The food is steamed, fried, baked, broiled, sauteed, roasted and boiled. It comes from Thailand, China, Greece, Ukraine, Italy, the Philippines and several more locales. Time to test those chopstick skills again, play the identify-that-dish game and see how well you can mangle pronunciations. It's the Pittsburgh Folk Festival in all its ethnic glory.

The annual festival, which began in 1956 with seven nationalities, now includes 35. For three whole days, the melting pot of ethnic groups separates itself to celebrate each unique culture.

Under one roof, you can sample Thai curry and pad thai, Filipino pork and chicken kabobs or Ukrainian pierogies and stuffed cabbage.

But while the Folk Festival may be just a tasty day (or two, or three) for most people, it's the product of weeks of work for those behind the booths of the 17 groups that offer food.

Anne Ayoob, 61, of Pleasant Hills, has been cooking and organizing the Lebanese booth for the past four years. She and the other volunteers work out of Our Lady of Victory Maronite Catholic Church in Scott.

She and about six other women determine the menu, fetch the supplies and schedule the cooking days. Usually about 20 or so women, and it's almost always just women, help make the tabbouleh or the hummus or whatever is needed.

This year, the Lebanese menu isn't as extensive as in the past. Instead of four or five entrees, sides and desserts, only one or two of each will be available.

"Why beat ourselves up and cook so many items?" said the Rev. Rodolph Wakim, pastor of the church and this year's spiritual director of the Folk Festival board.

After studying their past sales, the group decided to make only the best of the best -- whatever brought in the most sales. The new menu lists falafel wraps, stuffed grape leaves, hummus, spinach and feta pies and baklava.

That may seem a little sparse, but the effort that goes into it certainly isn't. Take the grape leaves.

"We're making 20 trays of them," said Mrs. Ayoob, pointing to the dozen or so stacked on the fold-out table behind her, "approximately 170 per tray."

That's a mere, oh, 3,400 grape leaves, all stuffed with a mixture of ground meat, rice, crushed mint and spices.

It took about 20 women four hours to produce those trays. Grape leaves are one of the few items that can be made a week in advance. This week, two days will be devoted to making the sticky, delicate and delicious baklava -- of phyllo dough, ground walnuts, sugar and syrup. Last night, the hummus and falafel were to be made. How much hummus?

"We will probably make two big barrels of it," said Mrs. Ayoob, holding her hand 3 feet off the ground to demonstrate what she meant.

The spinach and feta pies are made by PitaLand, which also supplies some of the ingredients for other dishes.

Buying supplies is a parishwide effort, Mrs. Ayoob said.

"Two or three weeks before [the festival], we put up a Giving Wall outside. We put the products we need on there -- donate 10 pounds of rice, donate cash to buy vegetables -- whatever product we need to make the food, we put on the Giving Wall."

They wind up with $35,000 worth of food -- for $2,000 or less.

Helping cook the 100 pounds of meat and more are, as Mr. Wakim described them, "the backbone of the Folk Festival" -- women mostly in their 70s who have been involved with the festival for decades, some since its inception. Their mothers and mothers-in-law cooked for the festival, performed and danced, made sets and costumes. These ladies do the same.

When they sit down to share their group's history, they all talk at the same time, over and under and around each other. It's a group effort.

Like the cooking.

Preparing food for a few thousand folks is no big deal. They spend four or five hours, rolling grapes leaves, gabbing about kids, laughing at old stories. Then their husbands and sons pack up the trays, boxes and coolers and haul them to the convention center. After three days of feeding strangers, they'll relax until the next parish dinner or festival.