My friend Brent called them ho-dee-ohves.

We called them appetizers, small plates, and recently, expensive, fancy places, call them main dishes. :)

The phrase hors d'oeuvre comes from French and literally means "outside the work".

Originally this expression was an architectural term used in 16th-century French to describe structures separate from the main building.

The culinary use of hors d'oeuvre appeared later in time to describe foods served outside the main meal.

Originally, hors d'oeuvre was a general French term referring to secondary or auxiliary works, used across disciplines including art, engineering, and architecture, before being adopted into culinary usage to describe foods served before the main course.

The idea of serving small bites before or around a meal long predates the French term and shows up across many ancient cuisines.

In Ancient Greece meals often began with various morsels such as snails, sea urchins, and pickled vegetables.

In Ancient Rome banquets included dishes like olives, cheeses, vegetables, and even unusual items such as stuffed dormice before main courses.

Many regional traditions around the world have similar concepts, including mezze in the Middle East, antipasto in Italy, smorgasbord in Scandinavia, and zakuska in Russia.

These traditions illustrate that serving small food items before a larger meal was a widespread social and culinary practice long before the terms small plate, appetizers, finger foods, and hors d'oeuvre came into use.

By the 17th century in France, formal dining included a course called entremets—savory or showy dishes placed between other served courses. As table service evolved, chefs started serving smaller dishes outside the main pattern of courses, literally hors d'oeuvre, often as canapes (small toasts with toppings).

The first known print mention of hors d'oeuvres used in the culinary sense appears in Francois Massialot's 1691 French cookbook.

Over time, these small starters became popular in French dining as a distinct part of multi-course meals, especially in aristocratic and gourmet settings.

French culinary influence helped spread hors d'oeuvres to other European countries by the 18th and 19th centuries.

In England, a related tradition of small savory courses (often served toward the end of meals) coexisted with the hors d'oeuvre concept.

The practice of serving bite-sized foods before meals migrated with European cooks and etiquette to the United States and other parts of the world.

In the 20th century United States, hors d'oeuvres became especially popular as finger foods at cocktail parties, happy hours, and celebratory events outside of formal dining sequences.

The items served have diversified greatly, from elegant canapes and cheese selections to modern fusion bites, but the essential idea remains: small, flavorful portions meant to be eaten in a bite or two before a main course or with drinks.

Now this is not to be confused with Entrements, which literally means "between courses", like the palate-cleansing sorbets that were dishes served between the primary courses of a meal.

Today we are filled with recipe ideas to make decision making easy. With all the food that has weighed us down over the last week or so we gear up for the New Year and the New Year's Eve parties.

In January we might wax eloquently about diets and dieting, to set the year on course for the battle of the bulge. So before we need to think about that we are sharing our proven small plate ideas from our cooking classes.

Happy New Year!

Click Here To Look Around!

See the Thyme and Citrus Marinated Olives Recipe here!