Do you still take your leftovers in a doggy bag? The term used to refer to a bone or shank the chef would give a guest to take home to their dog. Nowadays, there’s no shame in keeping your leftovers, and that parcel goes by other names, like to-go box. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Doggy Bags”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, Martha. Hi, Grant. This is Jill Kern calling from Stowe, Massachusetts.
Hi, Jill. Welcome to the show.
Hi there. How are things in Massachusetts?
Well, I was in Italy recently, and we were out to dinner with our guide, and I had a question for him at the end of the meal. Some years before, when I was traveling in France, I had tried asking a waiter to wrap up my leftovers for me to take home and enjoy later, and the waiter was horrified at the time. I guess that wasn’t the thing to do in France 15 or 20 years ago. So on this trip, I wanted to find out if things had changed. I asked the guide, is it okay to take my leftovers with me? And he said, yes, of course.
So I asked, how would I say that, meaning what’s the Italian phrase? He thought for a moment and then said, doggy bag. Really? Yes. And the other two Americans at the table and I also broke out laughing at that, just like you did. And we kept talking about this because though it’s an American phrase that we all knew, none of us had used it for years. Instead, we’d just say, may I take the rest with me? We kind of came to the conclusion that maybe doggy bag had gone out of fashion because everybody knows we’re not taking the food home to the dog, and it would kind of feel wrong to put it that way.
So I was wondering what your database says about doggy bag. I don’t know, though, that the Italians all call it a doggy bag. I don’t know that they have another term for it. They probably have something fancy that sounds nice, right? Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah. Sack to pooch. I don’t know what they call it. Something like that. Probably, yeah.
There’s a crazy thing about the doggy bag. First, one of the things you were on the nose about was people just don’t use that term much anymore because, as you were on the nose about, people tend to just forego the whole illusion that they’re actually taking the leftovers home for the animal because we’re past the point where that was an embarrassment. There was a point in American culture where to admit that you were taking the food home for yourself, certainly in good restaurants, that was déclasse. That was pretty go. She just did not do that. Just as in France, that was absolutely not the thing to do.
Well, in France, you have the dog sitting right there at your feet, right? Yeah, that’s a great point. In the restaurant. And the other point is doggy bags, to take stuff home for your dog, has often meant you actually literally took a bone home. Either a bone off your plate or the cook or the chef or somebody in the kitchen would say, oh, we’ve got these shanks left over from the meal we prepared. We put them together for your dog, you know? So you literally were taking something just for the dog that was actually something they were allowed to eat or no human would touch because it’s just gnawing on bones.
There’s an interesting quote that I wanted to share. This is from a reminiscence from 1970s of the Ligon family, L-I-G-O-N. And I love this because this perfectly encapsulates the problem with doggy bags in a certain period. Nancy, now in a formal gown, stood with specially selected social leaders. The prince looked down at her and smiled, saying, I see you changed your dress. And then, would you believe, a socialite who sat only a few seats away from Prince Philip at the opulent banquet at the Fontainebleau asked for and got a doggy bag to take home, and she doesn’t even have a dog. I mean, you can just hear it, right? You have to read it in that voice. So, like, in front of the prince, they asked for a doggy bag, and she doesn’t even have a dog at this fancy dress occasion. And we’re far past that.
Yeah, we are. In fact, we’re past bags, right? I mean, you can get, like, these little origami things out of foil or foil pans with little lids and things. There’s a whole industry around making doggy boxes or takeout boxes or take-home boxes or whatever you want to call them, right? Yeah. And as a dog owner myself, in the past, I stopped taking things home for the dog because we were told not to feed them table scraps. Right. Oh. It’ll keep them out of your lap for sure when you’re eating at home if they don’t think of your food as also theirs. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, there’s this whole dog food industry. Terrible health for them. Promoting things that they’re supposed to eat.
You know, this is all pretty interesting. I bet people have other terms for this, the doggy bag or the different ways of handling it. I’d love to hear from people. Yeah, what would it be, like husband bag, wife bag? I don’t know. The leftover sounds kind of meh. Anyway, Jill, thanks for calling. We really appreciate it. All right? Thank you very much. This was fun. All right. Take care now. Thanks, Jill. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Tell us about your dog, your doggy bag, or the language you use when you want food from a restaurant. 877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.
