The origin of charcuterie

These days, pretty much everyone has heard about charcuterie at least a few times (if you haven’t, google it NOW!). Over the past few years, the charcuterie market developed significantly, and charcuterie boards became a very popular choice for parties, movie nights, office brunches or even company meetings. Why? The idea of sharing food with others, especially when it looks so stunning, seems to have a lot of admirers. In today’s blog, we want to tell you a bit more about the history and origin of charcuterie. Most of you probably know it’s French, but do you actually know anything more about the topic?

The word “charcuterie” is derived from French for flesh (chair) and cooked (cuit). Originally, it described French pork butcher shops that sold preserved meats (salted and smoked), and the charcutier was basically a “pork butcher”. The practice of curing meats, although, is way older. It was actually first used in Ancient Rome where they used salt to preserve meats (or maybe even earlier, who knows?). So it all started with meat boards that then became “meat and cheese boards”. But charcuterie sounds a bit fancier, doesn’t it? So it became a charcuterie board.

Restaurants across the globe (but especially in the USA) immediately responded to the trend and we can now find charcuterie boards under the appetizers section in many menus. But the credit for the growth of charcuterie’s popularity in recent years should certainly go to social media. Artfully arranged, colourful food is what social media loves the most. What definitely made charcuterie even more popular is the fact that it’s easy to make it vegetarian, gluten-free or vegan. We get that quite a lot from our customers who appreciate it about charcuterie. The ability to customize it (adding more fruits, or less meat, or basically using any type of food you want) is certainly one of the biggest strengths of a charcuterie board.

The most frustrating thing for us, the charcuterie experts, is that many people still think that charcuterie is just a cheese and meats board with some olives and grapes on the side. This is far from the truth. Nowadays, charcuterie is way more than that and getting creative while making charcuterie boards is literally the best feeling! Some people create their charcuterie boards themselves, and some order from charcuterie companies like ours. It’s always easier than having to run down different grocery isles looking for all the products we want to use for our charcuterie.

We hope you enjoyed reading our today’s blog and getting to know a bit more about charcuterie and the history of charcuterie boards. Order yours today, customize it and try how good it is! Place your order on our website or Doordash.