First of all, we’re not pronouncing them canapés like the French. If you must use that word, you have to do it in a comedy accent: ‘Would you like a ca-nape?’ Sorry, that’s the law. Use the same comedy accent for nibble, hors d’oeuvre, amuse-bouche and appetiser to denote you’re using the word ironically. There is no good word for these things. Someone once proffered a tray and said to me ‘Would you like an eat?’ I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that person again.
If a waiter appears at your side with a tray of blinis and the person you’re talking to turns them down, but you’re starving because you haven’t eaten since lunch and it’s been a long day and you’re three glasses of Champagne down, for heaven’s sake, take a blini. Eating isn’t impolite, and it’s much jollier to eat and be merry than hungry and sad, forlornly watching the waiter retreat with his tray as if you’re witnessing the last lifeboat off the Titanic.
Similarly, if a waiter appears and there’s only one canapé on the tray, don’t dance around it for half an hour: ‘You have it’, ‘No, honestly, I insist’, ‘No, you must’, and so on. Someone just get on with it and eat the thing.
If you’ve just eaten a blini, or really any fish canapé, maintain a minimum distance of one foot between you and whoever you’re talking to.
It is a bit greedy to take more than one canapé from a tray at a time.
If you’re in charge of the party, could we have somewhere to put our used cocktail sticks? Alternatively, men can always tuck them behind their ear for that jaunty, Dick van Dyke vibe; women, consider using them as hair pins.
They don’t have to be fancy. Almost everybody likes cocktail sausages and/or pigs-in-blankets. Slap some paté on toasted rounds of baguette. Parma ham on a stick? Smoked salmon and cream cheese on a cracker? Padron peppers? I also like a bowl of those frozen Itsu gyozas that you can now get from supermarkets. Don’t lose your mind trying to make mini Yorkshire puddings stuffed with beef and horseradish. Leave that sort of caper to the professionals.
I was once chatting to a man at a drinks party who accidentally spat a small globule of canapé on to my bare arm. Neither of us said anything, although both were painfully aware of it soldiering its way down my bicep. I was young, in my defence. If this happens to you, the best way forward is to say gaily: ‘Whoops, happens to us all’, locate a napkin and wipe the globule off.
Be very wary of anything in a bun — mini burgers, mini bao buns, choux buns — because it’s highly likely that an ingredient, possibly scalding, will shoot out the other side as you bite into it.
On which note, canapés should ideally be one bite only. Don’t get me started on bowl food.
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