Now, it can be intimidating enough to bring food to a potluck in San Francisco. I know my husband was tweaking me along these lines before we attended an open house at the Devil’s Gulch Ranch (Marin Co. ) where visitors were asked to bring a dish to share. “These are foodies, you know. Are all your ingredients up to snuff?” I made the pepper salad, the recipe for which can be found on my recipes page, and no, the peppers were not labelled organic. The atmosphere there, however, was very informal and friendly and we didn’t have anyone looking my contribution up and down. But after reading the above I couldn’t imagine putting myself through the kind of stress to participate in Coach B’s event. The picture that immediately comes to mind in approaching the pot luck table is of Elaine Benes in the ‘soup nazi’ episode of Seinfeld putting her offering down and taking 3 genuflecting steps back before a-waiting the verdict of appropriateness. I also have to chuckle at the etiquette point of how much a person should take. “Your dish is not worthy. And you are taking too much of it!”

I could also poke holes in some of this list’s more strenuous demands, i.e. much food is genetically modified, technically speaking, when you consider breeding, pollination etc. And he goes on to say DO bring things that are seasonal but DO NOT bring anything with any sugar or sugar derivatives (isn’t fruit?) and to also avoid bringing pre-cut fruit. Then goes on to say citrus (not so seasonal in Bay area right now? and also a cut fruit?) is better than vinegar on salads. Micromanage if you must, but be consistent, please!

But lest I sound too hard on Coach B. his guidelines make me think about whether we really should be working on setting down some new food rules to reflect a lot our food concerns and the movement to eat better and know the pedigree of where our food is coming from. Most people seem to want something on the books that’s better than the status quo. We do need corporate Agribusiness to take our preferences seriously too – so what would it take? At some point, some Rabbis and Imams sat down and made laws around how we should eat things and what is good and bad for the health of society. Now we just take the existence of those laws (or leave them) in stride because these rules have been around for so long but at some point the Rabbis who told people no more ham and cheese sandwiches must have been pretty unpopular. And also, apropos of ‘potluck etiquette,’ there are definitely people out there who need to be told how to behave, and it is a noble effort to state some expectations for a big public event.

Why is it that we American adults really hate to be told how to behave and chafe at someone who has the foolhardiness to attempt it? Lord knows, we could do with some better behavior reminders in this town, but none of us like to be scolded as if we are children – and that goes for our children too, for that matter.  So, Coach B, bless you for trying, but next time remember that you draw more flies with honey than vinegar; and I don’t think I want to go to any potluck where well-intentioned cookies are considered to be in bad taste.

Janice