. Please- just take. No one is shedding tears over the leftover scoop of banana pudding. Op you are the weird one.

Anonymous wrote:I have no idea if this is rude or not, but it’s so incredibly minor that I can’t believe it would even raise an eyebrow amongst friends.

+1. We brought several desserts to thanksgiving dinner and left the ones in the disposable pie pans and took home the leftovers that were in our good pie plates. People had several hours to eat/save what they wanted--who even would keep track of this?

I have no idea if this is rude or not, but it’s so incredibly minor that I can’t believe it would even raise an eyebrow amongst friends.

Anonymous wrote:I think this is a weird hill to die on. If you wanted to keep all the dessert and eat it, you should have asked her to leave some. Most people, at dinner parties or potlucks, don't care about keeping things someone else brought.

Exactly. People almost always take their left overs after pot lucks/family gatherings unless they're trying not to be alone with the large dessert and want to leave it. I always offer to leave portions for the host but that't it. I've never attended any kind of get together where people brought tupperware and loaded up leftovers.

My sil hosted Thanksgiving one year and she invited a couple she knew. They brought nothing. I cooked a ham. It was the first family event for dh and I after having twins so we were trying to deal with them and enjoy the get together. It was a little hectic loading everything up to go and loaded the ham in the car as we were packing up to leave. I had left a lot of ham in the kitchen. As we are trying to leave the wife of the couple who attended held us up because she was upset I didn't leave the ham. You would have thought I had kicked a kitten from the way she acted. It was so rude and we were dealing with two howling babies. No one has ever side eyed someone so hard. I stared at her for a second and just rolled up the window and we left without saying a word. People are rude!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Super tacky. You leave the leftovers with the host. I put a label on the bottom of my serving dishes. It’s easy to pick up later.

What if it's someone you don't really know well, don't see often, or don't live near? It seems kind of awkward and cheap to reach out and ask them if you can swing by for your serving dish later, doesn't it? I guess just be prepared to replace it.

Wait, what?! No, it's not cheap to ask for your dish back! That's insane.

My H's family does this and I don't mind but I'm weird about food and cleanliness.

Anonymous wrote:around here, nobody would think anything of the person who brought something picking it up and taking it home. guess we are just low class.

i am on the bench of why leave all the leftovers for someone who probably doesn't have room to store them and can't eat them before they go bad.

<shrug>

+1

This is how it works in my circle too.