Put Down That Pie and Step Away From the Buffet

Jacob Sullum | February 14, 2005

Four years ago the Indiana legislature accidentally banned potluck dinners. The law, which requires "certified food handlers" for any meals served to the public, does not include exemptions for churches, fraternal organizations, and other nonprofit groups that invite members to bring meatloaf, macaroni salad, and pie to communal events. The Indianapolis Star reports that "word on the new law generally hasn't spread to the church halls across Indiana, so many Hoosiers could be committing an illegal act today when they pass the whipped Jell-O. 'Technically, yes,' said Scott Gilliam, director of the food protection program for the Indiana State Department of Health." Four bills have been introduced to correct the oversight.

[Thanks to Nicolas Martin for the link.]

Comments

sage|2.14.05 @ 1:50PM|#

Mr. Sullum,

Thanks for pointing this out.

However, ignorance of the law is no excuse, and I think we should throw the church grannies in the slammer.

|2.14.05 @ 2:23PM|#

Praise the Lord and pass the Jell-O salad!

|2.14.05 @ 3:02PM|#

If this stops the horror of Tuna Casserole then count me in on supporting this law.

digamma|2.14.05 @ 3:15PM|#

As Radley Balko pointed out, there's no public health justification for forcing restaurants to follow the rules but not church potlucks.

|2.14.05 @ 3:56PM|#

be careful what you ask/hope for, you just might get the opposite

|2.14.05 @ 4:22PM|#

When I was fourteen I accidentally gave members of my congregation food-poisoning at a potluck supper. Everybody kept complimenting me on the "delicious bread pudding" I'd made; I was too shy to tell them it was supposed to be a pound cake.

|2.14.05 @ 4:23PM|#

I guess my becoming an atheist was a lucky day for Christianity.

|2.14.05 @ 4:41PM|#

It was Jennifer, that's why every Feb. 24 we have a special Mass to celebrate your leaving the church

sage|2.14.05 @ 4:55PM|#

My favorite line from some sitcom commercial:

"Those aren't olives, those are peaches." Yuck!

|2.14.05 @ 5:33PM|#

every Feb. 24 we have a special Mass to celebrate your leaving the church

Except that I became an atheist in the summertime. Once again, organized religion steers its sheep in the wrong direction!

|2.14.05 @ 7:48PM|#

Funny how they decided to pass exceptions instead of getting rid of the stupid law. It's almost as if they think they think of everything. Oh, wait...

|2.14.05 @ 8:29PM|#

Remember that great bit of dialog from The Odd Couple -- Felix offers his poker-playing pals something from the fridge: choose either the brown stuff or the green stuff. "What's the green?" "It's either very new cheese or very old meat."

|2.15.05 @ 6:11AM|#

Any oppressed Hoosier churches can proclaim that their potlucks are "Communion celebrations" and the First Amendment will provide the exemption.

When I was a kid, and enrolled by the folks as an RC, we had "communion breakfasts" several times a year. 500 people crammed into the church hall scarfing down flapjacks and sausage, all of them famished, `cause they hadn't had anything to eat since the previous evening. (Per pre-Vatican II rules, later relaxed to a 3-hour and eventually a 1-hour fast.) That was usually a good time, until you got maple syrup on your Sunday Suit. Somebody like the K of C would run it, and they'd bring in some jock on the level of Ed Kranepool to give a speech to wow us kids.

Seriously, this sort of regulation is an attack on the Little Platoons that would make life liveable in a minarchist society. It is no wonder that minions of the state outlawed it, if only by a reptile-brained reflex.

Kevin

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