The Hors d'Œuvre Trolley
The photographs below, although not taken on board the Caronia, are the best shots I've come across so far featuring an “old friend”, the Hors d'Œuvre or antipasto trolley.
The Antipasto trolley at table
Fitted with four rows of three dishes on a vertical carousel, manning this mechanical beast was a Commis job that required a number of skills, not least being able to manoeuvre this unwieldy thing among the guests at table, without bumping into the backs of their chairs.
Before service, the job was to prepare the trolley with napkins and doilies on the flat shelf beneath, where suitable plates and a range of breads and rolls and freshly tossed lettuce was carried. Then it would be off to the cold pantry to load up with all the prepared goodies.
What isn't depicted is that manning this trolley also meant wearing white gloves! Of course everything aboard Caronia was silver-service, and if you had big hands, keeping a dextrous touch within the confines of these one-size-fits-all gloves became quite a finicky task to master.
Seeing the picture here, I can well imagine quite an urgent whisper in my ear from a Head Waiter enquiring
- “Where are your gloves?” Of course you would have several sets of serving spoons to pick up
and put down as you were assembling each plateful.
Antipasto Trolley close-up By no means would you use a spoon used for coleslaw
on roll-mop herrings or olives. Oh those olives… not the easiest things to gather with spoon and
fork. And on a rolling ship…!
Among the delicacies on offer would be things like hard boiled eggs, with a variety of sauce coverings from the usual mayonnaise to a curried sauce. Roll-mop herrings either preserved in vinegar or in port wine. Italian style antipasto, sardines, cod or herring roe, mushrooms, various types of ham already very thinly sliced and a whole variety of sausage meats. There would also be a range of salads, coleslaw, sliced or stuffed tomatoes, and not forgetting of course, green, black and stuffed olives.
As this was usually the first course of the meal, it was incumbent upon you to prepare an attractive plateful for your guests. At first, or at least until you got to know them, this could be a bit of a guessing game.
[Left:]
A “Barlett” Hors d'Œuvre Trolley. An image from the manufacturer's catalogue showing it in its
undressed state.
[Image: Courtesy of Brian Hawley]
Obviously, if the request was for just eggs mayonnaise that was simple, but more often than not you either had to try and anticipate, or better still, let them make all of their choices before attempting to assemble the plate.
Best of all were those people who would simply say to you - “I'll leave it to you” - for them you always practised your very best presentation skills!
Another Commis task involved yet another trolley to be pushed amongst the tables. This one would be equipped with a large slab of marble placed on a bed of crushed ice and one extremely sharp very long-bladed knife. On the slab would be a whole side of Scotch smoked salmon and again some dexterity within the white gloves was called for.
The requirement here was to cut extremely thin and uniform slices from the fish. Your slicing would be done at about a 20 degree angle from the horizontal. On the shelves below would be plates of brown bread and butter wrapped in a damp napkin. Yes, you've guessed, preparing that was part of the Commis’ job too!
If you can contribute any information, do please get in touch…
