[Sca-cooks] Waiter service

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jun 4, 2006, at 12:36 PM, Denise Wolff wrote:

> One of my apprentices is researching the origin of the Hors de  
> ouvres happy hour that usually occurs at events just before the  
> main meal.
>
> Does anyone have any interesting tidbits I can throw at her about  
> the waiter offered platters that are passed about ?
>
> She is particularly looking into the service aspect  of it.

I'm interested to note that the Larousse Gastronomique says almost  
nothing about the history of the hors d'oeuvre (snipping some pretty  
basic stuff about what hors d'oeuvres actually are):

"...Hot hors d'oeuvres include vols-au-vent, criquettes, rissoles,  
kromeskies, fritters, fritots, etc. These are, in fact, more likely  
to be served at dinner after the soup, but they may also be served at  
luncheon.

"France has adopted and modified the Russian custom of serving an  
assortment of hors d'oeuvres as a small meal preceding the main one.  
Under the name of hors d'oeuvres a la russe, these snacks are  
arranged on trays and served to the guests at table."

I think what your apprentice is talking about has evolved into the  
standard cocktail party service, but originally I believe hors- 
doeuvres were a sit-down thing served in restaurants, similar to  
tapas, where a meal might begin with an aperitif (more recently, a  
cocktail) and a trolley of hors-doeuvres.

There are also a few references to hors-douevres and their service in  
Barbara Ketcham Wheaton's "Savoring the Past". Maybe later I'll have  
a chance to get more specific, but it suggests that hors-doeuvres are  
a seventeenth-century banquet (the furniture, as well as the meal)  
item, "spacially, but not temporally, outside of the meal."

My suspicion is that the standing "cocktail party" hors-doeuvre  
service immediately before a large banquet in an adjoining room, is  
essentially a form of crowd control, traffic flow regulator, etc.

Adamantius



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