Even the name is pretentious. And something of a misnomer, too. After all, a canapé comes from the French word for ‘couch’ — the idea presumably being that a garnish of some kind or other sits on top of tiny slices of bread or small crackers in the same way that tasty people plonk themselves down on a sofa.
Except that the whole business of dainty finger food — as liberated Victorians used to call it — has got so out of hand that wherever you fetch up, chefs are going to extremes to outdo each other.
During the preamble to new year, I attended one bash at a swish hotel in central London where the canapés kept coming (and heaven knows what they must have cost) but all they did was make everyone long for a proper dinner. One plate was offering teeny-weeny pieces of tuna wrapped around a sprig of out-of-season asparagus. They were smaller than an old-fashioned thimble and didn’t taste of much either. Another was posing as an early entrant to the Turner prize in the form of a minuscule slice of prawn bedecked by a squiggle of fluorescent mayonnaise and topped with three or four salmon-roe eggs.
‘And what do we have here?’ discerning guests asked politely, without waiting for the answer. ‘I won’t, thank you.’
I was famished and it would have been nice (but unacceptable, obviously) if I could have persuaded the waitresses to stand there for several minutes while I devoured seven or eight of all these little devils. As it was, I helped myself to just the one and off she went to torment other hungry imbibers. Foreplay is fine but there’s something to be said for penetration.
The canapé has become little more than a culinary affectation, an edible status symbol, and a good example of how those of us who normally subscribe to the less-is-more principle are sometimes wide of the mark.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in