Are doggie bags still asked for?
Is the term "doggie bag" still used in the US and UK, and is it common to take home what you can't finish? What is the most appropriate way to ask for leftovers at restaurants to take home?
While it was very common to hear "doggie bag" years ago, the expression has become pretty rare in the last few decades. Unless there is an actual steak bone left on your plate, most people will say, "Can I please get this 'to-go'?" (US)
Doggie bag is an American expression and custom. Though it is a a regular practice in US, at an informal level, it might appear unusual in other countries to ask to take home your lunch or dinner leftovers. From my personal experience I have never seen it in the U.K., while I have often seen it and done myself in the U.S. A box for this (the food) please is a common neutral way to ask for it.
A bag for leftover food that a customer of a restaurant may take home after a meal.
The modern doggie bag came about in the 1940s. With the United States engaged in World War II, food shortages were a fact of daily life on the home front—and for the sake of economy, pet owners were encouraged to feed table scraps to their pets. But thousands of Americans also dined out at restaurants where such frugal practices went by the wayside because eateries didn't offer to wrap up food as a standard convenience. In 1943, San Fransisco Francisco (whoops!) cafés, in an initiative to prevent animal cruelty, offered patrons Pet Pakits, cartons that patrons could readily request to carry home leftovers to Fido. Around the same time, Hotels in Seattle, Washington provided diners with wax paper bags bearing the label "Bones for Bowser." Eateries across the nation followed suit and started similar practices.
However, people began requesting doggie bags to take home food for themselves, much to the chagrin of etiquette columnists who were quick to wag their fingers at the practice. "I do not approve of taking leftover food such as pieces of meat home from restaurants," Emily Post's newspaper column sniped in 1968. "Restaurants provide 'doggy bags' for bones to be taken to pets, and generally the bags should be restricted to that use." These attitudes have since softened—especially given increasing restaurant portion sizes—and most modern diners don't feel embarrassed when asking their waiter to wrap up a remaining entrée for human consumption.
However, if you do plan on taking table scraps home and actually feeding them to your pet, please read the ASPCA's hit list of foods your furry friend should avoid. Also, be aware that the doggie bag is more of an American custom. If you're traveling abroad, be sure to bone up on the dining habits of wherever it is you're visiting. The last thing you want is to be in a strange land and let people think your table manners are for the dogs.
(www.smithsonianmag.com)
The doggie bag from an international perspective:
- In the UK, it’s totally legal to ask for a doggy bag, but almost never done. A survey by the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) showed 25 per cent of diners were too embarrassed to ask, with 24 per cent wrongly believing the practice was against health and safety policies.
- In South Africa, it’s very much the done thing. Restaurants will usually offer you a doggy bag before you even ask. And some get fancy in how they present your leftovers. You might head home with your leftover steak wrapped in the body of a tin foil swan…
- In much of Europe, like the UK, asking for doggy bags is frowned upon. Again, it’s not illegal, but Europeans do expect you to eat everything that’s on your plate at that particular meal. Also, serving sizes don’t tend to be as enormous. In Stockholm, Sweden, in an effort to get more people asking for doggy bags (surveys showed 80 per cent were reluctant to ask), the Stockholm Consumer Cooperative Society (Konsumentföreningen Stockholm-KfS) made an informational video offering tips on how to make food last longer and to cut waste, featuring Swedish rap star Dogge Doggelito.
- In America, it’s legal and happens all the time. Stats from 2002 show 91 per cent of Americans take leftovers home at least occasionally, and 32 per cent do it on a regular basis. Mostly because serving sizes are too big and people know they can get two meals from one.
- In China, home to about 20 per cent of the world’s population, taking home and reusing leftovers is very common. Readers tell me there’s even a special term for a “leftovers stirfry”.
(www.sarahwilson.com)
(US English speaker) I would use it informally to refer to the practice, but not when addressing the wait service. The way I would ask this question is "Can I get a box for this?" or simply "I'd like to take this home."