Introduction to the First Edition

I was trying to live on my writing while going to graduate school when I discovered cooking for pay. I was a passable cook with some adventurousness, but I had never cooked for more than a conventional eight-person dinner party, and that in my own kitchen. I was—and sometimes still am—terrified at the thought of cooking for twenty to fifty people at a time. Somehow I managed—and now I even enjoy it. This book is the result of the pleasure and the terror, and the sometimes uneasy accommodation between the two.

The great lesson was that I can do it: I can cook a dinner for an Eminent Person and assembled guests, write a term paper, and take my daughter to her ballet classes and back. I wouldn’t do large-crowd cookery every day, but I’ve discovered enough shortcuts and efficiencies to make it work.

I can recall meals I’ve catered that almost blew my cool, such as the one for Lord Harlech and twenty-five others (individual shrimp quiches, saltimbocca, asparagus with hollandaise, pilau, salad, and coeurs à la créme with strawberries), which was somehow reheated over two hot-plate burners at the Kennedy Institute of Politics. It worked, but I wouldn’t repeat it.

The prospect of serving food to crowds usually drives most people to a professional caterer. This is an expensive and unnecessary expedient. In fact, one person with an ordinary kitchen and ordinary tools can, with little money and anxiety, produce a full meal for fifty—and still enjoy the party.

Even better, the foods that are served can be as interesting and elegant, as exotic and original, as anything you might serve to a dinner party of six. You need not rely on the bland clichés of the catered dinner, the Jell-O salads, chicken à la king, and other insults to the palate. Fear of offending motivates too many menus; the lowest common denominator of taste is much higher than one might think. When I first began to cook for large groups, I thought I had to make the predictably dull food typical of catering. The guests and I were both bored, so I was delighted to find that more adventurous dishes pleased everyone.

“Exotic” foods are not only interesting, they also provide an atmosphere of informal adventure, much the best atmosphere for eating. Most of the meals I serve are buffet-style, which helps create an atmosphere of informality. “Serving” is not something I enjoy doing, but it needn’t be an unpleasant chore when the meal is informal and exciting.

I cooked for the Center for West European Studies at Harvard University for a year, and I found that it is not an overwhelming task to do alone. During the school term, there is a luncheon for fifty people every Friday and occasional dinners for invited guests. My job was to prepare the Friday luncheons and the often weekly dinners, and my audience was a very sophisticated group of faculty, graduate students, and guests. With adequate storage space, it is possible—albeit hectic—to do a dinner for twenty and a luncheon for fifty within a two-day period. Be willing to cook for numbers you never considered before. Cooking for fifty is not more difficult, only more time-consuming, than cooking for twenty; cooking for twenty takes only slightly more time than cooking for ten.

In learning to cook for crowds, I have developed some efficiencies, some tricks to bolster my confidence. For instance, if I am nervous about a meal, I choose dishes that can be made at least one day in advance. Most of the dishes in this book fall into this category. You can usually arrange it so that all you need to do before the meal is perhaps to heat up a casserole, toss a salad (the greens can be washed, dried, torn, and packaged in plastic earlier), slice bread, and perhaps whip cream for a dessert.

Start as far ahead as you can without dragging out the job too much. The first thing to do is make up the menu and check to be sure that you haven’t planned a completely beige meal (as I did once, until I changed the dessert to chocolate and introduced a green salad), or one in which there are too many last-minute jobs. Serve only a few dishes and have them be good ones: a magnificent couscous, salad, and fruit is more than enough.

Check to see that you do not have to heat up several things at different oven temperatures at the same time. Decide which dishes can be made one or two days ahead and make a master shopping list, with separate lists for the ahead-of-time dishes. Plan to have enough refrigerator and freezer space to store ingredients and finished dishes. (I have indicated when a dish does not need refrigeration.) In cold weather I use back hall storage space to keep fresh produce and finished (but not too perishable) dishes cool. I also borrow space in my neighbor’s refrigerator, for which I hereby give thanks.

If you expand recipes from other cookbooks, you must make allowances beyond simply multiplying ingredients. Some spices are powerful enough that you should not simply multiply them as you might be multiplying everything else—use the measurements in this book as a guideline for similar recipes.

Some enlarged recipes won’t bake like the originals. It is better to make eight standard-sized pies than four oversized ones, because the timing in the oven can be more accurate. If you have very large pans, they will need more time in the oven, and perhaps be baked at a lower temperature, so that the edges don’t burn before the center cooks. Crowding also changes the timing. If you have six pies in the oven, they will take more time than two. And it is better in baking, always, to use the same depth pan for a large amount as for a small amount, rather than a deeper one.

The recipes that follow are not expensive to prepare. The same meals from a caterer, if you could get them, would cost at least four times the amount you will pay cooking by yourself (not counting your labor). The markup on retailed prepared food is enormous, as you can see from restaurant menus. A simple luncheon for fifty, consisting of a casserole, salad, French bread and butter, nonalcoholic beverage, dessert, and coffee to follow, will cost you approximately $70.00 in ingredients, or less if you use inexpensive recipes such as Swedish Meatballs (page 78), Portuguese Sausage Casserole (page 70), Joy Walker’s Chili (page 66), or Moussaka (page 84). A similar three-course meal from a caterer would be at least $6.00 a person.

Some of the most successful “crowd” meals I’ve served were nothing more than an inexpensive hearty soup, good hot bread, salad, and a dessert. Of course you should watch for specials on meats, and so on, and store them in the freezer if you have one.

It is important also to remember that celebratory dining does not require the most expensive cuts of meat; indeed, dishes like the ones in this book are better prepared with cheaper cuts. Save the tender fillet for a small dinner, when you can cook it in the few minutes it requires and when a waiting group will appreciate the care you have taken.

This book can be used in many ways. You can cook for a small group or family of six, or larger groups of twelve, twenty, or fifty people. It is often a wise idea to try a recipe for six before you make it for fifty. You will notice that in spicy dishes the “heat” is often slightly reduced in the amounts for fifty: in such a large group, I find it better to play it safe.