Pot Luck

For some reason, I just felt compelled to mention this.

In medieval times, food was often scare. To feed themselves, neighbors and groups often worked as a group. A large pot was set on a fire. Each family brought with them what they had. This may be wild onions, produce from the garden, a butchered chicken, etc. Arriving to the scene, the family then threw whatever they brought into the pot. When it was time to serve, well, whatever ended up in your bowl was just the "luck of the pot"; thus, "potluck".

My friends and I recreated this, and it was great fun! The rules were that we brought "something for the pot, something not" and brought only what would be available in medieval Europe. Everyone kept quiet about what they were bringing. We set up the pot, threw in what we brought, and voila, we had a real potluck! It was great fun!

In doing this, you could also set themes for certain areas of Europe or even certain social classes; then, comprise a list of acceptable foods and distribute this to the participants.

In doing this activity, you may come up with some real swill, or in our case, something that turned out good! But that's just the "luck of the pot", my friends!

This was a great activity, so I wanted to pass the idea along in case there's someone out there who might find this interesting.