Cooking for Crowds

Merry White is professor of anthropology at Boston University. Her books include Coffee Life in Japan and Noodles Galore. She teaches anthropology courses on food and social change, and has been a caterer, cookbook writer, and food journalist. She received Japan's prestigious Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, for her distinguished achievements in promoting Japanese culture. Edward Koren's acclaimed drawings have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and many other publications. He has illustrated many books, including Poems I Wrote When No One Was Looking. A new edition of the classic cookbook for groups of six to fifty guests When Cooking for Crowds was first published in 1974, home cooks in America were just waking up to the great foods the rest of the world was eating, from pesto and curries to Ukrainian pork and baklava. Now Merry White's indispensable classic is back in print for a new generation of readers to savor, and her international recipes are as crowd-pleasing as ever-whether you are hosting a large party numbering in the dozens, or a more intimate gathering of family and friends. In this delightful cookbook, White shares all the ingenious tricks she learned as a young Harvard graduate student earning her way through school as a caterer to European scholars, heads of state, and cosmopolitans like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. With the help of her friend Julia Child, the cook just down the block in Cambridge, White surmounted unforeseen obstacles and epic-sized crises in the kitchen, along the way developing the surefire strategies described here. All of these recipes can be prepared in your kitchen using ordinary pots, pans, and utensils. For each tantalizing recipe, White gives portions for serving groups of six, twelve, twenty, and fifty. Featuring a lively new introduction by White and Edward Koren's charming illustrations, Cooking for Crowds offers simple, step-by-step instructions for easy cooking and entertaining on a grand scale-from hors d'oeuvres to desserts. "[Merry White's] book, made up of recipes she collected as the caterer for the Harvard Center for European Studies, suggested a new way of entertaining, with self-serve spanakopita, petite shrimp quiche and that savior of the anxious cook, the casserole that can be made a day ahead. Edward Koren's woolly illustrations set the tone: vegetables are our friends, and food tastes best in groups. Even though pesto and vindaloo are no longer exotic, during the holidays her attitude (and her meatballs) may be what every stressed-out host needs."---Alexandra Lange, New York Times "Not just enormously charming but useful, full of sturdy recipes that can still seem mildly exotic no matter how much we flatter ourselves at the sophistication of our palates. . . . This is more, that is, than an artifact of Brooklyn avant la lettre. It's full of practical dishes and tricks you'll call your own, like tossing fresh-roasted almonds in maple syrup to serve on ice cream."---Corby Kummer, The Atlantic "Recipes ahead of the curve 40 years ago--dirty rice, pork vindaloo--remain au courant; others--Swedish meatballs, Charlotte Malakoff au chocolat--exude a retro '70s vibe that's also au courant. Prep details for six, 12, 20 and 50 servings of each recipe are provided. Practical advice abounds, including not to multiply powerful spices like other ingredients. . . . [Cooking for Crowds] remains a boffo resource for those hankering to make chicken Bengal for 12 or baklava for 50."---Anne Kingston, Maclean's "If you're looking for a cookbook that will help you serve a crowd this holiday season, this is a great book for you with plenty of variety. If you're wanting an interesting read about food culture changes, this is also interesting, seeing how commonplace some 'exotic' ingredients from the 70s are now."---Amy Phelps, News and Sentinel "Charmingly illustrated with impish anthropomorphized vegetables and critters by cartoon