Potluck

Recently, piano students of mine who are from Mexico brought me a wonderful gift of fresh traditional authentic tamales.  They were still hot as they were taken from the pot just minutes before they were given to me.  It was a delicious morning for me.  The sharing of good food is quite a wonderful thing and not just for the obvious fact that you have something delicious to eat.  The sharing creates a bond, a connection, even if only for a moment, using one of the most fundamentally important things in our lives.

This simple occurrence made me think back to something long ago that I hadn't thought about for ages upon ages.  When I was kid, I remember from time to time families from the area getting together at a local country church.  Everyone brought a different dish.  Potluck it was called.  Some people still know this term, but I've been surprised to find out that many more people either have forgotten or have never been introduced to this word.

The idea of sharing a communal meal with every participant bringing something that they actually made, not something bought, not something already processed, is a powerful idea.  And that's what potlucks used to be.  Of course, people don't make food as frequently as they used to.  Grocery stores have ready-to-eat meals all arranged in nice little trays that are microwave-proof.  Fast-food options are abundant.  Restaurants have carry-out meals available on the spur of the moment.  And frozen dinners are still eaten even though everyone agrees that they aren't as good as the fresh alternative.  And there's simply not much time it seems in most people's days.

The world moves quickly in a seemingly unending flurry of activity, and everyone is running to someplace in order to tick off yet another list item from their schedule.  People often feel they can't afford the time to actually make something.  And our schedules are so busy that the ubiquitous potluck seems to have disappeared from many people's experience.  To be sure, we all sometimes get together for a holiday dinner or some such.  But I am told by many people that even with those, oftentimes the food that is there is provided only by the host and more and more frequently is previously made by someone else.  I am sure potlucks still exist and I just don't hear about them, but as I said before I have been surprised to find that so many people don't know the term and haven't really experienced a true potluck.  

I remember those potlucks in my youth, dishes lined up on tables, families bringing food in whatever casserole dishes or trays or pots they happened to have at hand, the tables laden with such a variety of foods, favorites of all the families, that were all so much fun to sample.  After eating what seemed like a ton of food, adults would sit around and chat, and kids would run around outside in the dark night on the grounds around that church and then eventually drift in to eat a bit more, especially all the wonderful homemade desserts that were always in abundant supply.  My memory of those events are such they seem rather magical in my recollection.

Perhaps this is why I so enjoy preparing a feast with as many different things as I can.  I love to see tables spread with a huge variety of different things so that one can choose to focus on only a couple foods or sample a bit of everything, but there is enough there to satisfy everyone no matter what.  I used to make huge weekend morning breakfasts for my kids and we would sit around and watch a movie while we ate eggs and pancakes and sausages and biscuits with gravy and muffins and fresh fruit and more.  I loved those big breakfasts and loved sharing them with my kids.  I suppose those were our in-home version of a potluck, not that everyone brought something, but that there were so many things to eat, way more than we could all possibly consume so that there were leftovers to tide us through the rest of the weekend.

Making and sharing great feasts is a wonderful thing.  After all, a great feast is something that has the potential to make us all feel a bit more relaxed in this busy world, being amongst friendly people in the midst of tables of plenty