Just checking-if you were planning a weekend with friends at someone's house and I said

[BertrandRussell]

"shall we do a pot luck supper on
Saturday night?" what would you think I meaner?

I first heard this phrase on an American forum. If your mates are from the UK, it will be new to them.

i wouldn't really know what it meant, no.

at a guess, i'd assume it meant digging in the freezer for frozen leftovers (you know, when you pull something long frozen out from the bottom but the tupperware tub is all frozen so you can't see what you're going to get).

but that would be a guess.

Not american, and never watched any american tv show where i might have heard it, that i recall - sounds like the posters who mostly know what it means have picked it up from there.

Safari suppers are great fun. We start with about 30 couples for drinks and canapés. The host gives out envelopes with the house where each couple is heading off to for the starter. Next host hands out envelopes with details of where you are going for the main course. Then everyone back to one house for pudding and cheese. Has to be timed strictly and houses need to be quite close together.

Oh it's you @BertrandRussell I didn't notice! I love your posts (like with the at home cards) you're like a little glimpse into a rather fancy but very lovely world!

I've never heard of it but there are lots of phrases on mn that I never hear in RL so maybe you picked it up here?

I'd have guessed you'd not had the chance to shop so it'd be whatever you had in.

A Safari Supper is when you go to one house for a starter prepared and served by the occupants of that house, to another house for the main course prepared and served by the occupants of that house and finally for pudding to another house where the pudding is prepared and served by the occupants of that house and then possibly on for coffee and liquors at another house although the pudding providers could also be the after dinner coffee providers.

The tricky bit is all the ones cooking are also in the group going from house to house meaning whatever you are cooking must be something that can be left unattended!

I thought it was going to be an outside round the campfire thingy with roast wildebeest or something.

I've never heard the term used in the UK but know its meaning due to a sibling who lives in Canada.

Orange abd Winky i’m a southerner who has defected to Yorkshire - via S Wales and the NE- i’ve only ever heard “Fuddle” in Yorkshire.

safari supper is where you have starters in one house, and then move to another house for main course and then to another house for desert

oh whoops others had already explained

We’d call it a Jacob’s join in Lancashire.

A safari supper sounds like a pain in the bum! OnceI’ve got my coat off & started eating I don’t want to be galavanting around town looking for my next bit of food! Good job I’m not posh enough for this type of thing

I’d be torn between thinking you meant everyone bring a dish and we make a meal out of whatever randomness people have brought, or thinking it was to cobble something together out of whatever was in the fridge/freezer. I’m still not sure.....

And weirdly I’m yorkshire born and bred and have never heard anyone refer to a fuddle! I’d definitely be confused by that!

I've been to pot luck suppers so I knew what it meant- you end up with 27 bowls of potato salad and some lettuce usually!
I like the idea of it, it can be fun but it needs a bit of guidance from the host, or it you just get the potato salad situation.

As I have American friends, I've contributed food to pot luck lunches and suppers before but I do think it's an American term because I think I had to have it explained to me the first time I heard it tbh!

Normally pot luck is cobbled together out of what is in the fridge, or 'freezer surprise' Chez Sparkle.

It's American. In fact, I can't remember the last time I went to a dinner party that WASNT a pot luck here!

I love them, especially if there's 30+ of you.

If there's only 3-5 going we'd usually discuss whether to bring starch, meat, dessert kind of thing.

I would not have known what you meant and would have asked you to clarify.

30 couples!!! I had 30 people in my house for a get together on the weekend and it was a major effort making sure everyone had plates/chairs/glasses etc

I'd have known what you meant.

PeachCokeZero I declined the invite when I found out what was expected, I can't be doing with getting comfortable in one place then shuffling off to another whilst simultaneously worrying about what is going on in my own kitchen. The timing issues alone made me break out into a cold sweat.

Yorkshire folk I spent 7 years in Yorkshire and the first time I heard the term fuddle was when we moved to the South West!
However, it does seem that a lot of people in the south west have northern grandparents.

‘Pot luck supper’ seems to be a US thing that is making its way over here, meaning everyone bring a dish.
However, ‘come and take pot luck with us’ used to be a common saying in the UK. You often find it in books written before WW11 - a time when the man of the house wouldn’t know what the servants were giving them for lunch or dinner.