1 day Ago By Joy Saha
-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email I’m a huge fan of foods served on boards. That includes everything and anything from your typical charcuterie boards to more creative mini meal boards — like a baked potato board or a buffalo wing board complete with chicken wings and crudités. Most recently, I tried my hand at making a butter board.
The food trend calls for sticks of softened butter that’s slathered onto a wooden cheese board. It’s then seasoned with a myriad of toppings (sweet and savory, whatever your heart desires) and served alongside toasted pieces of bread. In the same vein as charcuterie boards, butter boards are meant to be a table showstopper.
Mine turned out to be the antithesis of that but regardless, the whole process of assembling smeared butter and then eating it was oddly...
cathartic and whimsical. Butter boards were first introduced by chef Joshua McFadden, who wrote about the trend in his 2017 cookbook titled “Six Seasons: A New Way With Vegetables.” In an interview with NPR , McFadden said he made his very-first butter board while living in Maine and working on a farm.
“[I]t was a really fun way to kind of bring a limited amount of fresh crab,” he explained. “And it was, like, this butter board that had crab and preserved lemon and these seaweeds and all this stuff and then, like, this brown butter, as well, on top of the butter.” McFadden added that butter boards aren’t a recipe — instead, they are “ kind of, like, a technique and an idea, so there's really no wrong way.
” Related From cultured to clarified, we break down 12 types of butter Five years later, the boards went viral on social media after food blogger Justine Doiron shared her go-to recipe for smooshed butter on TikTok. Since then, the hashtag #ButterBoard has garnered 180 million views, as folks put their own unique spin on the growing trend. High-end restaurants even joined in on the fun by revamping — and upcharging — their measly bread-and-butter courses to $38 tableside “butter service,” Eater’s H.
Claire Brown reported . Butter was certainly enjoying its moment under the culinary spotlight. So much so that last March, New York Magazine proclaimed that “butter has become the main character.
” The beauty of butter boards extends past its visual aesthetics. Interestingly, the trend’s resurgence in 2022 underscored a shift in both our eating and social habits: Following the pandemic’s peak, an increasing number of individuals were craving communal dining experiences and opportunities to reconnect. The desire to socialize was at an all-time high once lockdowns and other strict COVID-19 measures were slowly loosened.
“I was working at a restaurant at the time where they wanted to have the first course be a shared dish,” said Ann Ziata , chef at the Institute of Culinary Education’s New York City campus. “It was a hot pot and it made a lot of sense. It was very intentional.
We’re coming together again and not eating in isolated bubbles. We’re all sharing from the same plate again.” Butter boards are meant to be shared: “I just love serving soft butter and warm bread at dinner parties.
..This is just a fun way to have a new appetizer or starter on your table,” Dorian wrote.
Enjoying a board is also an experience in itself. You can be civil and use a knife to spread the butter onto pieces of toasted bread, or you can go headfirst with a slice of bread (a cracker or a piece of veggie will also suffice) to scoop up as much butter as you’d like. “I think it might have been a year or so ago when I first saw butter boards on social media.
And, you know, it was something I had never seen before,” said Ziata. “I guess it just seemed like the next progression of all these charcuterie boards, which have been popular for at least a few years.” She continued, “I think even right before COVID, every party or catering event I went to or worked at had a huge kind of smorgasbord table of shared things that were very artfully arranged, almost like a garden.
” Want more great food writing and recipes? Subscribe to Salon Food's newsletter , The Bite. Unlike charcuterie boards, butter boards feature one main ingredient: butter. “I would say, get a butter you think tastes delicious on its own, like maybe something that's a little higher in butter fats,” Ziata recommended for those looking to make a board at home.
The addition of toppings is what makes each board distinct from one another. Dorian’s board, for example, calls for flakey salt, citrus zest, fresh herbs, sliced red onions, edible flowers and a generous drizzle of honey. For another savory option, try adding roasted garlic and spices — like ground coriander or ground cardamom — alongside your butter base, salt, herbs and citrus.
If you have a sweet tooth and would like to make a board that’s on a par with dessert, try topping your butter with fruit compote, macerated strawberries or vanilla bean alongside drizzles of maple syrup or honey. You can also pair your board with pretzels or crackers instead of toasted bread. Per Ziata, butter boards are flexible, meaning you can make a special grocery trip to gather your ingredients or just use whatever you already have in your kitchen pantry.
“You can go as simple or as crazy as you want,” she said. “You can really have a lot of fun with it.” Read more about the beauty of butter: Restaurant chefs and top bakers swear by this butter: Why experts say Plugrà is superior The joy of achar butter and tiny cooking wins When mushrooms meet brown butter: 5-ingredient egg noodles that steal the show By Joy Saha Joy Saha is a staff writer at Salon.
She writes about food news and trends and their intersection with culture. She holds a BA in journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park. MORE FROM Joy Saha Related Topics ------------------------------------------ Butter Butter Boards Charcuterie Boards Food News Food Trend Joshua Mcfadden Justine Doiron Related Articles Advertisement:.
