"Jacob's Join". The history!

This is a term not widely used outside Lancashire. This is what the website "Worldwide Words" has to say about it:

"Eric Partridge describes it as “the eating equivalent of a bottle party”, in which each participant brings along as much food as he or she is likely to want to eat, but puts it into a common stock for the communal meal.

The term Jacob’s join is well known in and around Lancashire. Eric Partridge and Nigel Rees both record that people from that English county have told them about it. However, nobody seems to know where it comes from. This is hardly surprising: there are many such sayings, often with quite wide circulations, whose origins are totally obscure. In this case, the connection is presumably with the biblical Jacob, he of Jacob’s ladder. Could it refer to the mess of pottage (a dish of stew, in modern language) for which, the Bible tells us, Esau sold his birthright to his twin brother Jacob?"

There were many Methodist villages in rural Lancashire and it is my theory that the term comes from there. These communities did not have any pubs as they didn't drink alcohol so probably socialised by organising a Jacob's Join.