Hors d'Oeuvres

 

I grew up in a very blue collar household, a meat and potatoes household where a term like hors d’oeuvres would have been as out of place as a soufflé. In fact, I think learning the world hors d’oeuvres was part of my introduction to the idea that a larger world lay somewhere beyond the confines of my small suburban home. It sounded exotic, mysterious, and propelled me into what has become one of my many hobbies.

The literal translation of hors d’oeuvres is “outside of the work”, a term that doesn’t sound like it has much to do with cooking until you consider it references the small dishes served before or “outside of” (hors) a meal (the oeuvres).  The French claim hors d’oeuvres but they borrowed the concept from the early Greeks and Romans. In ancient times, wealthy Athenians would offer their guests an array of small dishes to begin a meal. These most usually contained containing garlic, fish and other morsels meant to enhance the meal to come. Similarly, the Romans began their extravagant banquets with sausages, eggs, shellfish, vegetables, herbs and olives.

Volume 2 of the Gourmet Cookbook elects to discard all this history and background, sticking to the remark that “even the most modestly situated French family will begin luncheon with hors d’oeuvre…” Perhaps the Greeks and Romans were too swarthy for the waspy 1957 sensibilities of the time. After all, only a dozen years before the US had been embroiled in a war in which Italy was an enemy. The omission seems odd when the authors decided to go back to biblical times in their search for wine quotes.

When I think back on my childhood (mind you, that was in the late 60’s and early 70’s), I can’t remember a single person who served hors d’oeuvres. I remember a lot of chips, bean dip, and eventually salsa, but no trays of savory meats and vegetables brought to me on a tray.

Enough dwelling on the times, the Gourmet Cookbook lavishes the subject of hors d’oeuvres with 45 pages and the recipes range from mundane to bizarre. Consider the following:

As much as I'm enjoying making fun of this cookbook, I don’t want to give the impression all it contains are disgusting recepies that I would steer clear of unless threatened. Gourmet offers a lot of staples, recipes I would try such as: