You can often turn them into quickly put together meals, either as casual dinners or as party trays to go with wine and beer for impromptu parties.

A great party idea:

- Basic things like marinated olives, mushrooms, artichokes are all available in the Exotic Food isles of your local supermarket.

- Cold cuts are available in Meats sections of supermarkets or meat shops.

- For gourmet stuff pop in to one of the many delis at large hotels - for example Taj Land's End at Bandra, Mumbai.

- Just add good bread and a green salad to the equation.

- Serve a fabulous platter of all these antipasti with wine!

Photograph: Stock Xchange

Photographs are for representative purposes only.