A communal meal where each person contributes a dish, or any meal where you take whatever food is available.
Potluck originally had nothing to do with community gatherings - it meant taking your chances with whatever happened to be cooking in someone's pot when you arrived unexpectedly. From the 1500s through the 1800s, 'the luck of the pot' referred to the gamble of showing up unannounced at mealtime. The modern meaning of organized communal dining didn't emerge until the 1930s American church suppers transformed the concept.
For centuries, 'potluck' was what happened when you dropped by someone's house uninvited at dinner time - you got whatever was already bubbling away, no special preparations! The shift to planned community meals where everyone brings something shows how American social customs transformed an old anxiety (unexpected guests) into a celebration (shared abundance).
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