Snack Dinner: When the Appetizers Are the Meal, and How to Make It Feel Like One
There is a moment, usually around a quarter to eight on a weeknight, when the choice is between cooking something and putting out several small things and calling it dinner. The second option has a bad reputation it does not deserve. Done carelessly it is a plate of crackers and regret. Done with a little structure it is one of the best ways to eat, and it is how a large part of the Mediterranean eats most evenings. You do not have to serve dinner to have a dinner party. This is the structure that makes the idea work.
The five rules
One warm thing. A snack dinner with nothing hot on the table reads as a snack. One warm dish, even a small one, changes the register: a bowl of beans heated with olive oil, olives warmed in oil with lemon peel, a tin of fish warmed gently in its own oil in a small pan, a jar of matbucha heated and topped with an egg. Five minutes at the stove is enough.
One thing that needs a fork. If everything is eaten with the hands off a cracker, people stand up and drift. A bowl of dressed beans, a plate of marinated peppers, a small salad or a scoop of something saucy makes people sit down with a plate, and sitting down is what makes it dinner.
Protein three ways. The reason a cheese plate alone leaves people hungry is that it is one protein. A snack dinner wants a tin of fish, a cured meat and a cheese or a bean, in any combination, so that the table adds up to a meal's worth of substance. Our guides to tinned fish, jamón and cheese plate math cover the three.
Acid on every plate. Rich small things get tiring fast. Every item on the table needs a sharp partner: lemon for the fish, cornichons for the meat, hot sauce for the chips, a vinegar in the bean dressing, pickled peppers for the cheese. This is the rule most people skip and the one that decides whether the table still looks appealing at nine.
Bread, and more bread. A loaf, a stack of crackers, or both. Bread is the plate. Run out and the dinner is over.
Three menus from the pantry
The Iberian. Warm: white beans heated with olive oil and a spoon of truffle sugo. Fork: the beans. Protein: a tin of Galician mussels, a pack of salchichón, a wedge of Manchego. Acid: Espinaler sauce on the mussels, cornichons, lemon. Bread: a country loaf and Iberian ham chips. Drink: something cold and bitter from the zero-proof shelf or a dry sherry.
The Moroccan. Warm: matbucha heated in a small pan with a cracked egg on top, or chermoula stirred into a can of chickpeas and warmed. Fork: the chickpeas. Protein: the egg, a tin of oil-packed tuna, a soft goat cheese. Acid: lemon, green olives, a little harissa or hot sauce. Bread: warm pita or flatbread, torn. Drink: mint tea, or a sparkling tea.
The Italian. Warm: Leccine olives warmed in oil with orange peel and fennel seed. Fork: a jar of lampascioni or puntarelle dressed with oil. Protein: a tin of anchovies, a few slices of mortadella or prosciutto, a piece of pecorino. Acid: a drop of aged balsamic on the pecorino, lemon on the anchovies. Bread: tarallini and a loaf. Dessert: a square of dark chocolate and a lemon biscotto.
The order to put it out
Chips, olives and the drink first, while you warm the one warm thing. Then everything else at once, on the coffee table if it is two or four of you, on the dining table if it is more. Warm thing last, straight from the stove, so it is the thing people reach for. Bread refilled once. Dessert, if any, is a bar of chocolate broken on the table and nothing else.
How it goes wrong
Too many crackers and dips and nothing else, which is a snack, not a dinner. Everything cold, which reads as a plate of leftovers. No acid, so the table is tiring by the third bite. Too many items; five or six is a meal, twelve is a buffet nobody finishes. Cheese and jamón straight from the refrigerator, which our cheese guide explains is the most common mistake in hosting. And apologizing for it. Say "we're doing a snack dinner" and people relax, because everyone secretly prefers it.
The tins, cured meat, olives, beans, sauces, crackers, chips and chocolate for all three menus are at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com. For the fully assembled version with six people and a table, see the no-cook dinner party.
