British retailer Asda has announced that it anticipates selling more than 24 million canapés this Christmas.
An increasing demand for canapés saw the retailer rolling out the Christmas-nibbles three weeks earlier than usual.
Teaming up with food historian Kate Colquhoun, Asda has looked into the history of the canapé, sharing its findings through its website.
According to the retailer, canapés started out as a savoury dessert-nibble, popular in the first half of the 17th century - soon followed by similarly savoury ‘whets’ at the start of a meal, for 'whetting' appetites.
With French cuisine increasingly popular in the late 18th to early 19th century, a small piece of toasted bread with a savoury topping of any kind came to be known as a canapé.
During the 20th century, various pastries and tartlets were added to the range of canapés, as were canned goods, olives and gherkins.
From the 1960’s onwards, the canapés started borrowing from world cuisine, using a range of exotic ingredients. Today's trends are often set, or encouraged by, cookery books and TV chefs and shows.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Martha Sparrius. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
