Posted by By Oretta Croushore, Property Manager for Home Rental Services
Well, the holiday season is upon us. Time to break out the Charcuterie Board! As I begin planning for parties and family gatherings, I thought it might be fun to design a handy Charcuterie Board guide.
If you want to skip the reading, you can download my guide right here.
Two of the main ingredients of an award winning Charcuterie Board are meats and cheeses. The first page of my guide is all about cheese slicing. Cheeses come in lots of shapes and sizes and it is worth the extra few minutes to plan how you will cut a block of cheese up for presentation on your board.
The second page is a serving guide based on the number of people you are planning to serve. And I also provided a solid list of ingredients to include on your board including meats, cheeses, chocolate, vegetables, spreads, crackers, nuts and garnishes.
I hope that this guide is helpful and inspiring! Enjoy this holiday season with your loved ones… and Happy Thanksgiving from your friends at Home Rental Services!
History of the Charcuterie Board
Charcuterie is cured meat, derived from the French chair, ‘flesh’, and cuit, ‘cooked’ and was coined in 15th century France. The owners of shops specializing in charcuterie (charcutiers) became popular for their detailed preparation of cured meats and helped establish stylized arrangements of food as part of French culinary culture.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries in the United States, the practice of hosting dinners became increasingly informal as time went on, especially by the 1910s, when formal dinners were largely replaced by cocktail parties where a variety of finger foods served throughout the night was preferred over scheduled meal courses. During World War II, American soldiers were introduced to regional charcuteries and cheeses of France, Italy, Germany, and Greece and helped proliferate an interest in European cuisines when they returned home. However, it wasn’t until the 1990s that charcuterie boards had a resurgence in popularity as American grocery stores diversified their offerings and specialty food stores became more common.
While charcuterie boards are common appetizers in restaurants today, they continue to find popularity in private gatherings like house and dinner parties due to their ease of preparation. Even so, with the advent of social media in the 2010s, especially image-based apps like Instagram, charcuterie boards also became incredibly complex and expensive, featuring dozens of meats, cheeses, and accompaniments on display for followers and monetization. (Source: Wikipedia)
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