Having worked at high-end restaurants over the decades, I have had to make Charcuterie boards, Crudite platters, and even huge platters of Caprese on a stick.
I have detested all of it.
Currently, there are articles, posts, and pictures of the various Charcuterie board expansions. The Butter board, with supposedly imported butter decorated with flowers and other things, showed up on my feed two years ago. The Spaghetti Table, where you get the entire bucket of spaghetti dumped on a common table to eat, including the sauces and meats, has been a staple of some restaurants in my area for decades. The are even kitchens who make platters of ‘Desert Flights’ that are meant to share, as long as you have several other people with you to go into a food coma with.
But the one I just saw… Breaks me.
A Chilicuterie Board. A pot of chili with a board filled with the add-ons with it. The cheese, the jalapeños, the Frito corn chips. All just laying on the open board to be scooped up and added to the chili.
Looking at this artfully designed and photographed meal-to-share, I realized what makes me so uneasy about this trend. It is the food safety in general, but it is the ‘food touching’ of cross contamination that really gets to me.
As someone who both cooks for people with allergies, and has some to deal with while cooking, knowing the food presented is going to all be mingling with each other in the open makes me really nervous. Anyone with ANY allergy will not be able to participate in the meal. The corn chips could be several mounds of food away from the cheese, but the cheese will still have the corn dust on it. The sour cream will melt and slide under that layer of fresh tomato chunks. And then there is AFTER the food gets served and who knows how the last people transported the nibbles from the tray to their bowl?
Dude.
The little bowls and containers for the different add-ons create more dishes to wash later. I realize that. They also keep the food safer for everyone to eat. Plan to wash dishes, not take someone to the ER.
Chef Rena