Food boards, while having their moment on social media, are not a new invention. We’ve had charcuterie boards for centuries, and whether it’s a simple set up for two or a giant grazing table for hundreds, serving food this way allows us to socialize as we enjoy it – this is one of the key points to their popularity. We’ve even experienced it at restaurants in the last decade, where it is increasingly popular to serve burgers, or beer flights, or desserts on a board or plank.
Recently, we’ve been flooded on social media with not just traditional charcuterie or cheese boards, but of every type of food imaginable. The butter board – room temperature butter spread on a board, topped with sea salt, honey, chili flakes, and various crudite – went so viral, that the New York Times wrote about it. Now we’re seeing buttercream boards, chicken wing boards, cookie boards, candy boards…anything and everything being served in this manner. Often it’s done for some kind of gathering, giving us a chance to go big with our creations (but it’s also done for likes and shares).
Is there a limit to what we’ll put on a board? Have we already reached it? Or maybe…the next iteration will be simplification. The presentation of food tends to be cyclical, and grandiose isn’t always best. But as folks are beginning to gather more (and the holidays approach), perhaps that’s just one reason why the resurgence of the food board has hit the mainstream so hard. And honestly…while they may be over the top, it’s easy to get stuck in an endless social media scroll when folks are being so culinarily creative!
