Do you know what I’m seeing everywhere at the moment and really turns my stomach?

[TheChosenTwo]

Those revolting ‘grazing boards’, also ‘grazing boxes’.
Now I hate different types of food touching each other at the best of times but these things really make my stomach churn!
If you don’t know what they are, I’ll see if I can find a pic to attach.
Just an ugly mishmash of food which has no place being squished against something else, with everyone digging their fingers about it all to get the bits they want, are there plates involved or do people literally stand over these eating them?
I can’t be the only person who thinks these are vile! The waste must be ridiculous too.
The boxes remind me of kids packed lunch boxes, things all smooshed together crumbing up things with no crumbs
Bleurgh.
What turns your stomach? Humour me, make me feel like less of a weirdo

I like a grazing board but that one is weird, are those Maltesers snuggled next to the rolled up salami?

@SpacePotato

Can someone tell me what's in the bowl in the bottom right corner? It looks like raw mince 😂

It does 🤮

And you know none of them will have a food hygiene certificate.

I imagine kids snot, a bit of pet hair, manky worktops, unwashed hands..

I love grazing and don't have particular issue with foods touching since none of them are runny, but I do find the sudden huge popularity of sharing / grazing tables in the midst a pandemic fucking bonkers fairly odd.

@TheChosenTwo grazing tables seem so unhygienic! What's wrong with serving platters like normal people?

I saw one advertised on FB marketplace that was just a load of sandwiches on a normal kitchen table, not appetising at all.

How are you supposed to eat the random passion fruit dumped on it and why is there deli meat next to fruit.

That’s freaking me out, I was thinking there would be strawberry juice on the cheese cubes

Bowls, people get some bowls.

Yes these become a trendy way to do cheese and charcuterie boards a couple years ago, probably for Instagram reasons. I HATE it with a passion. Respect your cheese and meats! Don't just shove them all together.

Totall agree OP. Grim.

They are grim. One I saw recently has an announcement that it comes with a set of mini rings per person for hygiene reasons - somehow the same tongs touching every food seems even worse than there being different hands touching the tongs

As a vegetarian, pretty much all of that is now cont-ham-inated. So that would be a no from me.

Generally don’t mind platters, but no sweet/savoury, and definitely not bought from Facebook (guaranteed cat hair)

eye ball tattoos

parents saying "well, MY child...."

faces with way too much make up on

phrases like fur baby, holibobs, drinkiepoos, living one's best life 🤢🤮

Oh for goodness sake I agree.

Culinary deprivation and ignorance at an all time low with these eh.

What's wrong with a cheese board, or for that matter those seventies cheese, pineapple, ham and sausage sticks in a grapefruit.

More hygenic.

and yes, those grazing/sharing set ups are just wrong.

be against them. be Joey

This is a massive trend round ours since the rise of home delivery around Covid. They're either super-artisanal (and name their sources) for seventy billion pounds or a load of Asda tat. Once they're all smooshed together like that I defy anyone to be able to tell the difference. Belurgh

The whole thing is an abomination but the fact the crackers would be soggy is unforgivable.

They make me feel sick.

Firstly, every item has been touched and probably contaminated with food that you may or may not like (in my case, olives and ham). Secondly however 'good' or 'tasty' it might look to start with, one nanosecond after the first person has dug in it looks like a war zone and you instantly lose your appetite. Hopefully will die a death shortly.

Posh things on a plate.

What is the point? The cheaper versions are probably sold by the same people who endlessly seem to be flogging sweet cones and chocolate bar lollipops on Facebook groups.

It beggars belief that people are paying over the odds for these things

Adore a charcuterie board.

That is appalling. Although I doubt any of it is offal, it all looks like offal. And not in the kind of well-prepared-St-John way. Like Game-of-Thrones-set-designer kind of way.

The graze boxes look horrific to me. Cold sausage touching fruit?
Buying one off Facebook marketplace is even worse, no food safety standards there!

I’ll also add mine: cold bolognaise, particularly if there’s orangey congealed fat, or even worse, shoving it into a tin with an egg in the middle and calling it a meatloaf. I’ve been known to vomit just talking about it on a hangover before.

apparently Norovirus is spreading as we speak of this.

Needs a trypophobia trigger warning.

I wonder if perhaps it's a reaction/backlash to increased awareness of allergies, intolerances, and special diets for other medical and ethical reasons.

There's now a general trend to avoid cross-contamination for the sake of those who need or prefer their food to have not touched other foods. Avoiding foods touching is an important part of living with allergies and disorders like coeliac disease, is important to some people who follow certain ethical diets or fad diets, and preferring foods to be kept separate can be a trait of certain eating disorders and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Lots of these things are trigger points for scepticism, disdain, anger, debate etc. and so it wouldn't surprise me if graze boards were a perhaps subconscious but deliberate conspicuous flouting of the trend towards food separation.