Each day this week, we dive into the surprising and unverified history of the five-course meal. Join us as we interview resident food critic Bianca Strings on each course’s complicated social and political history at a restaurant worthy of Restaurant Week.
Those Stories: Hi Bianca, thanks for joining us for Restaurant Week. I looked up the first course when preparing to interview you. I could only come up with the other four courses, and then I discovered that the first course was hors d’oeuvres.
Bianca Strings: Hors d’oeuvres come from the development of restaurants in France. The term actually means ‘outside of the work.’ While you might know this option as the bite-sized food they serve at weddings or networking events, it has a specific meaning. The name developed around the location rather than the food.
Restaurants struggled to get repeat customers—they were bored with the same routine. Then, a restaurant owner and his architect wife came up with an idea. What if they created a second location for restaurant-goers to enjoy their first course?
So, at the best restaurants, you were seated by a Maître d’ who immediately told you to leave your belongings and come to this second location. Over the years, restaurants competed for the best hors d’oeuvres spot. The first location was a gazebo. The locations then expanded to rooms behind hidden bookshelves or quick trips to swimming pools. The bite-sized nature of the food made it easier to serve in interesting places.
Those Stories: What’s the most interesting way hors d’oeuvres evolved?
Bianca Strings: Americans didn’t like hors d’oeuvres until prohibition. Then, the Hor D’oeuvre course seemed to last several hours in hidden locations. Prohibition Hor D’oeuvres also led to a string of robberies by a man dubbed Jack ‘bite-sized’ Quiche by the papers at the time, who robbed tables abandoned by Hor D’oeuvre fans. Quiche was never caught.