Fish and seafood enhance your appetizer game
Cultures throughout the world and history have embraced fish in their starter courses
Serving small plates and finger foods before a main meal is nothing new. As far back as ancient Greece and Rome, there are references to bites of a variety of morsels meant to kick-start the appetite and make for a lengthier, more convivial mealtime. This ancient global custom of pre-prandial treats is known by all sorts of names: appetizers, hors d’oeuvres, starters, antipasto, gustus, tapas, maza & mezze, zakuski, dim sum, smorgasbord.
And fish has played an important part in much of the world’s appetizer gastronomy. The ancient Romans’ munching on promulsis or gustation — Latin for appetizer — consisted of “oysters, marinated octopus, marinated vegetables, cauliflower, onion, garlic, snails, sea urchins, salted fish,” writes Patrick Faas in his book, “Around the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome” (University of Chicago Press, 1994). Fish can be expensive, and so it makes a perfect appetizer or starter course choice — you don’t need a whole lot of it to serve small bites on a
platter.
But like me, you may think it daunting or too tricky to prepare fresh fish beautifully and serve to a cocktail party crowd or dinner group. That’s what I thought, but finding some great and fairly easy choices using fresh or smoked fish has changed my mind.
In other cultures, Swedes have traditionally featured cured herring and smoked salmon in their elaborate smorgasbords of small dishes. The French nibbled on “Anchovies (trimmed & served with oil), Sardines, (tinned, garnished with parsley & capers, covered with oil),” and pickled oysters — all mentioned as hors d’oeuvres in “The Royal Cookery Book” (1869) by Frenchman Jules Gouffé.
Squid cooked in its own ink and all kinds of shrimp recipes are common in Spanish tapas.
Zakuski is the Russian equivalent of tapas and smorgasbord, a term that can also be used for a more elaborate spread of a full meal. Cured herring, smoked fish and bright orange or red salmon caviar are often served with the requisite accessory of glacier-cold vodka.
In her book “A Taste of Russia” (Russian Information Services, updated 2013), Darra Goldstein remarks that “the near-legendary roe of the sturgeon ... is indeed sumptuous enough to serve alone as a featured first course.”
The word “appetizer” came along a couple hundred years ago in both England and the United States “simply to provide an Anglophone equivalent for the French hors d’oeuvre,” according to
worldfoodhistory.com. These appetizers, too, were often based in the sea: sometimes raw oysters or clams, other times small canapés, such as caviar on toast.
Small plate tasting at two New York restaurants a little while back inspired me to test fish recipes in my own kitchen, hoping to up my app game. One such dish, served at Cookshop, featured swordfish meatballs, which were tasty, light and scrumptious.
The other was a tantalizing Chilean sea bass caramelized in miso sauce and served on skewers at the Asian restaurant Tao. I experimented with recipes I found online that imitated these two delectable dishes, both of which worked great.
Because avocado toast is such a big trend, a recipe for an avocado canapé topped with spicy shrimp fit perfectly with the other two selections, with the bonus that it’s easy and quick to put together.
Finally, a seafood starter from the local Devon Seafood + Steak was too enticing to pass up. Although there are a quite a few steps, this is served cold, so the components can all be prepped ahead of time and refrigerated, then plated easily before serving.
The look of this carpaccio/ceviche combination is enticing, and the taste fresh and flavorful.
Choose any or a couple of these fish tapas to serve alone or with another type of starter, and you’ll up your app game, too.