The apéritif culture, French twist to conviviality

Remember that time you travelled to France? You had met a group of French people with whom you shared drinks, snacked on various nibbly bits, got a little bit too drunk... and all of a sudden, you found yourself too full to eat your dinner. The following evening, the same thing happened again… Chances are, you would have become the next victim of the famous ‘apéritif’.

From the Latin word aperire meaning ‘to open, uncover’ relating to the opening of the appetite, the aperitif, usually shortened to ‘apéro’, is a tradition engrained within French culture. Whether practiced every day, once a week, or more occasionally when inviting guests over for dinner, the tradition is practiced throughout the whole of France and passed on from generation to generation.

But the French were far from being the inventors of such a concept. Going back to Mesopotamia and later Ancient Egypt, traces were found of the sharing of dried fruit and lukewarm beer (heqet). The drink later travelled to the European continent, catching onto the Roman Empire. However it isn’t until Medieval times that the aperitif became customary. At that time, the alcoholic beverage would revolve around plant-infused recipes that helped digestion; such would include anise, sage, vermouth or Jenever (Genièvre), deriving from the famously complementary garnish of a G&T: the juniper berry. In the Middle Ages, the concept of ‘cheers-ing’ was created when fear of death would become such as that lords would clink drinks with guests hard enough for the liquids to mix in an effort to avoid potential poisoning. With time, the concept remained, with the establishing of a “stare-in-the-eyes” rule during the clinking act. The choice in beverage itself evolved and became more refined, and nibbles were introduced to accompany those.

The French later became masters at creating a social gathering revolving around drinks, making the aperitif a tradition. According to the IFOP survey agency, the aperitif is progressively being taken more seriously, with 51% of the population in 2020 agreeing to committing weekly to the ritual, against 47% in 2013. You might, however, think it is common courtesy to offer a drink to a guest or to pour yourself one when unwinding after a long day of work, but the French twist is to offer complementary food that is small and easy enough to pick up with your fingers and eat in one mouthful only.

As a matter of fact, the French are champions at doing so. It is no surprise different kinds of nibbles deriving from the French language are famously known outside its borders. Indeed, you might have heard of things such as ‘hors-d’oeuvre’, ‘canapé’, ‘petit four’ or ‘amuse-bouche’. Aren’t they all the same though? A true French person would call you out for naming a nibble wrong. Yes, they all describe a similar thing, but their meanings differ: the canapé (meaning ‘sofa’) will be some kind of topping placed on a small slice of bread, the petit-four will be an oven cooked sweet or savoury biscuit (from its name ‘little oven’), while the hors d’oeuvre (meaning ‘outside the work’) is usually complementary of a meal to come, and the ‘amuse-bouche’ (posh cousin of the ‘amuse-gueule’ – quite literally meaning mouth-amuser) is the bite-size version of the hors d’oeuvre. Those might be homemade or simply shop-bought.

For a foreigner wandering the aperitif section of a French supermarket (particularly a ‘hypermarket’, French version of a gigantic supermarket), the take on a nibble would have a whole new meaning, rendering the famous fried potato purely blatant and boring. Indeed, the variety in bites translate into different shapes, forms, textures, and can be more or less filling. Believe it or not, a new concept emerged from the abundance of foody aperitifs: the ‘aperitif dînatoire’ (meaning the ‘dinner aperitif’). The expression is given to a dinner party that revolves around bite-size nibbles alone, and several beverages of course. But the concept remains the same; soaking up the alcohol in good company.