Canapés.
If this be so, instead of the elaborate service à l'Italienne, a
single cold canapé, if very carefully composed, may be placed
upon each guest's plate as a prelude to the dinner in the style
of the oyster service. Of the two this practice is decidedly
preferable at a dinner party.
Cut some thin slices of stale brown or white bread, butter
them with one of the fancy butters given later on in this
chapter, and cut out of them very neatly a sufficient number
of oblong pieces two inches long, and one and a half broad, for
your party—one for each guest. Now proceed as follows:—
Upon each of the pieces put a fillet of anchovy cut into strips,
with a thin slice of olive here and there to fill interstices; using
a dessert knife (silver or plated), smooth the combination over
with some pounded hard-boiled yolk of egg, dusting the surface
with yellow pepper. Garnish each canapé thus made with a
turned olive, a tiny leaf from the golden heart of a lettuce, or
a sprig of watercress. Or sprinkle over each a canopy of grated
ham, granulated hard-boiled yolk of egg, or shrimp-powder.
In like manner you can with a little forethought compose
divers canapés, using lax, caviare, sardines, fish-roe, green
butter, strips of green capsicum, or of cucumber, and garnishing
with tongue or ham cut tastefully with a cutter, grated ham, or
powdered hard-boiled yolk of egg.
In making canapés, for service before dinner, care should be
taken to keep them small. The dimensions I have given
should not be exceeded and the bread should be stale and cut
thin. An excellent plan is to cut the slices of bread (with a
pastry cutter) the size of a five-shilling piece, to butter them,
and arrange tastefully thereon the composition you have
decided upon, covering each with powdered egg or ham.
Very elaborate canapés are propounded by some authorities
on the art of cooking. These are designed in variegated
patterns, rings, or quarterings, in the style of panel gardening,
with coloured ingredients upon circular, oval, or rectangular
pieces of bread; black being provided by truffle, greenish grey