The Best Charcuterie Board

Let me tell you something. Charcuterie. Char-cu-ter-ie. It's French — and the French, they got a lot wrong over the years, a LOT of things, but the meat-and-cheese-on-a-board thing? They nailed it. They absolutely nailed it. It is one of the few times in recorded history the French were CORRECT, and I'm willing to admit it, because I'm fair, I'm the fairest cartoon combover in the food media business, it's not even close.

Now, other recipe sites will tell you charcuterie is 'easy' and then hit you with a 4,000-word essay about their grandmother's olive tree in Tuscany before the recipe — which by the way isn't even a recipe, it's three ingredients on a board, you don't need a NOVEL, you don't need their LIFE STORY, you don't need to click through a cookie banner with 18 toggles and consent to '312 trusted advertising partners' just to find out you put salami next to cheese. It's a disgrace. Many people are saying it. They come up to me on the street and say, 'Bigly, the scroll. The endless scroll. Make it stop.' I tell them. I tell them BiglyEats does not do the scroll. BiglyEats does the food.

The secret is contrast. CONTRAST. Soft cheese, hard cheese. Salty meat, sweet jam. Crunchy cracker, creamy spread. Variety is the entire game. You put four kinds of cheddar on a board, you've made a CHEDDAR PRESENTATION, that's not a charcuterie, you've failed, and worse, you've embarrassed your family. Don't do that. Build the contrast. Build it tall. Build it tremendous. It's not even close. It's a slaughter.

Put this board down on the table and walk away. Just walk away. You don't need to explain it. You don't need to 'host.' The board hosts. The board does the talking. People will gather around it like it's a campfire. They'll point. They'll ask what the green olives are. You'll tell them: Castelvetrano. They'll nod, they'll pretend they already knew, that's fine, let them have it. You made a tremendous board. The board wins. Beautiful.