The phrase hors-d'oeuvre variés means a group of diverse appetizers, a selection that may consist of two or three, or fifteen to twenty different foods, but the latter number is only usual in restaurants. For home meals, three to six hors-d'oeuvre provide a varied combination and a practical number for the cook to prepare. They may be very Simple, but they must be appetizing—vegetables, fish, or shellfish served with a cold sauce, piquant salad mixtures, canned fish, or the cold sausages that the French call saucissons. You will not need large quantities of any of them, because only a very little is served. Of course, for a buffer supper, you may increase the quantities and serve these foods as the main course of the meal, but now we are speaking only of appetizers. Consequently, a slice or two of meat, a piece or two of fish, or a spoonful of salad will suffice. If you have limited the hors-d'oeuvre to two varieties, then, of course, more of each should be served.
Each food should be arranged separately in a small serving dish or placed in a section of a divided dish, so that the different sauces remain separate from one another and from unsauced foods. A typical French service consists of perfectly plain china and glass dishes, oblong or four to six inches square, with the edge one-half to one inch high. These fit on an oblong tray. The appearance of the hors-d'oeuvre tray is considered very important. All the sliced vegetables and saucissons should be thinly and evenly cut and overlapped neatly in the dish; salad ingredients should be cut in small even pieces, cabbage in string-like shreds. Herbs, especially parsley, chives, chervil, and tarragon, used either individually or in combinations, should be finely and evenly chopped, then scattered lightly over the surface as a decoration, but never chopped hit or miss and then thrown in clumps on the food. Use only enough sauce to moisten the food and to highlight its flavor, never so much that it floats in a great pool.
Here are sonic suggestions for hors-d'oeuvre varies: sliced tomatoes, sliced cooked beets or tiny whole ones, and cooked asparagus tips, each dressed with vinaigrette sauce, then sprinkled with finely chopped herbs; sliced hard-cooked eggs, pieces of raw cauliflower in Russian dressing; cooked shrimps, crab meat, or lobster with an appropriate mayonnaise dressing; potato salad, celery salad, cabbage salad; various kinds of saucissons; and sardines, anchovies, pimientos, and pickled onions, just as they come from jars or tins. If you are fortunate enough to have one of those real gourmet treats — wonderful peas, beans, or asparagus, fresh from the garden at their peak of succulence—I would suggest serving it as a separate course after the main course, as the French do. You'll quickly discover how much more enjoyable it is that way, and how much more importance it lends to the enjoyment of the special garden-fresh vegetable.
When the meal ends with fruit instead of a more elaborate dessert, the simplest procedure is to serve the fruit fresh. Just what you should select depends, naturally, upon the season. Large fruits are washed, well dried, and chilled or served at room temperature, according to your preference, and then arranged attractively in a serving dish or basket. Sometimes, however, the fruits may be peeled and cut in small pieces, combined in a serving dish, sprinkled with sugar and, if desired, with a little liqueur. This arrangement is called macédoine de fruits. Or you might decide to make a compote de fruits by poaching suitable fruits in a light sugar syrup to which a vanilla bean and a little cum or liqueur may be added, Fears are often poached in red wine with sugar. Berries are cleaned, well drained and hulled, and served with sugar and heavy cream, passed separately. The French sometimes serve strawberries marinated in red wine and sweetened with a little sugar.
When cheese ends a meal, it is traditional to arrange several kinds of cheese on a wooden tray, a marble cheese server, or a flat plate of china or glass. Crusty French bread in a basket and Melba toast or crackers, plain or toasted, accompany the cheese plate.
The following menus, though simple, comprise the methods of cooking that we have studied in this series, and they are based on good menu-planning principles. We have gone even further and incorporated in these menus dishes that we learned to make in previous lessons. Where recipes are not included, they are to be found elsewhere in the “Primer for Gourmets,”
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