Nibbles with drinks

In England a very few pubs have "free" snacks - perhaps crisps, nuts, small pieces of cheese on the counter for customers to help themselves to.  But very few.  I remember many years ago being in a pub in Derbyshire, and plates of sliced black pudding were handed around!  If you want something to eat with your drink, normally you must order it separately. 

Ordering separately reminds me of a trip to Bulgaria.  I was staying in a hotel in Varna, a city and resort on the Black Sea, and had ordered coffee in the bar.  The coffee arrived quite along time after I ordered it, perhaps half an hour.  I was taking in the local scene, and the delay did not bother me.  But I had no sugar; and I had no milk.  I asked about these.  Sugar and milk had to be ordered separately, they were not automatically served with the coffee...........  And coffee gets cold quickly.  But I digress!

In Greece, if you order an alcoholic drink you are often served some "nibbles".  The usual "snack" served with a drink is a bowl of nuts.  But sometimes the "snack" is something more substantial.  Today I ordered an Amstel.  The snack was a small plate of delicious pickled peppers and tomato, and brown bread.  I say "pickled", but the liquid they were in was more oil than vinegar.  Perhaps marinated would be a better word.

But I was reciting to myself the "Peter Piper" tongue twister, and thinking of pickled pepper.  Did the words "pickled pepper" appear in the rhyme,  I don't usually think about "Peter Piper", but if I did, I'm sure that until today I would have thought of pickled peppercorns (why would anyone pickle a peppercorn?) and not pickled red - green peppers.

back in my room, I looked up the "Peter Piper" rhyme.

Peter Piper
Picked a peck
Of pickled peppers.

A peck of pickled peppers
Peter Piper picked.

If Peter Piper
Picked a peck
Of pickled peppers,

Where is the peck
Of pickled peppers
Peter Piper picked?

A pickled pepper
Picked a peck
Of Peter Pipers.

A peck of Peter Pipers
A pickled pepper picked.

If a pickled pepper
Picked a peck
Of Peter Pipers,

Where is the peck
Of Peter Pipers
A pickled pepper picked?

If you order an ouzo, you traditionally get something larger in the way of a "snack".  Sometimes "ouzo snack" appears on a menu at a higher charge than a plain unadorned ouzo.