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. The modern doggie bag came about in the 1940s. Dinner guests were accustomed to bringing napkins to the dinner table because between courses it was only natural to want to clean one's mouth and hands lest one should offend fellow diners. Around the 6th century BC, they started using napkins to package foodstuffs to take home. Leave it to the ancient Romans to get a jump start on our modern conveniences. But as you're waiting for your waiter to come back with a box, do you ever stop to wonder how this commonplace dining practice started off? Unable to finish what's on the plate, you run the white napkin up the flagpole (or fork, or chopstick-whatever might be handy) and admit defeat. At some point in our restaurant dining experiences, we meet our Waterloo: that sauce-soaked rack of ribs, a plate of jumbo-sized sweet-n-sour shrimp, or that 72-ounce steak dinner you tried to eat in under an hour so the house would cover the tab.
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