Canapé

Canapés are bite-size items served as an appetizer or hors d’oeuvre. They usually consist of a small piece of bread (plain or toasted), a cracker, or a diminutive pastry shape topped with something savory, such as caviar, cheese, meat, poultry, or seafood, often in the form of a creamy spread. Canapés originated in France (the word, meaning a sofa or couch, suggests the way the topping rests on the base), and they commonly appear in nineteenth-century French cookbooks. British cookbooks published recipes for them by the end of that century, and American cookbooks included them by the early twentieth century.