Dutch treat

A meal or entertainment in which the participants all pay their own way. It is an American term dating from the late nineteenth cen- tury and may be derived, one writer suggests, from the thrift observed in Dutch immigrants. However, there was an earlier term, Dutch feast, defined by Francis Grose (A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785) as an occa- sion when the host gets drunk before his guests (see also DUTCH COURAGE). A more recent version of Dutch treat is going Dutch, which has the identical meaning.