You could be encountering the word ‘charcuterie’ for the first time and be wondering why it is popular, as odd and novel as it sounds. And spare the usual pronunciation struggles many people face with this word. Replace everything else you’ve been mumbling with “shaar-koo-tr-ee,” and you are good to go. Charcuterie has a long history linked to ancient Roman cuisines and has been popularized by the French in modern times.
A charcuterie board is a meat and cheese board or antipasti platter, often served before the main meal at an exquisite restaurant, cocktail parties, and various get-togethers. For the longest time, charcuterie has been loved by most people, laid on wooden boards, but there are many new trends, including being laid on a platter. The great selling point of charcuterie is maintaining its appeal to the eyes and the nose, with cured meat being the star of the show and everything else remaining an enhancer.
Charcuterie has lately surged in popularity. Here are six reasons for the growing popularity of Charcuterie Boards:
1. Subscription Box Programs
A subscription box is a gift box where you sign up for a particular product and receive shipments of the different well-curated packages at a given fee, monthly, or a specifically agreed frequency. Charcuterie Boards have risen in popularity because of the subscription box programs that bring the choicest and most well-done cured meat with different flavors to people’s doorsteps. With a subscription box package, you can easily gift your friends and loved ones without having to go through the troubles of going to a restaurant.
The Carnivore Club, with its legendary charcuterie featuring top artisans, remains at the top of its game regarding charcuterie board subscription boxes. The Classic Box is jam-packed with 4-6 skillfully crafted cured meats featuring exotic cuisines like Italian Salami, Spanish Chorizo, Prosciutto Americano, and much more. The box offers three gift options, every 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months.
2. Has a powerful Appeal
One powerful reason why the charcuterie board remains popular is that it fits well in the basic trains of every good food—it looks great and tastes great. By setting your eyes on a board of Charcuterie with all its noble and sumptuous accompaniments, you can’t wait to have the first bite. Outside of the aesthetics, the aroma will captivate you. A charcuterie board gives the best case study where food and art are perfectly combined to bring a powerful effect and elevate the sales pitch and appeal.
The powerful appeal serves the great purpose of commanding visits to popular outlets. It remains a great driver of online engagement in social media and a powerful booster of social media marketing. The powerful appeal of charcuterie boards in photography makes it a popular goal and everyone’s dream.
3. Can Be Done In Multiple Ways
There will always be beauty in diversity. There is no single standard way of setting up a charcuterie table. Even if you give two people the same ingredients and accompaniments, the resulting board would be dissimilar, making Charcuterie Boards exceptional. The list becomes endless when considering items and styles for arranging a Charcuterie Board. There is a novelty in every attempt.
Sometimes, your board will look good with meats, including prosciutto, salami, pepperoni, sausage, and pate. But a careful artisan would give you a different touch with cheeses, including chevre, cheddar, and muenster. But this is not all, as your Charcuterie Board can still accommodate dried and fresh fruits, such as figs, apricots, and sliced apples. What about making it greener and multicolored with vegetables like olives, peppers, and carrots? You can crown it all with a touch of pickles, nuts, seeds, honey, preserves, spreads, bread, and crackers.
4. Charcuterie Boards Bring Us Together
If you think meeting friends and families, nothing can make it more memorable than sharing a board loaded with Charcuterie. It is shareable and easy to set up without the challenge of providing much more utensils and cutlery. You can have safe conversations while keeping eye contact and enjoying your board’s yummy and sweet offers. And can there be any waste? If you don’t want to eat those nuts or crackers, somebody else will find them a favorite. Charcuterie Boards bring us together, and we love it that way.
5. Has Long History Of Use
Charcuterie has a long history from ancient Roman cuisine, where it was prepared from slaughtered pigs. In the Middle Ages, the Germans diversified it into sausage making before the French charcuteries captured the tradition and revolutionized it into an art form —giving it the name “charcuterie.” The Pre-Industrialization Charcuterie Board (the 1400s – 1900s) displayed an assortment of meat based on availability. For those who love history, a great munch around a Charcuterie Board gives a nostalgic attachment to the past. It remains a remembrance of ancient cultures and cuisines and evokes an appreciation of the diversity of cultures it has passed through to the current trends we create daily.
6. The Influx of New Trends
Charcuterie has taken a new turn running beyond the traditional known boards or platters. The trends go beyond the simple food trend to ingredients used and methods of serving. Here are some of the tastes of the day:
Vegan Charcuterie Board
A vegan Charcuterie Board takes care of those who don’t do flesh foods. Every non-flesh component, like crackers, honey, fruits, etc., remains. The only assignment is to find a perfect replacement for meat and dairy cheese. You can do vegan meat substitutes like mushroom jerky, soy foods, eggplant bacon, and roasted chickpeas.
Charcuterie Cones
Serving Charcuterie in cones can be efficient when you want to enjoy your favorite snack outside the restaurant. It is a serving idea; you can choose content based on your tastes, including vegan or non-vegan.
Jarcuterie
Like Charcuterie cones, Jarcuterie is not an ingredient idea but a serving trend where charcuterie is served in disposable jars. Jarcuterie became popular during the pandemic to limit human interaction.
Dessert Charcuterie
Dessert Charcuterie is technically not charcuterie since there are no meats or their respective alternatives on the board. It borrows the ideas of traditional Charcuterie Boards to serve sweets and other condiments.
Seafood Charcuterie
Seafood remains on the bucket list of many people. What is a better way to enjoy seafood than arranging it nicely on a Charcuterie Board? You easily set it by replacing meat with your favorite seafood like clams and oysters.
Conclusion
Charcuterie Boards have withstood the test of time from the days of Ancient Rome to the current art-oriented French cuisine. Despite the growth in modern cuisines, a tasty and yummy board of charcuteries remains many people’s favorite. This article explains why many people still love and will continue making their orders.
