Nick Harman

It’s what your fingers are for.

‘Ooh canapés, how posh!’ it’s a line from Abigail’s Party and if it isn’t it really should be. How many times have those of us of a certain age been offered canapés, normally not nearly enough of them, and what’s more impossible to eat without redecorating the carpet?

Canapes my mother always called them, steadfastly refusing to honour the acute accent and silent ‘s’. From the pineapple chunk on a cocktail stick, to the life threatening vol au vent, canapés were the 70’s on a plate.

Maybe it’s time to think again, after all there’s nothing wrong in theory in lots of pretty nibbles, and the splendidly named Victoria Blashford Snell, along with co-author Eric Treuille may be the people to lead a revival.

They first wrote this book in 1998 but since then tastes and trends have changed and more options are on the menu. Even so V B-S sticks to her avowed policy of keeping the canapés easy enough to make and eat while still looking good and delivering a bit of a ‘wow’. Read more…