How much food does 40 people actually eat?

Every host asks the same question in the same worried tone. They have been to a party where the food ran out, and they would rather throw money away than repeat it. So they over-order by about a third, and half the sabzi goes home in containers.

Portioning is not guesswork. It is arithmetic with a few honest assumptions.

Start with the plate, not the pot

One adult at an Indian buffet eats roughly 550 to 650 grams of food in total across all courses. That is the whole plate: rice, dal, two sabzis, two breads, a sweet and the odd papad. It sounds small written down and looks generous on a plate.

• Rice: 120g uncooked per guest when there is also a bread on the counter
• Dal: 180ml per guest, which is one generous ladle and a top-up
• Main sabzi: 150g per guest, per dish, when there are two
• Bread: 2 phulkas or 1.5 parathas per guest
• Dessert: 1 piece of gulab jamun, or 80g of halwa

Then adjust for who is coming

A lunch crowd eats less than a dinner crowd. A birthday party with children eats considerably less than the headcount suggests, because a nine-year-old eats about a third of an adult portion and spends most of the evening not at the table. An office lunch where people eat and return to their desks runs light. A wedding function where the food is the event runs heavy.

The number that matters is not how many people are invited. It is how many will be standing at the counter when the food comes out.

Where hosts over-buy

Starters. Almost always starters. If there is a substantial main course coming, two starters is plenty and three is a courtesy. Guests fill up on paneer tikka, then look at the biryani politely and take a spoon of it.

The other one is variety. Six sabzis for forty people means every dish gets tasted and none gets eaten. Three dishes done properly beat six done thinly, and your per-guest cost drops at the same time.

What we do with all this

Set your headcount on any menu and the total updates as you move it, along with how much notice that party needs. If the number looks wrong to you, it probably is — tell us the occasion and the time of day and we will adjust the portions before we cook, not after.