{"id":92305,"date":"2026-07-30T12:22:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T18:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=92305"},"modified":"2026-07-30T13:48:43","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T19:48:43","slug":"antipasti-history-and-antipasto-platter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/antipasti-history-and-antipasto-platter\/","title":{"rendered":"What are antipasti, and what is the history of these delicious, artistic Italian appetizers?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><figure id=\"attachment_92320\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-92320\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-92320\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/07\/30114305\/ANTIPASTI2-web.webp\" alt=\"An assortment of antipasti in the Italian way. Antipasti are culinary quickies. Antipasti means &quot;before the meal,&quot; and they aim to stimulate the appetite, but some of us enjoy munching on cool antipasti for an entire meal on a hot summer evening. Photo by Bill St. John, for UCHealth.\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-92320\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An assortment of antipasti in the Italian way. Antipasti are culinary quickies. Antipasti means &#8220;before the meal,&#8221; and they aim to stimulate the appetite, but some of us enjoy munching on cool antipasti for an entire meal on a hot summer evening. Photo by Bill St. John, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I got a great chuckle one day when I overheard a patron at a supermarket deli counter say to the clerk, \u201cMan, I need to go on a diet. Give me some of that anti-pasta,\u201d the \u201canti\u201d pronounced as in \u201canti-aging.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Given our American culinary history, it was an understandable booboo on the Italian word \u201cantipasto,\u201d which translates verbatim as \u201cbefore the meal\u201d \u2014 and, to clarify, means neither \u201cbefore the pasta\u201d nor, certainly, \u201copposed to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We call nibbles \u201cnibbles\u201d and snacks \u201csnacks\u201d and about anything more formal \u201cappetizers,\u201d that latter word giving a good clue to what are, in truth, antipasti (the plural of antipasto). They arouse or stimulate <em>the appetite<\/em>, especially for what\u2019s to come, in this case the \u201cpasto,\u201d in the original Italian, the main meal.<\/p>\n<p>Other cultures offer similar pre-meal invigorants. The French call their antipasto an \u201chors d\u2019oeuvre\u201d (word for word, \u201coutside the main event\u201d), those in the Levant and Greece have a long tradition of \u201cmezze\u201d and no Russian meal is without its prefigurement of \u201czakuski.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What counts as antipasti?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Some suggest that the small dishes of Spanish tapas or Venetian cicchetti are antipasti, but I disagree (mildly). These small plates are served much less frequently in homes or restaurants than at bars or taverns, and are generally eaten while standing up. They\u2019re culinary quickies, an accumulation of which sometimes combine in place of an entire meal itself. They are meant not merely to stimulate the appetite, but to sate it.<\/p>\n<p>However, even in Italy itself, which, let\u2019s be honest, has not only given the name \u201cantipasti\u201d to the West but also defined most of its ways and means, the term was not much in use until the late 1800s. You won\u2019t find many older Italian cookbooks calling what we call foods such as bruschetta, crostini, sliced meats, olives, or salted fish and the like \u201cantipasti.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They might call them \u2014 or foods like them, such as a cup of soup or a few oysters \u2014 \u201cprincipii\u201d (first things) or even, in English translation, \u201cappetizers,\u201d but the popularity of the words \u201cantipasto\u201d and \u201cantipasti\u201d is more modern than ancient.<\/p>\n<p>In 1891, in the greatest Italian cookbook of its time, \u201cScience in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well,\u201d author Pellegrino Artusi states that the proper place or timing of foods such as \u201coysters, cured meats . . . or seafood such as anchovies or sardines\u201d was, in fact, \u201cafter the pasta course.\u201d He said this because he was a Tuscan where antipasti, in a twist on the word, were \u201cpost-pasta,\u201d eaten after the rice or pasta course but before the meat or fish course.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s the point of all this eating etymology anyway? Haven\u2019t cultures always munched the wee bits in order to stimulate their larger appetites?<\/p>\n<p>Well, they have. But they didn\u2019t call them \u201cantipasti\u201d until more recently in the history of human eating. Antipasti\u2019s <em>role<\/em> in eating was more important than its name. It received its name, of late, because of that role. (According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first use of the word \u201cantipasto\u201d in English is in the academic treatise \u201cHospitall of Incurable Fools\u201d by Tommaso Garzoni, published in 1600.)<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s because of what true antipasti are, characterized by an abundance of salt (such as in cheeses, pickles, brined olives), souring agents such as vinegars or citrus juices (pickles again, marinated vegetables) and both smoked fish and meat and cured meats, a.k.a. dried sausages.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Antipasti: A blend of salt, acidity, smoke and the cure of time<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The elements of salt, acid and smoke are preservatives. People of the West did not salt, hang for curing, acidulate, smoke in order to cure, pickle or perform other preserving acts on food until beginning to do so some 3,000 years ago, mostly by desiccating foods such as fruits of their potentially spoiling moisture. <div class=\"su-callout-box col-xs-12 col-sm-6 right\" style=\"background-color:#dce4e7; color:#2e3b44;\">Get more\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/author\/bstjohn\/\">great tips and recipes<\/a>\u00a0from Bill St. John.<\/div>\n<p>Then, they rolled out food preservation practices slowly over millennia. For example, Roman sausage recipes don\u2019t appear until around 300 A.D.; uses of vinegaring agents really took hold in the Middle Ages, during the 10th to the 15th centuries.<\/p>\n<p>But note how these elements of salt, acid, smoke and their concentration (such as curing meats or making \u201cconserves,\u201d a notable word in this context) also majorly stimulate the palate. You can feel your saliva oozing onto your palate just reading their terms. No wonder that appetizer platters, in Italy and beyond, offer a bounty of such foods.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a pretty magical combination that history gave antipasti, isn\u2019t it, to have the development of methods of preservation so tied up with these many stimulants to the appetite?<\/p>\n<p>And, I think, the big reason that antipasti are \u201cbefore the meal\u201d is pretty much because they just give a great break to the cook. You\u2019ve got all these preserved foods around, hanging or jarred in your cellar or canned on your pantry shelf. Why not just platter up a bunch of them in front of your guests so that they might have at it before enjoying all your hard work at the main event?<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_92341\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-92341\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-92341\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/07\/30134523\/ITALIAN-FLAG-ANTIPASTI-straight-web.webp\" alt=\"An antipasto platter of green olives, white cheese and smoked red peppers laid out to echo the colors of the Italian flag. Photo by Bill St. John, for UCHealth.\" width=\"640\" height=\"364\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-92341\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An antipasto platter of green olives, white cheese and smoked red peppers laid out to echo the colors of the Italian flag. Photo by Bill St. John, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2><strong>Recipe: An antipasto platter honoring the flag of Italy<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Serves 8-12.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Ingredients<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>1 heaping cupful Castelvetrano olives, pitted or pits-in, as desired, drained of their brine<\/p>\n<p>1\/2 cup pepperoncini, drained of their brine<\/p>\n<p>6-7 medium-sized balls of burrata<\/p>\n<p>12-15 small balls of mozzarella (called \u201cbocconcini,\u201d \u201cpearls\u201d or \u201cciliegine\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>Dried Mediterranean oregano<\/p>\n<p>8-10 roasted red peppers, depending on size, to make about 2 cups pepper slices<\/p>\n<p>2 tablespoons fruity extra virgin olive oil<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Directions<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>In one bowl, large enough so that they may be tossed, sprinkle the cheeses with as much crushed oregano as desired, lightly tossing and coating them. Be sure the herb is crushed very finely in the palm of your hand or in a mortar and pestle. In a separate bowl, drizzle the red pepper slices with the olive oil, tossing to coat well.<\/p>\n<p>In a third bowl, mix together the olives and pepperoncini, being sure to drain them once again.<\/p>\n<p>Assemble the three colored elements in equal measure, left-to-right green-white-red, as if to resemble the Italian flag. Serve with small forks or toothpicks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I got a great chuckle one day when I overheard a patron at a supermarket deli counter say to the clerk, \u201cMan, I need to go on a diet. Give me some of that anti-pasta,\u201d the \u201canti\u201d pronounced as in \u201canti-aging.\u201d Given our American culinary history, it was an understandable booboo on the Italian word [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2197,"featured_media":92320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4799,4415],"class_list":["post-92305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-living","tag-bill-st-john","tag-recipes"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.1 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What are antipasti? 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Bill's experience also includes teaching at Regis University and the University of Chicago and in classrooms of his own devising; working as on-air talent with Denver's KCNC-TV, where he scripted and presented a travel &amp; lifestyle program called \"Wine at 45\"; a one-week stint as a Trappist monk; and offering his shoulder as a headrest for Julia Child for 20 minutes. 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