A Love Affair With Finger Foods

We all have a love affair with finger foods. The words “hors d’oeuvre” and “appetizer” are at most times interchangeable. The main difference is that hors d’oeuvres are served outside the meal and are typically finger foods, whereas appetizers can also be the first course of a meal. Call them anything you like–both hors d’oeuvres and appetizers are eaten with drinks before the main meal. Served at a party, they can be a meal themselves.

Here are a few different types of appetizers and several different ways they can be served:

Canapé	Small pieces of toast, bread, crackers or baked  pastry topped with various cheeses, an anchovy or some type of spread. They can be hot or cold, easy or elaborate.
Crudités	Raw vegetables cut into slices, sticks or pieces, usually served with a dip. For visual effect, intersperse those with brighter colors with those of more subdued hues. If the crudités are the center piece of a buffet of assorted dishes, offer several dipping options.
Dips and Dunks	These tasty mixtures are the perfect consistency, not too thin or too thick, for dipping chips, crudités and fruit.
Finger Food	Any portion of food that can be eaten with your fingers.
First Course	One or two appetizers served at the beginning of a sit-down meal. Usually a knife or fork is needed to eat these appetizers.
Hors d’oeuvre	In French, hors d’oeuvre means “outside the work” of the main meal, or bite size foods, served hot or cold, and eaten apart from the regular meal, often with cocktails. Hors d’oeuvres can range from canapés and crudités to olives and nuts.
Spread	Spreads are thicker than dips, so you’ll need a knife to spread them on bread or hearty crackers.

No matter what you are serving the question of party food quantities to prepare for your guests is as old as hosting itself. Party food planning can be a little tricky. As you will see, there are several different ways to look at it, but the bare bones answer is:

1 Pound of Food per Person for Snack    and    1 1/2 Pounds of Food per Person for a Meal

Those are average figures to toggle between a dabbler and a linebacker. Lets break them down into averages for particular kinds of parties and party foods.

Appetizers: On average, your guests will consume 5 hors d’oeuvres per person per hour for the first 2 hours and 3 per person per hour for each additional hour. So for a 3-hour long party of 10 people, you will need to prepare about 130 appetizers, a little less if the party is to be followed by a meal.

Dips: Add the total weight of the main ingredients and use the 1 to 1 1/2 pounds per person rule.

Here is another way of figuring party tray quantities needed:

ITEMS	15 PEOPLE	25 PEOPLE
Meats	3 pounds	5 pounds
Cheeses	1 pound	1 1/2 pounds
Bread	30 slices or 15 rolls	50 slices or 25 rolls
Mayo	1/2 cup	3/4 cup
Mustard	1/3 cup	1/2 cup
Leaf Lettuce	1 pound	1 1/2 pound
Sliced Tomatoes	2 pounds	3 1/2 pounds
Sliced Onions	2/3 pound	1 pound
Vegetables	1 1/2 pounds	2 1/2 pounds
Relishes	1 pound	1 1/2 pounds
Dip	2 cups	3 cups
Fruit	3 pounds	5 pounds

Festive times for sharing should not include sharing food borne illness. Here are some tips to help you serve a safe party:

• Always wash your hands before and after handling food. Keep your kitchen, dishes and utensils clean also. Always serve food on clean plates–not those previously holding raw meat and poultry. Otherwise, bacteria which may have been present in raw meat juices can cross contaminate the food to be served.
• Divide cooked foods into shallow containers to store in the refrigerator or freezer until serving. This encourages rapid, even cooling. Reheat hot foods to 165°F. Arrange and serve food on several small platters rather than on one large platter. Keep the rest of the food hot in the oven (set at 200-250°F) or cold in the refrigerator until serving time. This way foods will be held at safe temperatures for a longer period of time. REPLACE empty platters rather than adding fresh food to a dish that already had food in it.
• Foods should not sit at room temperature for more than two hours. Keep track of how long foods have been sitting on the buffet table and discard anything there two hours of more.
• Hot foods should be held at 140°F or warmer. On the buffet table you can keep hot foods hot with chafing dishes, slow cookers, and warming trays. Cold foods should be held at 40°F or colder. Keep foods cold by nesting then in bowls of ice.

No matter which your preference “hors d’oeuvres” or “appetizers” indulge in your love of finger foods.