How we keep food safe for a thousand guests

The worry we hear most often, especially from families who have had a bad experience at another wedding, is whether food for 1,000 people can be cooked and served safely. It is a fair concern in Madurai’s heat. We cannot promise that no guest will ever feel unwell, but we can describe exactly what our teams do.

Veg and non-veg are kept apart from the start. Our kitchen on the Melur Road has two separate sections with their own cooks, vessels, knives and cutting boards, and at the venue we set up two separate cooking areas. Non-veg items travel in their own marked vessels and are never cooked in the veg area.

We watch time and temperature closely. Rice, sambar and curries are cooked at the venue, not hours away, and kept hot over low fire until served. Curd, pachadi and salads are made last and kept cool in steel vessels set in ice. For a lunch starting at noon, curd-based dishes are prepared after 9 am, not the night before.

Water is the other big risk. Drinking water for guests comes in sealed cans from a supplier we have used for years, and cooking water is boiled. Every server washes their hands at a station we set up before each round, and wears a cap. At the end, cooked food is not kept for the next day. Leftovers are offered to the family within the hour or given away the same afternoon, never taken back to our kitchen to be reused. These are simple rules, and they matter most when everyone is tired.