Two Hundred
by Beatrice · 18 June 2026 · Cooking, Food & Lifestyle
Beatrice caters a wedding for 200 in 2011. She's never cooked for more than 60. For two hundred there's no conversation with the food after a point — you've already had it. The bride's mother cries at the quenelles. Beatrice doesn't tell her that's not possible.
I catered a wedding once, in 2011, for a family from Villeurbanne. Two hundred guests, July, outdoor reception. I had never cooked for more than sixty at one time and I said this to the mother of the bride when she asked. She said: is that a no? I said: no, it's information.
The mathematics of scaling a recipe are straightforward. What's less straightforward is that cooking for two hundred is a different activity than cooking for six. For six you can correct as you go. You taste, adjust, respond. For two hundred you commit in advance and then you execute. There's no conversation with the food after a certain point. You've already had it.
Everything came out well. Not perfect — I knew which dishes had lost something in the scaling — but well. The mother of the bride cried when she tasted the quenelles and said they were exactly like her grandmother used to make. I didn't tell her that wasn't possible, that her grandmother's quenelles were her grandmother's and mine were mine. I said I was glad. That was the right thing to say.
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