Sharing bits and pieces

I'm in the early stages of planning a dinner party, the first course of which is going to be antipasti, because the first course has to be Italian and the Italians are so good at this. And today Aldi had a special on some truffled salami and San Daniele prosciutto (supposed to be the best), so I bought some. And it got me to thinking how these days small portions, sharing and bits and pieces have become de rigeur really. Is this a new thing or is it yet another symptom of globalisation and interconnectedness - in a good way?

When I was a child we didn't share food. We had food put out on our plate and we were supposed to eat it all up. It was a bit of a sin not to. This applied to all meals. I might have eyed the potatoes on my sister's plate, but it was unlikely that I would have got them as she had to eat them. And so it was for many, many years. And I don't think the French were any different. I don't remember shared tables there either.

Then somewhere along the line two or three different things happened simultaneously. Well so it seems to me anyway.

At the bottom end of the spectrum, multicultural eating became the thing - well a treat. We started to eat Indian food and Chinese food in particular in England. And we would share what we chose individually from the menu. I still don't really know whether this is because it was expected that we would by the restaurant owners - think lazy Susans in the middle of the table in all those Chinese restaurants, or whether we were just excited by the explosion of different tastes and wanted to try them all. Obviously the lazy Susans must have been a Chinese thing. Not sure about the Indians sharing though.

Maybe when they eat at home it is all put out and people share, but they also have thalis and tiffins don't they? In this case one person has a lot of small tastes, but they are just for that one person. Well that's my understanding anyway.

Looks like a fairly substantial meal for one person, but I'm pretty sure that is the intention. Bits and pieces to go with the main things, and smallish portions of the main things so that you can have more than one. Middle-eastern meals seem to be set out in the middle and everyone helps themselves though possibly not the women who may have to eat elsewhere.

Later on - when? The 70s or 80s maybe when multiculturalism really took hold in Australia, we had all sorts of different kinds of sharing foods suddenly becoming fashionable, and it seems to me they are increasing all the time. Middle-eastern mezze, yum cha, antipasti, thai banquets, tapas, Greek dips and things ... Obviously antipasti existed in Italy, but I do not really remember it being a big thing here until all of those Middle-eastern and Greek restaurants began serving dips and other mezze. I do know it's an Italian thing though as we often had it in Italy. They do it so well. Indeed the Guardian thinks the Italians do it best - possibly followed by the Lebanese. We had a massive platter of delicious bits and pieces in Abruzzo - the mozzarella was the standout but the meats and vegetables were also outstanding - and home-made.

Mostly these things are intended as starters before the main meal. Small bites to get the appetite going - but if you're not careful you can overload on them and have no appetite for the rest of the meal - or else overeat anyway. They are very hard to resist.

I should mention the French, who are so dear to my heart. They have always had hors d'oeuvres which can be very fancy and fussy things served in posh hotels and restaurants, or something as simple as olives, raw vegetables ... - similar to mezze really.

Then even the English got in the act and you have afternoon tea with lots of different cakes and sandwiches to choose from. All of these examples of meals made up of bits and pieces, may have started with ordinary humble folk putting together meals from bits and pieces, but it pretty soon went upmarket and you can now pay a fortune for 'sharing' plates in posh restaurants. 'Sharing' seems to be one of those current fashions. But I have to say it's a really great way to eat. It's very convivial - the picture at the top of the page shows that really well I think. Just go to a Chinese yum cha on the weekend and you will see families all getting together, laughing and talking. It's sort of chaos but fun. We don't do yum chas these days but that's mostly because we are not huge fans of Chinese dumplings. Maybe we should try again. And I suppose the Japanese have the teppanyaki where everyone sits around the chef as he acrobatically cooks your food on a hotplate.

In the middle part of the spectrum, businessmen were spending a lot of time in hotels and partaking of breakfast and luncheon buffets to die for. For a treat, when we lived in Adelaide, we would occasionally go and have a buffet breakfast at the Hilton. Well breakfast is David's favourite meal and these days you can get just about anything in a hotel buffet breakfast. Dubai - where we have now stayed three times in three different hotels is an absolute master of this. If you have the breakfast you probably don't need anything else for the rest of the day!

And at the top of the tree you have the dégustation menu. I have no idea when or where this notion began. Most likely in some very upmarket French restaurant with a star chef in charge. The philosophy here is that the chef knows best what you should eat and you just have to sit there and eat what is put in front of you in very small tasting plates served one after the other. You have chosen to dine in his (or her) establishment and you must place your trust in his taste. In the poshest and most expensive places they will also match a wine with each dish. And yes, before you start you are probably allowed to say you don't like shellfish, or tripe or whatever. I have had such menus but I'm not a huge fan. The portions are so small you don't really get a chance to savour them properly. One mouthful and it's gone. And there is often a huge emphasis on presentation. The food looks exquisite. It is food as art - and part of me really does enjoy that. It's something I am extremely bad at. I can't even manage to make a simple antipasti platter look elegant. Something always runs into something else and spoils it.

But me, I'm planning fairly simple antipasti. I'll try and do the cheffy thing and concentrate on the quality of the ingredients - hence the san daniele prosciutto and the truffled salami, then there's my own oven-dried tomatoes. Maybe a dip, some vegetables, pickles? So many, many things to choose from. Just hope I can make it look as good as these examples.