Shrimp Cocktail and Beyond

Call them canapés, appetizers or hors-d'œuvres: the things we ate before dinner were sometimes better than the dinner itself.

Shrimp cocktail was a perennial favorite when I was little.

Over the course of the winter holiday season my Mum must have purchased dozens of jumbo shrimp. She liked to pick them up at a good seafood place already cooked and ready to serve. You could cook your own by buying nice big frozen shrimp, but then you have to deal with veins and shells and chilling. I don’t think my Mother thought all that was a very good use of her time. I do remember her making the cocktail sauce herself though, she would mix tomato ketchup with prepared horseradish and serve it in a little glass bowl.

There was always a specific serving dish for everything. I naively thought everyone had an ingenious bowl made of two layers of silver for serving chilled seafood. One bowl that held the cracked ice and the one that fit snugly above where the little shrimps or snow crab legs would be displayed. The dainty bowl of cocktail sauce would nestle in the middle of the ring of shrimps.

As a child I had no idea where these diminutive crustaceans came from or how different they looked with heads and eyes! I had imagined the shrimps floating down from the sky into our kitchen ready to eat like snowflakes to my outstretched tongue.

When I saw living members of the Caridea family at Epcot a few years later I could not imagine eating those gently swaying legs, arms, and antenna ever again.

Obviously my ignorance around the topic of serving dishes eventually ended and these beautiful things my mother brought out of the silver closet for special occasions are now treasured memories of her elegant sense of style. Whatever chilled plate or platter you decide to use, always serve the shrimp cocktail attractively with lemon wedges and parsley.

Presentation was important. It doesn’t necessarily matter what kind of cheese you are putting out on your platter, make it look nice. A giant wedge or round of cheese looks better than a whole bunch of smaller chunks. Small pieces of cheese aquire a raggedy nibbled upon look very quickly. My Mum would cut into a big beautiful monument of cheese as she put it out for her guests (and us lucky family members) and made sure she used an appropriately strong knife

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Now I will come to the smoked salmon canapé.

After many years of trying different types of bread and crackers, I prefer my salmon naked with a squeeze of lemon, but for the ease of serving you might want to put the salmon on a little piece of toast

I hate to tell you this, but I found out the hard way…there are incorrect ways of making smoked salmon appetizers. At least there was to my Mother.

Perhaps some conversation was going wrong in the living room or too many children were under foot. I just remember her looking down at the silver tray I was working on and her tight smile faded away completely. That old familiar holiday stress was creeping into her face. What had I done? I regarded the collection of toast points, slices of fish and dollops of sour cream that were making my mouth water. The tray was a bit messy looking, but there were lots of cute little capers on everything, maybe too many capers?

There was a long resigned sigh from above my head and I quickly took the offending tray out of her vision and out into the clusters of guests. I knew I could count on them to help me make them disappear.

My mother definitely had a strong opinion about this particular hors-d'œuvre. She was adamant that the capers go on top of the smoked salmon and the sour cream goes underneath. This was the only acceptable version for her.

This is the proper Mummy approved order of the layers:

1. toast or bread first.

2. the sour cream.

3. the little piece of smoked salmon

4. the capers go on top.

   After years of creating trays of this luxurious offering I see now was a reasons for my Mum’s militant stance…

If you put the salmon on the bread and then the sour cream on top, the brine from the capers starts to run into the sour cream, and these little rivulets of salty water dribble through the dairy product and now the tray does not look very appetizing.

Lemon wedges should be provided, but you can let the eaters do the squeezing.

an aside - An important thing I have learned is to cut the salmon. It is best for each piece to be of equal size and using your fingers to tear the pieces from a big side of salmon can get messy. Don’t be afraid to use a fork and a sharp little knife.

- Oncorhynchus tshawytscha -