ÉTAGÈRES & TIERED STANDS

Over the years, I have put on many dinner parties, each accompanied by varying degrees of anxiety. Eventually, I adopted a format that, for me, significantly reduces the stress and effort.  My go-to dinner party format works as follows:

Serve hors d’oeuvres/starters and desserts at the table and serve the main course as a buffet. This enables me to sit down with my guests at the table at the start of dinner and be with them for most of the meal, interacting, eating and getting our food together. This format makes it possible for me to avoid running around like a March Hare to the kitchen and back, which is particularly valuable as I, like most people, do not usually have helpers in the kitchen or serving. I will be doing a future post on my ideas about making entertaining less stressful and more of a breeze.  I do welcome any suggestions from you – I still have a lot to learn!

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Entertaining is never just about the food - first it is about the company and their (and your) enjoyment of your event. As the host, it is up to you to create the atmosphere, which includes presenting the food, the table and your home in a memorable way. That doesn't have to emulate a state dinner at Buckingham Palace, unless that is your thing (in which case you probably have staff and don't need to read this!). I always like to keep things simple, but simple can also be memorable. In keeping with the idea of simple yet elegant and practical, one of the devices that I use often is the étagère or tiered stand for presenting food on the buffett and/or dinner table.

History

The concept of tiered displays of food can be traced back to the 17th & 18th centuries in Europe where at large banquets, multiple levels of trays were used to display a variety of foods.  The tiered cake stand (sometimes called food étagères) became very popular during the Victorian era in Britain (1837-1901). That period saw the rise in the popularity of the afternoon tea, in which tea was served accompanied by an assortment of cakes, pastries, scones and sandwiches that were attractively displayed over the three tiers.  Originally the stands were made of silver or fine china with silver holders.

Today, these stands are used not only for afternoon tea but are considered practical for displaying a multitude of foods, particularly as a centrepiece or on a buffet table.  Just raising a plate up on a single pedestal can enhance the presentation of a cake for example.  There are many designs you can buy that are made of wood, metal, china and even paper.

Using these ideas at home

 

Raising dishes on a buffet table is often seen at large catered events but it is not difficult to do this at home even if you only have a handful of guests.   Not only does using different levels make your food look more inviting, it helps people reach food easily at the centre of the table, it increases the amount of space on the buffet table and reduces the chances of inadvertently dipping your shirt sleeves in the food – something that I seem to do often!  I often set up my buffet table a day before my event, creating surfaces at different levels so everything is just waiting for food dishes to be placed.

Tiered stands (étagères) can be used for a table centrepiece (see my post on fruit centrepieces) and certainly saves time and space when bringing multiple dessert choices to the dinner table.  So, in terms of elegance and ease I consider different ways of using tiers to present food to tick the boxes for Péché Mignon Life.

Of course, raising dishes on a buffet table can easily be done using boxes/books hidden under serviettes (if your boxes or books are precious then always cover them with plastic wrap or the equivalent). I have also used bowls to raise up flat plates.

NB.  Always use a surface area for your riser that supports approx. 75% the size of the plate that sits on it - as you do not want things to topple over.  If in doubt there is always blue tack to secure your dishes to the riser!

Étagères / tiered cake stands on the other hand can be bought, there are many different styles on the market – but, you can make them yourself quite simply and very inexpensively.   If you are interested in making one I will show you how in a future post.

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