Miss Manners: Can I plan ahead for leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner with my daughter’s in-laws?

[ermingarden]

Dear Miss Manners: I'm invited to Thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws of my daughter. Is it rude to take my own to-go container to bring home leftovers?

And a burlap bag in which to take home the silverware when they are finished using it?

Comments

[cereta]

...That's a new one.

FTR, leftovers stay in my fridge for my consumption. I do not give out my once-a-year special turkey gravy to anyone.

[minoanmiss]

Leave home the big purse, Lobelia.

[gingicat]

Coincidentally, my nibling asked if they could bring their dad (my sister's ex) to Thanksgiving dinner at my parents. I thought about sister's reaction, consulted my parents on sister's likely reaction, we all concluded that we won't know how sister really feels about it till they're in the same room, and therefore, we would sadly have to just send generous quantities of leftovers.

[minoanmiss]

Still tempted to suggest popcorn, but that is bad of me.

[saf]

Did you ask your sister?

[gingicat]

Why would I do a sensible thing like that?

(Nibling asked. Sister said "honestly I won't know until we're in the same room.")

[saf]

that is very funny!

[rmc28]

If I want to send leftovers home with people I will either provide the to-go containers myself, or explicitly ask them in advance to bring them along. I think it's entirely plausible that LW comes from a family culture of people getting sent home with leftovers: in my family it's not necessarily a given, but it quite often happens after big family gatherings, especially if the hosts have laid on food to the tastes of their guests that is less to their own taste. Usually though we're (re)using cleaned takeaway boxes to pack up the leftovers so handing some off to departing guests is easy enough.

I could totally imagine some of my relatives throwing a party and adding "bring a reusable box to take away any leftovers, we don't want food waste here". It's the step to assuming one should do so without any explicit mention of the idea that seems a bit much. But maybe that's how LW's family does it.

[jadelennox]

We always send people home with leftovers from thanksgiving, but we wrap up the food in clean takeout containers.

[azurelunatic]

I personally don't always know until the aftermath whether all the leftovers will fit in the refrigerator or not, never mind whether we'll want to go through that quantity of things. Then at that point I would probably announce that there will be leftovers departing and start the search for appropriate vessels (usually washed takeout containers, yup). I agree that it's best for a guest to leave a personal leftovers container unrevealed unless/until the host makes the announcement.

[azurelunatic]

Due to storage space issues and ADHD realities, we tend to limit the number of reusable takeout containers that are just sitting around in the kitchen (vs being used to store craft supplies). So it's entirely likely that we'd send things off in plastic zippy bags instead of being able to locate a spare hard-sided container.

[ambyr]

I come from a tradition where the expectation is absolutely that every guest will leave with at least a couple meals worth of leftovers (not doing so would be seen as the same level of faux pas as sending people home hungry). . . but the expectation is also that the host will supply all the containers, so I still come down on the side that bringing your container is odd.

[mommy]

That's roughly the same tradition that I grew up with. We'll gladly give guests food to take home, but they're getting our containers.

[fred_mouse]

I come from a similar tradition, which meant that I ended up taking a plastic bag on potato salad on a cross-continent train trip. I imagine, that were my grandmother still with us, that bringing your own container would be counted as a sign of love. But then, their attitude in catering was that if there was less than half of the provided food left at the end of the gathering, you had under catered, so take from that what you will.

[conuly]

LW should ask daughter's spouse if it's likely to be okay.

[minoanmiss]

This is a very good solution.

[rmc28]

Asking the daughter's spouse is definitely the right way to go, though I'd probably make it not just about leftovers but a more general "can you tell me about your family's traditions, so I know what to expect, and what is expected of me?"

[jo_lasalle]

I think this entirely depends on previous experience. If you've been there five times and every time there were tons of leftovers being sent home with people, and possibly a shortage of old plates and giveaway tupperware, bringing your own box and avoiding the dance of "how do I get this plate back to these folks" seems pretty sensible to me? I've been in situations where bringing a box would have been/was helpful to the host. (Especially in a family like mine where ordering the kind of take-out that comes in reusable boxes just isn't much of a thing.)

If it's the second visit and there's no actual reason to assume this would make the host's life easier, and this just comes out of nowhere, then it will look really odd, I agree.

[ermingarden]

Agreed – it sounds like the LW hasn't done family gatherings with these folks before.

[fox]

I feel like at the absolute outside, LW could bring a container but leave it in the car, so that if leftovers are offered they could claim to have the thing and offer to go get it rather than do the tupperware dance in the machetunim's* kitchen. But I don't know how plausible such a claim would even be.

* For the unfamiliar: machetunim, a Yiddish mass noun meaning "child's parents-in-law." (Your child's father-in-law is your machuten; your child's mother-in-law is your macheteynista. The ch is in each case guttural, kh, not the consonant at the beginning and end of "church".) I was going to say that however among people who are likely to use the word "machetunim" this sort of problem would be unlikely to come up, but then I remembered that I am the product of a mixed marriage myself (half Jewish/half Puritan, guilt and shame), so never mind.

[minoanmiss]

That is a glorious vocabulary word. *makes a note*

[fox]

You may also be interested in mishpoche (same kh sound), which approximately means "extended family" or "clan" or "kin" - it's not quite all the way out to "found family," but it includes in-laws and exes and so on; my mishpoche includes my brother's wife's sister's husband, if you see what I mean, my sister-in-law's brother-in-law (or my brother's brother-in-law, if you consider them to have that relationship, which I always have done but I understand that there are regions of English speakers where two dudes married to two sisters are not themselves brothers-in-law; isn't that interesting?), or my brother-in-law-in-law, if you'll allow it. ;-) Probably also his mother.

[ermingarden]

Yes, it should definitely be a "Oh, what a coincidence, I just happened to have some Tupperware in my trunk!" situation if LW brings anything at all.

(What an incredibly useful word!)

[melannen]

Yes, at large family events like Thanksgiving my mother has been known to not just bring empty containers for leftovers, but to bring enough for everyone at the meal to take a couple! She does, however, not bring them out until the question comes up naturally.

(I think there's also a difference in how the meals are done though - in both sides of my family, even if the hosts are doing the majority of the cooking, everybody brings at least one side or dessert. So Mom can also go "I brought containers in case anyone else wanted to take home some of the pie I brought" to start the conversation. If the hosts were doing all the cooking and providing all the food, it might be different.)

(Mom is also known to buy a dish in the host's china pattern to bring her contribution in so she can leave it with them and it'll match, but I think that's just a Mom thing.)

[tielan]

Yes, at large family events like Thanksgiving my mother has been known to not just bring empty containers for leftovers, but to bring enough for everyone at the meal to take a couple! She does, however, not bring them out until the question comes up naturally.

Yes, we do this, too. (For Christmas, b/c we don't have Thanksgiving.) Containers in a bag that gets left with our purses, and when the leftovers are offered (they're always offered; we have oodles of food because everyone brings a plate like their dish is the Only Thing That Is Going To Be On Offer For Lunch) then we have our own containers and no need for extra plastic.

[likeaduck]

(Mom is also known to buy a dish in the host's china pattern to bring her contribution in so she can leave it with them and it'll match, but I think that's just a Mom thing.)

Wow.

[melannen]

I may have overstated that: mom has a list of everyone's china patterns in her purse and if she sees yours at Goodwill or the community flea market she will buy it.

It's just that if she finds one that's a serving dish, you specifically get it full the next time you host, instead of passed to you in a cardboard box in a parking lot at random intervals like it's some kind of contraband.

[likeaduck]

I maintain my "wow". That's such a specific kind of trying to be thoughtful/helpful/generous.

[lemonsharks]

That is an amazing idea and completely eliminated the "I want my dish back" dance

[lilysea]

I think it's fine to bring a container or containers, as long as

a) it is left in the car

b) you do not mention that you have a container UNTIL/UNLESS SOMEONE OFFERS YOU LEFTOVERS

[melannen]

This column was brought up (independently of me!) at our meal yesterday, and the consensus was that it's rude *not* to bring Tupperware, as that is an insult to the generosity of the host.

*shrug emoji*

[minoanmiss]

Here's the compromise I struck yesterday: I brought tupperware[generic] as a hostess/household gift. That way they could put it away if they wanted and break it out to give out leftovers if they wanted (which is what happened.)