Canapés

Nibbles to be passed around to guests at an Art Gallery opening  - tiny bocconcini sandwiched between cherry tomatoes, "drizzled" with basil oil.
Nice, but these are not canapés.
What do we call small, light morsels of food passed around to standing guests or to friends not yet seated, to entertain them possibly, while waiting for others to arrive?

Pre-dinner nibbles, appetisers, pre-prandial snacks, hors d'oeuvres, amuse-gueules, amuse-bouches, canapés?

In French, un canapé is a couch or a sofa, so a canapé acts as a little "couch" for a morsel of tasty food on which to nestle.  It could be a round of rye bread topped with smoked salmon & sour cream, it could be a sliver of pineapple topped with spiced pork, it could even be a humble Jatz cracker with cheddar and a pickle.

We were always trying to find different "canapés" to build on - a round of cucumber, a small square of crisped polenta, a finger of toast, a blini, a ball of pressed rice - all to inspire us to match a topping.
​
So baby bocconcini and cherry tomatoes are nice, but they're not canapés. Canapés are pre-prandial snacks/appetisers but not all pre-prandial snacks are canapés.
​