Dim sum =? savory snack

[Joel S. Berson]

At 8/17/2011 06:55 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>Well, with dim sum, how else are you going to
>get it in a form you would call a snack? If you
>eat it in the restaurant, is it a snack? To me
>it would be a light lunch, but even so, it's not
>a snack food, it's a food that is being eaten as a snack/light lunch.

I won't argue with this.  By analogy, what do we
call a meal of (Spanish) tapas? ... well,
research shows "we" call it "Usu. pl. In Spanish
bars or cafés, a *savoury* [there we are again]
*snack* [ditto] or hors d'œuvre [see below] of
sausage, cured ham, seafood, potato salad, etc.,
typically served with glasses of wine or sherry."

"Appetizers" won't work, I guess, since dim sum
are often both the appetizer and the
satisfier.  Perhaps "small dishes of savouries or desserts"?

"Hors d'œuvre" too seems inappropriate for dim
sum.  (For unknown reason, "hors d'œuvre" doesn't
come up in a simple search, but Advanced search
full text does find it as a head-word.)

Joel

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