Hors d'Oeuvres To Serve With Salads

Or at cocktail parties. Now that we've recovered from the clam-puff incident.

DID YOU KNOW THAT canapés are hors d’oeuvres but not all hors d’oeuvres are canapés? I have always thought the terms were interchangeable but during my recent plunge into the appetizer sections of my vintage cookbooks I discovered that canapés are usually a small piece of bread or toast with a topping.

As many of you are aware, I adore vintage cookbooks because they can often be not just a socio-anthropological skip into the past but also a source of forgotten culinary treasures.

The latest addition to my vintage library, from 1961, has illustrations by Andy “Andrew” Warhol.

But for now I’m going to say that you might want to look elsewhere for your party hors d’oeuvres and canapés. And not just because of the clam-puff disaster from last week, in which I tried to use vintage clam puffs as springboard for developing a modern version.

I’m saying it because it appears that people ate some pretty awful stuff with their drinks before, say, 1970? Oh, the canapés I’ve seen. Many different kinds of liver balls. Whipped Braunschweiger Surprise. Dried Beef Teasers. Saucy Cocktail Franks. Beef Fizz. (This is a drink made of condensed beef broth and ginger ale, over ice.)

Spread your bread squares with sparky cheddar butter frosting!

Of course, these books are also full of delicious looking “tidbits” “nibblers” “surprises” “morsels” “balls” and “puffs,” but if I’m honest with myself the clam-puff experiment curtailed my enthusiasm. I can’t risk that kind of trauma right now.

So I was especially happy when I was going through all of those food photos last week that I found the one I took years ago while revisiting some old family recipe boxes of an extremely delicious (and quite rich) appetizer I have dreamed about on and off since I was about 12: Liz Sohmer’s Cheese Treats.