Hosts get cookout etiquette wrong every single summer, and it rarely has anything to do with the grill. Among Americans with summer hosting plans, 34% now expect guests to bring their own food rather than supply everything themselves. When a host asks guests to help cover it instead, the request lands differently depending on which generation is hearing it. Cookout season will continue to expose these same gaps year after year. The fix isn’t more etiquette everyone already knows; it’s hosts and guests finally agreeing out loud on the parts they’ve always just assumed.