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Hors D'œuvres
A LARGE dinner may begin with one of the following hors d'œuvres :- Huîtres au naturel. Oysters, served in the shells, with lemon, and slices of brown bread and butter.
Saucisson de Bologne, de Lyons, etc. Thin slices of Bologna, Lyons, or other sausage, garnished with small salad.
Sardines à l'huile. Sardines in oil; aux tomates, in tomato sauce. À la Royale, they are served on shred celery, seasoned with oil and vinegar, and are garnished with strips of beetroot, gherkins, and white of hard-boiled egg.
Anchois. Anchovies ; à la Diable, devilled. À la Burlington, small fillets, seasoned with oil and vinegar, are rolled and served on slices of hard-boiled egg, garnished with shred lettuce; garnished with capers and anchovy butter, they are à la Victoria.
B Olives. Olives; farcies, stuffed. À la Metropole, they are stuffed with green butter, set in little moulds of aspic, and served on slices of Bologna or other sausage, garnished with green butter.
Caviar sur croûtes. Caviar spread on buttered croûtes. Garnished with prawns, it is called aux crevettes. As Blini au caviar, it is spread on buttered crumpets, well seasoned with lemon juice.
Lax sur croûtes. Lax on buttered croûtes.
If more variety is required, many of the dishes given in the chapter on savoury entremets will be found suitable.
Hors d'œuvres are usually served in very small fancy plates, one to each person. (3)
A page of cold salty things to put on the table before the soup, and the only part of the book where tinned and bottled food appears without apology. The book is specific that the course belonged to a large dinner; a smaller one began at soup.
- What the course isNot a starter in the modern sense but a plate of pungent cold mouthfuls, one small fancy plate to each person, closer to Italian antipasto or Russian zakuski than to a first course. Nothing is cooked to order and nothing is hot.
- LaxLax is nothing more exotic than salmon, from the Scandinavian and north German word, and in this context cured or smoked salmon laid on buttered fried bread. The word survives in English now only in lox.
- Blini on crumpetsThe page tells you to spread caviar on buttered crumpets and call it blini au caviar. It is a frank substitution of an English thing for a Russian one, written down without embarrassment, and it works.
- Green butterButter pounded with herbs, or with parsley and spinach for the colour, used here to stuff the olives and then to garnish them. It keeps a week in the refrigerator and is the easiest thing on the page to make.
- Tinned fish, dressedSardines in oil or tomato sauce straight from the tin, arranged on shredded celery with beetroot, gherkin and the white of an egg. The tin does the cooking and the hostess does the composition. That division of labour is the whole idea of the course.
- Stray marksThe lone capital B before the olives, and the (3) at the foot, are printers’ marks from the edges of the page rather than part of any dish.
The hors d’œuvre was a late arrival at the English dinner and this page shows it still being treated as optional — something a large dinner may begin with, if more variety is required. What it brought with it was foreign and salty: Bologna and Lyons sausage, Russian caviar, cured northern salmon, Mediterranean olives and oil, anchovies and sardines out of tins. The labels attached to them are the ordinary furniture of the period’s menu language, à la Royale, à la Burlington, à la Victoria, à la Metropole, drawn from royalty, aristocracy and the dining rooms where a hostess would have met these dishes in the first place. The closing instruction gives the game away: very small fancy plates, one to each person. That is a private house reaching for a restaurant’s effect.