Finger food platters can be found not just in cocktail parties, but also at business lunches, birthdays and many other catering events. Being small and easy to eat while mingling is partly what makes it a such a success. The small bite-sized pieces are easy to eat and cause no mess, allowing you to stand or leaning against furniture. All the while leaving your other hand free so that you can meet and greet people.

These days, no event menu is complete without canapés or appetizers. They don’t have to be excessively fancy, they can be something as simple as cheese and ham on a stick or complicated little combinations that lead to an eruption of flavours in your mouth. Let’s have a look at the origins of finger food.

You might now wonder. Where did finger food come from? One can say that we as humans have been eating using our hands and that finger foods may have existed since a very long time. Surely some events and cultural revolutions have shaped the way we eat finger food today. In America, the popularity of finger food grew significantly during the Prohibition Era (1920-30), during which there was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. To get around the ban many Americans would attend underground bars to get some alcoholic drinks. Many were in underground basements that didn’t have kitchens. The Bar owners saw the need to still feed people so they wouldn’t leave unhappy and draw attention to their business so they started serving small morsels of food that could be eaten with one hand whilst holding a cocktail in the other. This allowed people to freely mingle and move around tight and crowded spaces.

During this time finger foods were very popular and gave rise to the trend of having cocktail parties at home and thus the popularity spread. Once the ban on alcohol was lifted, the popularity of finger food remained and over the years have developed into the finger food platters that we all love and know of.

In France, canapes originated around the mid-1800s and are considered to be the quintessential the best finger food by all. The word canapé refers to sliced bread without crusts that cushion the ingredients on top of it. When they’re fried, they’re called croutons. Unlike the sandwich, that has meat between two slices of bread, canapes have meat or other ingredients on top of a single slice of bread.

Next time you have some guests over and are filling up their finger food platter, why not also fill their minds with this interesting piece of trivia.