Savoury (dish)

A savoury is the final course of a traditional English formal meal, following the sweet pudding or dessert course.

[1] Typical savouries include: The 1669 cookbook The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt.

Opened includes an entry for 'Savoury Tosted or Melted Cheese', a dish of melted well-flavoured cheese and butter, optionally with the addition of asparagus, bacon, onions or anchovies, and scorched at the top with a hot fire-shovel, served with toasts or crusts of white bread.

[2] In Eliza Acton's 1845 book Modern Cookery for Private Families, there is a recipe for savoury toasts.

In the 20th century, entire books on the subject appeared, such as Good Savouries (1934) by Ambrose Heath.