Survey of AHS students' favorite Christmas appetizers

Christmas time is always a fun time to be surrounded by friends, family, and especially the food. With each holiday, there is always the calm before the storm, specifically talking about the various and delicious appetizers before the entire feast at dinner time. Everyone’s favorite appetizers vary as you jump from house to house, but there are many that of people joy, like buffalo chicken dip, spinach artichoke dip with pumpernickel bread, deviled eggs, hanky panky, shrimp cocktail, veggies with ranch, and the classic cheese platter with crackers. A survey done among all the grades at AHS tells what the students favorite appetizers are at the holiday time.

Buffalo chicken dip is a classic appetizer for many special occasions including Christmas. If you are unfamiliar with buffalo chicken dip, it is essentially a mix of cream cheese, buffalo sauce, shredded chicken and ranch or blue cheese dressing and cooked into an oven. It can be spicy at times, so I do not recommend for people that do not like spicy foods. Of the 107 students that voted, 39.3 percent of the students said that their favorite Christmas appetizer was buffalo chicken dip. Buffalo chicken dip received the highest number of votes out of all the appetizers.

The appetizer coming in second place with votes with 15% of the students voting for it was a cheese platter. A usual cheese platter or board includes various types of cheese like cheddar, monterey jack, gouda and swiss. The platter has crackers to go with the cheese. It also includes meats like salami and pepperoni. It lastly has other small snacks like nuts and grapes. The cheese platter is a great choice for any occasion with a lot or limited number of people because of all the choices and how you are able to choose how much of everything you want to put out.

Coming in third place was the appetizer of shrimp cocktail. Shrimp cocktail is a dish of cooked, shelled shrimp served cold with cocktail sauce. If one chooses to make their own cocktail sauces it usually consists of ketchup, lemon zest and juice, horseradish, and Worcestershire sauce mixed together in a bowl or cup. 13.1 percent of the 107 students that voted, considered this their favorite Christmas appetizer. The three appetizers with the least amount of votes was spinach artichoke dip with 8.3 percent, deviled eggs with 7.4 percent, veggies and ranch 6.5 percent and hanky panky with 5.6 percent.

Christmas time is full of family and food and what is a better way than enjoy your loved ones than to introduce them to a new food or appetizer. Buffalo chicken dip, a classic cheese platter, and shrimp cocktail are great choices to bring to any party or special occasion, especially during holidays. There’s nothing better than enjoying some good food with your friends and family.