🥂 The Real Widows Of Champagne Region

Lunchbox Envy

The hosts of Lunchbox Envy celebrate the podcast's farewell episode by exploring the cultural and historical roots of party food. They examine

Key takeaways

• Rosie MacKean explains that canapés derive from the French word for sofa and were originally defined by Auguste Escoffier as bread-based bites meant to be eaten while seated at a dining table.
• The 1867 Three Emperors Dinner featured Louis Roderer's Cristal champagne served in clear lead crystal bottles, a security measure commissioned by Tsar Alexander II to prevent hidden bombs from being concealed in traditional dark glass.

Main topics

• Canapés and finger food history
• Champagne production and branding

Notable quotes

"The word canapé comes from French. It's the French word for sofa."

Conclusion

The episode delivers a richly detailed, entertaining send-off that tra

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) This week on Lunchbox Envy, if you're afraid of them, then you have dapenophobia. US President Andrew Jackson organised a cheese-themed one in the White House. The Speaker 3 (0:11) Prince of Liechtenstein throws one a year for the entire country. Speaker 4 (0:14) And in ancient Greece, a person known as a parasitos or parasite would be invited to the banquet to exchange jokes for food, which is why I'm here. Speaker 2 (0:26) It's party time! Woo! Speaker 2 (0:39) Welcome to Lunchbox Envy. I'm Rosie. I'm a chef and food writer. And I'm here with my QI elves, Jack, Manu and Alex. We just need to make a little announcement before we begin. Oh, Speaker 4 (0:50) yes. Speaker 2 (0:51) This is going to be the last episode of Lunchbox Envy for the foreseeable. Speaker 4 (0:57) Sad times. We're all off to go and do other things. Speaker 3 (1:00) Absolutely. So you've got Speaker 4 (1:01) Manu and Jack. We have to research the next series of QI. Speaker 2 (1:04) Very Speaker 3 (1:05) important Speaker 4 (1:05) job. And Rosie and I have other jobs. I'm seeing another podcast. Speaker 2 (1:08) Sorry. It comes out. The infidelity is revealed. I'm keeping Speaker 3 (1:12) the air fryer. Speaker 2 (1:14) But we want to go out with a bang. So today is nothing but... Good laughs, good memes, a huge celebration and a massive thank you to you all for your support over the last couple of years. Yeah, oh my Speaker 4 (1:26) God, yeah. Speaker 2 (1:27) So pour yourself a drink because we're drinking. Speaker 4 (1:30) Cheers to the listeners. Cheers to you. We have a whole table of party food in front of us. A smorgasbord. A smorgasbord. Speaker 2 (1:38) It's actually such a great topic. Like there's so much to talk Speaker 1 (1:42) about. Speaker 2 (1:43) Culturally and like socio... anthropologically as well. Don't get Speaker 3 (1:50) surprised at me using words like anthropologically, alright? Speaker 2 (1:53) I actually don't know if socio-anthropologically is a word. It sounds Speaker 1 (1:57) too... Yeah, okay. So, why do you guys think we started holding feasts and parties? Speaker 4 (2:03) Oh, religion? Just for fun, man. You just never need a reason. Something's like a buzzkill. I know, I know. But was Speaker 2 (2:08) it like, could it have been like celebrating new life, like babies? Speaker 4 (2:12) Gods, to appease the gods. So all of these Speaker 1 (2:14) reasons are very... very good reasons but there's a kind of general overarching theme basically a lot of historians think we started having feasts and coming together in big groups to eat when we started farming when we had to settle down when we had to live next to each other and when we started pissing each other off in really big groups Speaker 4 (2:33) so Speaker 1 (2:33) if you come together and you eat loads of food and you drink alcohol because a lot of these cultures had some kind of alcohol relieves a lot of social stress healing the rift stress Speaker 4 (2:42) yeah Speaker 1 (2:43) as a speaker we've been cooking and feasting for at least 12,000 years, but it's likely way, way longer. So say at least because the earliest evidence we have of a really big feast was found in 2010 by archaeologists studying a burial cave in Galilee in northern Israel, and they've found the first evidence of really big cooking. So big cooking is actually a term that my mum and her Gujarati family use for events cooking. It's an entirely different... I think Speaker 3 (3:13) we would say catering at Western. There's Speaker 4 (3:16) a Speaker 3 (3:16) whole YouTube Speaker 2 (3:17) sub-genre of Gujarati and Indian, South Asian, big cooking where you watch people make like... vats of curries and fried shit and it's all really really amazing like precise cooking I do dabble in that but Speaker 1 (3:36) this big cooking 12,000 year old meal included the remains of 71 tortoises three wild cattle and like loads and loads of different other animal bones Speaker 4 (3:47) that's the same as what was left over at Rosie's wedding that's Speaker 2 (3:50) so weird Speaker 1 (3:50) can I just say though 71 Speaker 2 (3:52) wouldn't you go for 72? Speaker 4 (3:55) Maybe one of them escaped. Speaker 2 (3:56) I have a rule, like, if it's food, it has to be in even numbers. Oh, well, now Speaker 3 (4:00) you said that, we're going to count up. The rule that that Speaker 2 (4:03) doesn't apply to is crisps. Two is not enough, four is too many. Three. Perfect. Speaker 3 (4:10) You've brought seven arancini balls that have just been counted. I actually ate my arancini. Speaker 1 (4:16) I wanted to test it. Why is that parties in the UK tend to be so barren when it comes to food? I don't know Speaker 2 (4:24) if that's true. Versus, for example, South Asian parties, they are nowhere near that level. But we have our own weird, foibily... food that we love to serve like party rings that is just like every country has it right every country has a brand of thing that they're like that's just what we buy for parties like Speaker 4 (4:43) it maybe it's obvious but party rings were designed specifically to have a whole like the whole was specifically designed for a child's finger which i know that sounds really creepy when i say it like that but like as Speaker 3 (4:53) in Speaker 4 (4:54) you know that's why they're a bit small for us for those who don't Speaker 3 (4:57) know what they are they're kind of biscuits they're glazed biscuits in a donut shape with glazing But they were invented in 1983, so they're younger than Kim Jong-un. Speaker 4 (5:05) Oh, maybe that's why he runs things with such an iron fist, because his parties weren't any fun when he was a kid. Yes. I Speaker 3 (5:12) actually remember my sister's, what's it, almost been her sixth birthday or something? We had a pink theme. So dad went all out with the catering. He, like, made lye cheese. a lot of pink lemonade. He Speaker 2 (5:23) made lychee. How do you make a lychee? He Speaker 3 (5:26) just put some lychee on a plate. But yeah, and he made a cake stained with beetroot juice and pink lemonade and salmon. There's got to be better ways to make pink food than that. Speaker 1 (5:35) What other things do you think of? I was thinking Speaker 4 (5:37) pink wafers. Yeah, Speaker 1 (5:39) we had those. Speaker 2 (5:40) I wish Speaker 4 (5:40) we bought some. I saw them. Speaker 2 (5:42) They had them. Speaker 4 (5:43) What are they? They're like made of like packing material but they're so delicious. Probably the most expensive Speaker 3 (5:47) cost per kilo because they're so... They're like aerogel. Speaker 4 (5:51) Yeah, they're like the insulation that NASA uses in the space shuttle. Speaker 2 (6:01) Well, I guess we should probably start on our first lunchbox. Let's do it. Lunchbox is not doing it justice at all. Guys, today I have brought for you a canapé selection. I want to talk to you today about the foundation of a party. Finger food, a.k.a. canapes. Or are they the same thing? Or are they not the same thing? We're about to answer the question. Trap in, Speaker 4 (6:25) guys. We Speaker 2 (6:26) have in front of us cucumber cups with blue cheese mousse. We have smoked salmon and brown bread. The generation Speaker 4 (6:35) game. Speaker 2 (6:38) We've got from Waitrose supermarket, smoky scamorza arancini. Speaker 4 (6:45) We Speaker 2 (6:46) have manchego and possibly ham croquetas from M &S. And then over there, some crispy prawns with sweet chilli dip. Speaker 4 (6:56) Very nice. Speaker 1 (6:57) Please do help yourselves. Let's dig in. I'm Speaker 4 (7:00) going to have one of these balls. Do you want a Speaker 1 (7:01) ball? Yes, please. Oh, thank you. Speaker 2 (7:03) Oh my Speaker 1 (7:05) God, I just poured that all over me. Speaker 4 (7:07) Where does the word canapé come from? Speaker 2 (7:08) So the word canapé comes from French. It's the French word for sofa. Basically, the principal idea behind... The definition, the French culinary definition of a canapé is that it is someone sitting on a sofa. So the sofa is the canapé, the bottom. It has to be, according to Auguste Escoffier, as we know, the doyen of French food from his book Le Guide Culinaire in 1903. As a general rule, the canapé is to be composed of bread, a spread or an oil, one main ingredient and a simple garnish. Now... I would say that then thinned out a bit. So it could be bread, pastry, you know, a crisp base edible, but nonetheless, usually leavened of some kind, plus a topping. Speaker 4 (7:56) So a bottom and a top component. A bottom and a top Speaker 2 (7:58) component. There is a bit of an argument about whether or not that is truly the reason why French people call them canapés, because some people suggest that actually they had to be... finger-held hors d'oeuvres that people could eat whilst sitting on a sofa. But Speaker 4 (8:14) I Speaker 2 (8:15) don't think... Oh, I see, as opposed to sitting Speaker 4 (8:17) at a dining table. Speaker 2 (8:18) As opposed to sitting at a dining table. But then what Escoffier says in his book, Le Guide Culinaire, Speaker 4 (8:22) is Speaker 2 (8:23) that canapés are to be served at the very beginning of the meal when everyone is seated at the table. This is in the Victorian times, by the way, guys, so relax. Oh, Speaker 4 (8:31) wait as hell. Speaker 2 (8:32) And that, you know, they were supposed to be like a sort of... part of the meal an introduction to the meal and actually in fine dining restaurants in especially in like tasting menus very often you'll get two three four canapes or a mousse bouche i Speaker 1 (8:45) thought that was just them doing stupidly tiny food for the fun of it i didn't realize that was a canapé i thought it was a regular meal Speaker 4 (8:53) but farther away i think there are two reasons Speaker 2 (8:56) why they do them one is to make people feel like they're getting more for their money but what they're actually doing is using up a lot of waste product. They might have ordered in some special stuff for the canapes. But it's also a great way for younger chefs to test their skills, come up with different ideas, you know, ideate like different dishes. And if they get it wrong, Speaker 4 (9:14) there's less of it. Speaker 2 (9:15) And if they get Speaker 1 (9:16) it Speaker 2 (9:16) wrong, they're fired. That's a good point. They get the finger. But also like there was a thought in the upper classes that to eat standing up was... to sort of align oneself with the poor, the Victorian poor. So you shouldn't ever be eating the sunny apple. No, I'm fine. Thank you for the moment. What about Speaker 4 (9:34) eating the leftovers of a full English on the tube? Asking for a friend. Speaker 2 (9:39) That's something I think Escoffier probably wouldn't like, but you know. So that's what a canapé is. Now, in the UK now, what we would call a canapé is also what we would probably call finger food. Even though they are... ostensibly potentially different because another definition for a canapé is that they should be maximum two bites. One to two. And you must be able to hold something else in your other hand, i.e. your drink. Or Speaker 1 (10:06) another canapé. Speaker 2 (10:07) Or another canapé. One of the big reasons why canapés and finger food became more popular in the British and in US society was prohibition. Particularly in the US because in speakeasies they needed to have some little treaty bites to feed people. And then in the 50s, the cocktail parties started really kicking off. Obviously, the 30s, there were lots of cocktail parties. And by the 50s, the thought about eating and standing had changed. That was actually okay. According to... Penn Vogler, who is the author of Scoff, A History of Food and Class in Britain. Speaker 1 (10:45) Basically, Speaker 2 (10:46) when the 50s cocktail party era began, standing up with a cocktail in your hand, you could still be elegant. Like, you actually looked quite chic. And I agree, Penn. Speaker 4 (10:55) There is now arguably nothing more chic than holding a cocktail glass. What animal do you think the cocktail is named after? Oh, well, a chicken, a cock. Speaker 1 (11:04) That's your question. Speaker 3 (11:05) It's named after a horse's tail. What? If your horse had a docked tail, so it was snipped, it was known as a cocked tail. And so the idea was that if you had a thoroughbred, they wouldn't have their tails docked. But if they were a working horse, they'd have their tails docked. And they also, the idea was they'd have a bit more verve and vigour and a bit of spice. You would spice your liquor. Because that was what the original cocktails were. It would be whiskey just with some, like, ginger swished around in it. Or some lemon added or something. It was very simple. It was just a spirit and one other ingredient. And, yeah, they even extend. Nobody's really sure, but, like, there is an extension into gingering horses. Do you know about gingering horses? No. What is that? You put a little bit. bit of ginger up their bum it's not a little bit i think it makes their tail stick out and sound proud for like dressage yeah Speaker 2 (11:58) it's uncomfortable so yeah Speaker 3 (11:59) you might put a bit of ginger in your whiskey i Speaker 2 (12:01) didn't Speaker 3 (12:01) know that was it's disputed but like it's definitely from the horse's tail according to the oed at least yeah Speaker 2 (12:06) um constant spry who wrote the cook her eponymous cookbook constant spry Speaker 4 (12:12) oh yeah that's where i know her from she was a legendary culinary writer Speaker 2 (12:16) in the 50s and she has several canapé recipes in her book and actually where she sort of like differs um from most is that she has suggestions of like whether they should be handed around, should they be left on a tray, on a sideboard, you know, which canapes go on a foil tray, which ones go on a, you know, trolley, stand up, sit down, all of that kind of stuff. This is the big question. So people can, you know, fraternise at parties and still enjoy delicious food. I Speaker 4 (12:47) feel like there's maybe a rule that the best canapes are basically tiny versions of like... quite basic foods. So a tiny chicken Kiev or Speaker 3 (12:56) a Speaker 2 (12:56) tiny Speaker 4 (12:57) potato fritter. I Speaker 3 (12:59) do the Sean Lott line. He's like, much better than my idea. Massive chicken Kiev. Speaker 2 (13:05) That would also be amazing. Mimes jumping on them. It's worth saying that specifically with British food and I think American versions of this too, but like we borrow from a lot of cultures for this food. Most of it is inspired by... actual street food or like, you know, yes, small food, but food that is eating in other countries, not as a canapé, right? We love to miniaturise and we love to steal. Speaker 1 (13:31) So Speaker 2 (13:32) anyway, so a finger food thing is, you know, it's a sausage roll, it's a chicken skewer, it's a mini quiche, it's Speaker 3 (13:38) a Speaker 2 (13:38) samosa. None of those. It's Speaker 3 (13:42) a pinger on a plate. And Speaker 2 (13:44) they're less formal. The other thing that's worth mentioning re-finger food is that we, as a nation, have a real buffet fetish. Oh, Speaker 4 (13:52) yeah. We love a party Speaker 2 (13:53) buffet. I mean, I literally do them all the time. When I think about it, I never hand canapes around. It's Speaker 1 (13:59) stressful the other way. I don't want to wait. I don't like the chance. I don't like having to bargain and look at the person who's carrying the food. If Speaker 2 (14:07) you're at home... It's actually quite nice to get your friends or whoever's like, could you pass these around? And then they might chat to someone they might not know before. Speaker 4 (14:15) It's kind of the opposite of a drive-thru because the food is going around all the people. That's so true. Like a sushi belt. Yeah, it's like a human sushi belt. Speaker 2 (14:23) I did look really hard. I could not find a study that has been done on this. There are a lot of factors when it comes to scoring canapes in a crowded... Specifically weddings, like that's where I think we're all encountering them. People are f***ing hungry. They may have had an hour-long ceremony, usually just after lunch, but no one wants to eat too much because they're dressed up, drinking in the pub or whatever. And then suddenly they're not going to get fed again until five, six, whatever. And also the jeopardy with weddings is that you don't know what you're going to get in terms of like quantities. And quite often, I'm sorry to say, it's stingy in British weddings. There is this kind of... real like survival of the fittest thing of like how many canapes are we going to be able to get how big is this space where are the waiters do i make friends with one yes you should always make friends with one of them so Speaker 4 (15:17) you the usual questions you ask at a wedding are like doesn't the bride look lovely sorry Speaker 1 (15:23) there's always the because i worked as a waitress for a catering company for a while. And there's always the genius group of friends who wait just by the entrance where the canapés Speaker 2 (15:37) are coming out. I want to talk about this. I have two strategies that I adopt. One is I stand with men. I Speaker 1 (15:44) do not Speaker 2 (15:44) talk to the women at the canapé parties. I Speaker 3 (15:48) stand with men. Is that your campaign? I stand with Speaker 2 (15:50) men. No, because I'll tell you why. As a former waitress and also former canapé chef, I know that the people who are always going to say yes, they're always going to clear your tray, are the men. Speaker 1 (16:02) Women Speaker 2 (16:03) are way more likely to refuse a can of A for loads of reasons,