Man is a contradictory and unpredictable being. Why, one wonders, was it necessary to break so many spears, imposing such an object as a fork on everyone around, and then proclaim the rejection of cutlery? "Be close to nature and to each other - eat with your hands!" - this is the motto of many progressive chefs of trendy urban restaurants.

Finger food (from the English finger food - "food with fingers") is the latest trend promoted by urban catering establishments, which is predicted to have a bright future.

For many countries, eating with your hands is not unusual. In China, the word "pilaf" is translated as "finger-grabbed rice": in order to enjoy this fragrant and nutritious dish, you need to form a ball out of rice, hooking meat and spices, dip it into the sauce if desired and put it in your mouth. Similarly, plov is eaten in Azerbaijan and India. When caring for his beloved girl, the Indian will not fail to invite her to pilaf: grabbing rice from her plate with his hands, he thereby communicates his tender feelings.

Mexican fajitas (meat stewed with vegetables), oriental shawarma, doner or Greek gyros, Georgian khinkali dumplings, Ethiopian dishes wrapped in tortillas, Italian pizza, Spanish tapas, Chinese street fast food, and finally, our pies, buns, donuts and pancakes - all this is food, without any hesitation or ulterior motives, absorbed by the hands. Big fans of finger food are Americans with their hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, fries and popcorn.

Traditionally, finger food is a lifesaver for house parties where many guests are invited. By the way, guests can be involved in the process of preparing snacks - cutting meat, fish, vegetables and fruits, making sandwiches and sauces. This will help create a relaxed, trusting atmosphere, make friends with people who do not know each other. The "manual format" of the event allows guests to move freely around the room, and not sit tightly sandwiched between two neighbors, which makes them more relaxed and disposed to conversation and new acquaintances. And also eliminates the need to crawl under the table for a dropped fork or knife with a thousand awkward apologies.

Recently, finger food has become a highlight and fashionable trend of world-famous restaurants and cafes. According to the chefs, even the most inexperienced person in food can wake up a gourmet in himself by giving up a knife and fork.

One of the most vocal advocates of hand-eating is the chef of the Danish restaurant Noma, the best restaurant in the world in 2010 (in The S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants). In his opinion, human nature has a habit of eating with hands, and intermediaries between a person and food in the form of cutlery are not needed and even harm the human body, since they make it impossible to touch food with the help of receptors located on the fingertips and send the necessary impulses to the brain. These impulses contain information about the temperature and consistency of food, preparing the body for its absorption. So if you want to be healthy, eat with your hands.

And this is not so ignoble, because we got along with a fork only a couple of centuries ago, and before that, all of Europe, including monarchs (even such a connoisseur of gourmet food as the French Sun King Louis XIV), ate with great appetite with their hands.

Based on these traditions, the best chefs in the world proclaimed a return to the roots. Asians also supported the trend. Japanese chefs reminded the world that sushi, rolls and sashimi were originally eaten only with the hands, and chopsticks make the meal too serious and pompous.

Food is needed not only to supply the body with energy, it is also one of the main pleasures in life. Therefore, let everyone rejoice - eyes, hands, mouth, and stomach, and all unnecessary formalities should be eliminated. What's more, eating with your hands unites, and isn't that what we need in our divided world with its individualistic values ​​that are starting to get annoying?

The same opinion is shared by the chefs of expensive restaurants in Sharm El Sheikh. For example, the restaurant of the Ritz-Carlton hotel claims that the future belongs to the so-called lounge restaurants, in which almost all food can be eaten with your hands. A modern person is fed up with the tedious waiting for dishes and their traditional change in a chain, which do not allow him to relax and make him spend too much time on food.

In order not to lose face, the chefs of many Moscow restaurants are as sophisticated as they can. Some dishes are prepared in two formats, one of which is handmade. Moreover, such dishes include not only simple dishes, but also the most exquisite delicacies from the chef. To lighten the mood and create an atmosphere of relaxed ease, in a number of restaurants guests are invited to take off their shoes and sit right on the floor on soft carpets and pillows, and food is brought on small tables.

And what connoisseurs of finger food children can become! Please yourself and your children with simple dishes without spoons, forks and knives, and, perhaps, there will be much less complaints about the poor appetite of the kids.

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"Stop. Eat with your hands? Seriously? It's bad manners!" the reader will immediately think. In fact, it is quite a common way of eating. Recall sandwiches, pies, pies, fruits. And, of course, fast food: shawarma, nuggets, burgers, chicken wings, french fries. Pizza, by the way, you are also unlikely to eat with a fork.

And in the national cuisines of different countries there are dishes, eating which with your hands seems a little inconvenient and even strange, but nonetheless traditional. For example, plov is so familiar and delicious. So, in the "area" of its greatest popularity - Azerbaijan, India, Uzbekistan - this dish is eaten with hands, and with great pleasure.

Large Georgian dumplings - khinkali - are also taken by the tail with their hands and sent to the mouth. And wielding a fork over such a dish is simply unforgivable! If you pierce the dough, the most delicious thing will flow out - the broth that is inside.

Mexican fajitos is a beef stew with vegetables, which is wrapped in a tortilla (a flatbread similar to pita bread) and eaten like shawarma.

Finally, poultry meat etiquette allows you to eat with or without cutlery. As we said, lately finger food has become fashionable in world-famous chains of restaurants and cafes. Even the most inexperienced person can wake up a gourmet in himself by giving up a knife and fork. The first in the trend were the most receptive to experiments, Americans and residents of Western Europe. Gradually, new trends are spreading to the east - to us.

One of the most vocal advocates of hand-eating, René Redzepi, is the chef of the Danish restaurant Noma. According to the Michelin-starred winner, there should be no intermediaries between a person and products in the form of cutlery. A person needs to feel food with receptors located at the fingertips, to use additional possibilities of touch. Tactile impulses excite the body and set it up to digest food! So when you come to an expensive restaurant, do not be surprised at anything.

Was it worth it to invent so many types of cutlery (after all, there are no less than a dozen of the same forks, and even spoons for different dishes), if you can safely cope with the dishes with your own five? Perhaps it was worth it. However, both the prim "high" style of serving and the democratic finger food will have admirers.

One thing is known for sure: the fingerfood format is a great option for house parties. No one will starve for sure, because for food with your hands you can cook almost anything, with the exception, perhaps, of soup. (But who serves soup at parties?) Meat, fish, vegetables and fruits, sandwiches and sauces - all this is boldly included in the menu. Ceremonies and conventions are omitted, because the main thing is communication, the atmosphere. And without burdensome cutlery, it will be relaxed, trusting, informal - in a word, just like it should be!

Mankind has invented a myriad of devices for sending food into the mouth. And the most perfect tool is always with us - these are our hands.

In fact, finger food has always existed, just not all food is suitable for this way of eating. Eating a steak with just your hands and teeth is tricky. Especially if dentists have worked on your smile. But real pilaf can and should be eaten with your hands, as Indians and Azerbaijanis do. Both those and others are sure that cutlery distorts the taste of rice and spoils its energy. Eating pilaf with your hands is not at all difficult - you need to form a ball out of rice and use it to pick up gravy or grab a piece of meat or vegetables. And the Indians also use pilaf for flirting: a guy, to show his sympathy, can eat from a girl’s plate, and vice versa. Lovers also prefer to eat with their hands - there are so many opportunities for erotic tenderness!

The next dish that national etiquette prescribes to eat exclusively with the help of hands is khinkali. Georgian dumplings have a large volume and a special inedible tail-handle. Holding khinkali for her, it must be eaten so that not a single gram of the precious broth is spilled. And then, at the end of the meal, they choose a king or queen - the one who collected the most tails, which means they ate the most! What is not an idea for a Sunday family dinner: a game in which everyone can participate - both children and grandparents!

Most people know about eating with their hands in the other half of the hemisphere - in America, with its cult of fast food. But we are not interested in him, but in Tex-Mex cowboy snacks. For example, crispy baked chicken wings. Or jalapeno peppers stuffed with cheese. Or Mexican fajitas, a beef stew with vegetables that is eaten like a shawarma. Nothing out of the ordinary, but kids will love an old dish in a new package, that is, like a pita sandwich, pita bread or lettuce, for sure! Especially if you let them collect the rolls themselves.

Pizza can also be classified as finger food - in their homeland, in Naples, they eat it with their hands - grabbing the bases of the triangle and biting off from the top, where everything is tastiest.

But still, finger food is a traditional party food. If more guests should come to visit you than fit at the dinner table, change the party format to manual. Easier to prepare: sauces and some dishes can be made in advance, vegetables and fruits can be cut before guests arrive, or even use them in cooking treats. Secondly, finger food assumes an informal atmosphere - a friendly atmosphere reigns at parties without forks. It's amazing how many rules and conventions we eliminate just by removing cutlery from the table. And how much easier without them to start a casual conversation with a nice stranger.

Although fingerfoods (from the English words finger - “fingers” and food - “food”) seem to be a newfangled invention, they appeared a very long time ago. Moreover, in almost every traditional cuisine you can find a dozen or two dishes that are very convenient to eat with your hands. These are pizza, gyros, shawarma, tapas, chips ... In some cultures, the use of devices for certain foods is generally considered an insult. For example, if you try to eat khinkali with a knife and fork in Georgia, you can even be kicked out of the restaurant.

Do you think that finger foods are extremely unhealthy fast food? Actually it is not. We talked with the chefs and put together recipes for interesting, tasty and healthy dishes in the "eat with your hands" format.

vegetable chips

Sergey Kondakov, chef of the restaurantchips:

“Chips are bad for your figure and health. They contain a lot of fats, dyes, flavor enhancers and other not very useful substances, many of which are also carcinogenic. But what about those who like to crunch them in front of a TV or computer monitor? You have to make your own chips. And it doesn't have to be potatoes. Any root vegetables will do - beets, carrots, even celery root and parsnips will make delicious chips. Do you want to keep your figure before the summer season? No fats when cooking!

Ingredients (for 1-2 servings). 1 beet, 2 carrots, 2 potatoes, spices and salt to taste.

Instruction. Cut vegetables into thin slices. Rub them with salt or spices to taste. Put parchment paper on a baking sheet, spread only potatoes on top to begin with and bake it at 180 ° C until golden brown. Roast the beets separately at 150°C for about 40 minutes, turning the chips occasionally. Carrots are also baked for about 40 minutes at 140°C. Serve ready-made chips with any sauce or dip to taste - ketchup, natural yogurt without additives, zucchini caviar.

Flatbread with pear and cheese

Ivan Sezonov, co-owner of the restaurantExtraVirgin:

“If you are tired of pizza, but like the format of the dish, try making a flatbread. This is a thin crispy cake (in the literal translation, flat is “flat”, and bread is “bread”) with a lot of very different fillings. Flatbread dough is easy to make yourself. It only needs flour, water, olive oil, some yeast and salt. Fillings, choose any, to taste. It can be meat, fish, seafood, vegetables, cheese, even fruits and salads. It all depends on your culinary imagination.

Ingredients (for 1-2 servings). 50g mozzarella cheese, half a conference pear, a pinch of cane sugar, a handful of arugula, 15g celery stalks, 5g olive oil. For the test: 4 tbsp. l. flour, 1 tsp olive oil, 3 tbsp. l. water, 2 g yeast, salt to taste.

Instruction. For the dough, combine flour, salt and yeast in a food processor. Combine oil and water separately. Without turning off the combine, pour in the resulting liquid and knead a homogeneous dough. Transfer to a floured board and knead the dough for 2-3 minutes. Transfer the dough to a bowl and brush the outside with olive oil. Cover with cling film and leave in a warm place for 40 minutes until the dough has doubled in size. Knead it again for 1-2 minutes. Roll out the dough in the form of a baking sheet, transfer to a baking sheet. Peel the pear from the skin and seeds, cut into thin slices, put on the dough, alternating with slices of mozzarella, sprinkle with cane sugar on top. Bake for 6-7 minutes at 220°C. Cut the finished flatbread into 4-6 parts, put arugula leaves and celery stalk slices on top.

Crabcakes with yogurt sauce

Alexander Polishchuk, chef of the restaurantRedWoody:

“Seafood is very healthy! They contain a lot of easily digestible protein, a record amount of trace elements, especially iodine, calcium, phosphorus and copper. And besides, they are very tasty. A great option for finger food with seafood is crabcakes. For their preparation, you can use both frozen and canned crab meat. In the restaurant we take tiger prawns, but at home small, cocktail prawns are quite suitable. We pass all the ingredients for crabcakes through a meat grinder, so it is not so important what size the ingredients were originally. If you are on a diet, then you should not fry crabcakes in oil. In this case, without breading them, cook them in a double boiler.

Ingredients (for 4 servings). 300 g peeled shrimp, 100 g crab meat, 100 g onions, 1 cup natural yogurt without additives (125 g), 1 large bunch of cilantro, 5 g red chili pepper, 5 g peeled ginger root, 2 tbsp. l. breadcrumbs, vegetable oil for frying, salt to taste. For yogurt sauce: 2 jars of natural yogurt without additives, 2 tbsp. l. low-fat cream, 3 drops lemon or lime juice, 1/2 tsp. spicy tabadzhan paste (can be replaced with a couple of drops of spicy tabasco sauce or not added at all), 1 tsp. vegetable oil (preferably sesame).

Instruction. Peel the onion, chop and fry until golden in a couple of drops of vegetable oil. Shrimps, crab meat, fried onions, cilantro leaves, chili peppers and ginger, pass through a meat grinder, combine the minced meat with yogurt, bring to taste with salt, blind cutlets, roll lightly in breadcrumbs and fry in vegetable oil. Sauce: Mix all ingredients together.

Four more fingerfood recipes will be on the website tomorrow. Do not miss!