take potluck

1. Come to eat whatever happens to be served; also, take one's chances. For example, You're welcome to join us for supper but you'll have to take potluck, or When the flight was canceled, passengers had to take potluck on other airlines. This idiom alludes to accepting whatever happens to be in the cooking pot. [Second half of 1700s]

Example Sentences

Kissinger also had had to postpone Capitol Hill appearances to testify on such matters as the upcoming defense budget, while foreign ministers of other nations who wanted to see him had to either take potluck�as Japan's Masayoshi Ohira did last week, and missed�or else postpone visits to Washington.

Read more on Time Magazine Archive

It was not unusual for President Oscar Osorio himself to drive up unannounced to the embassy and take potluck luncheon with the Dukes.

Read more on Time Magazine Archive

Rural areas of the South or small Midwestern towns have to take potluck.

Read more on Time Magazine Archive

Every evening hundreds of disappointed latecomers must take potluck elsewhere.

Read more on Time Magazine Archive

Forced for the first time to take potluck instead of arrogantly demanding the choicest location, the Russians' exhibit stood glumly at the far end of the grounds, and attracted thousands fewer.

Read more on Time Magazine Archive