Make A Meat House This Year Because What The Hell Else Are You Doing?
Charcuterie houses are the new grazing table this 2020 holiday season
The coronavirus pandemic has basically bulldozed 2020 and to combat the stress and nightmare of our hellish reality, Americans got into some really weird stuff this year. From making sourdough starter to Zoom weddings, anything goes this year and the latest, uhm food creation (if that’s what we’re calling it), is the wildest yet. Readers, meet the newest holiday appetizer: a meat house.
Meat houses err, charcuterie houses, are just a fun carnivorous thing you can do this Thanksgiving with your immediate family because for the first time in many years you probably don’t have to cook a 20-pound bird for a houseful of annoying in-laws. Spend your time this year gracefully layering pepperoni like shingles on a weird paleo house, because what the hell else are you doing next week?
Like the gingerbread houses and Oreo houses of the past, a charcuterie house is here to reinvent the holidays.
Gather and Graze, a U.K. company that makes grazing tables and boxes for events, say they used blocks of
Gruyère for bricks, spicy salmi for the tiles, and hazelnuts for the logs seen bundled outside the home.
The Today Show calls these home “charcuterie chalets” (fancy!), and an Australian Pork brand even made a how-to guide, because laying a perfect and tiny almond driveway is a little overwhelming.
If you still need some inspiration, gaze upon all this meat real estate.
It seems most charcuterie houses start by building the structure and typically use crackers, pretzels, or bread sticks. And where a gingerbread house would use frosting to hold everything together, most charcuterie chalets are using cream cheese. Then, decorate the structure with meats, nuts, cheese, and other typical charcuterie items in any sort of creative assortment you can imagine.
As you make your holiday plans this year, consider all the guidelines set by the CDC and other health officials like Dr. Fauci. The CDC is strongly urging Americans to cancel their travel plans this Thanksgiving and Dr. Fauci — who is celebrating Thanksgiving alone with his wife — says that large holiday gatherings can be dangerous during the pandemic. So with less people in your home and fewer things to do and clean-up, it leaves ample time to build a structure out of meat and crackers. Happy eating!
