Charcuterie: The Ultimate Party Flex

How good was the party? It depends. How big was the charcuterie?

In the early 2020s, a well known gathering grazer was re-born as it became a popular trend on social media. The elaborate, expansive, charcuterie board countertop.

Forget the idea of cheese, a couple of meat piles, a few nuts and maybe some honey if you’re feeling ambitious. Gone are the days of busting out your favorite cutting board and staying within its small parameters. Now, if you want to make a party-worthy charcuterie, you must follow these steps.

1. Clean off your flawless, extra large marble kitchen island that you’ll be making payments on through retirement. (Extra credit if your kitchen is so clean, you can skip this step.)

2. Roll out a massive sheet of butcher block paper in the color / theme of your party. Brown will not suffice even though it will be covered.

3. Four hours before your party (you’ll have everything else done), begin crafting the “charcuterie board” a/k/a massive food trough.(You’ve already been to 12 stores in search of various cheeses, meats, and accoutrements. If you haven’t blown at least $390, go back to the store until you do.)

4. Begin with the meats. Form the harder processed meats (salamis and such) into beautiful red roses using a tutorial by your favorite blogger. The softer ones may be rolled or perfectly piled. Under no circumstances are you to pull them apart to rest individually.

5. Now for the cheeses. No fewer than 27 varieties will do. Personally import the cheese from France, if need be. Ensure that they are strategically placed so as to look visually appealing. Each chunk must have its own marble-handled cheese knife. Optional: mark the varieties with signage so people understand what they are committing to when selecting the stinkier varieties.  If you exercise this option, you MUST have party-themed signs and calligraphy writing.

6. Add crackers and grapes and nuts and honey and olives — the complementary items of the old days.

7. Now for the fun part. To fill the rest of the countertop “cheese” charcuterie, you are officially permitted to use anything else that is edible. Examples include mini Hostess donuts, cookies, pre-packaged Costco turkey, or items from your child’s latest party favor bag. Pixie sticks, anyone?

8. If you run out of countertop room, consider quickly building a second tier or expanding by stair-stepping the spread atop your refrigerator. You will need a doormat of a spouse and a Home Depot within a 2-mile radius to pull this one off.

9. Take 38 photos of your charcuterie trough from various angles high and low, in preparation for your Instagram story that will drop immediately once you excuse yourself to the restroom. Use a ladder to get the appropriate angle, if needed. Kick the dog out of the shot, as needed. Hire a videographer to capture the live feed.

10. When guests arrive four hours after starting this project, frantically encourage them to eat from the trough as soon as practicable so as to minimize the potential for food poisoning. Release children to do the same.

11. Marvel in the kids and adults picking through the various items and ignore the fact that 75% of them haven’t washed their hands upon emerging from the bathroom.

12. Before your spouse can take note of the remaining spread items (roughly 4/5ths of the original food offered), rapidly roll that shit up in the butcher paper and dispose of it quietly. You can’t save it. It’s been sitting too long.

Look, we aren’t altogether knocking a charcuterie board. We both love a good meat/cheese/cracker combo. Kara, too, has found herself half swept into this charcuterie party flex phenomenon but because she’s unable financially to commit to steps one, two, three, and seven, her attempted flexes have been lackluster at best. Bethany is repulsed by the whole idea, including the public health concerns it raises. It offends her in the worst ways: wastefulness, boastfulness, and people honestly believing the world wants to see their meat.

At the end of the day, we wonder how this phenomenon came to be (especially in the COVID-era). Did some big shot over at the cheese factory get together with some big shot over at the Hostess donut factory and decide that a marriage was to be made? Is “big charcuterie” to blame for this? Have the influencers taken this idea too far on their own, sans financial push from all the “bigs?” Whatever happened, the charcuterie countertop party flex is . . . a lot.

Now, show us your flexes!

Kara will go first, but please don’t judge. This is a safe space. Bethany will share her family’s amateur board and nut failure.

The evolution of Kara's charcuterie from 2016

Kara's biggest flex. A themed 2-board job for girls' movie night featuring "Miracle on 34th Street"

Left: Bethany's kids are enthusiasts, much to her dismay. (Note the option of food placement on a cutting board that fits quite nicely inside of a worn sheet pan.) Right: Bethany's kid takes after her charcuterie skills.

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