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

The OP's and Marmalade's pictures are two of the most unappetising things I've ever seen.

A grazing board is ok if it's small and between a couple, for instance. But for a party... no! Will look like a car crash on a plate within 5 minutes and no. 8 in the queue would rather starve...
I can't stand it when people put their feet near food. Like the family on Gogglebox (I know they only do it to wind us up as they NEVER eat any of it. Or maybe they all don't like the food/foot thing either).
Or when people pick up after their dogs then don't sanitise their hands, worse eat afterwards!

What you need is lots of pretty little bowls. Put them all around in a little art exhibition if you like. No sausages getting intimate with Jammy dodgers then!

It's the malteasers next to the ham that does it for me too. Just no. Why would anyone want that??

When we’re running low on food I do a ‘buffet’ (fridge contents presented appealingly.). On separate plates though: food touching other food gives me horror.

I think it’s an Instagram and Pinterest trend type thing. It starts off being made by proper chef types then ends up on Facebook marketplace with Asda tat.

How do you get a cracker and cheese without coming into contact with anything else? Is it like a food version of operation and you need tweezers?

I hate them too op. Particularly at the moment. They look kind of visually appealing but urgh at the thought of it.

@MarmaladeToastAndAMarmaladeCat

They are just grim. Especially the ones with sweet and savoury mixed together. The ham is touching the party rings . I keep seeing them advertised on fb marketplace where someone has made some sandwiches, bought some cheap cupcakes and just boxed them up all together with a load of other crap and flogs them for £15. Who is buying them?

Orange slices touching the sausage rolls! 😱🤮

people buy these off facebook????

The photo OP posted isn’t too bad. I don’t like the sweet/pudding items touching the savoury. But it’s presentation is ok. The one @MarmaladeToastAndAMarmaladeCat actually makes me want to vomit. What the actual fuck is that? Just the cheapest shittiest ham sliming all over the party rings. Fucking appalling. I dread to see this on Facebook now others have talked about it. Imagine ordering food from Facebook bleugh.

Saying that I’m quite embarrassed to admit I do really like the look of the professional (all savoury/all sweet) ones I’ve seen on Instagram. I’d only share with my husband or parents though. Wouldn’t work with a bigger group.

The one MarmaladeToast linked to above looks exactly like the contents of a bin post children's party cleanup
If they can really persuade people to part with fifteen quid for it, more power to them.

Someone I know runs a wedding and events catering company in Australia , where these have been very popular for a few years. She calls them piggy troughs and bucks the trend. Grim

I could roll naked on that.

@Waveafterwaveslowlydrifting

Surely currently people are less inclined to want buffet type food than ever though. My friend is on holiday at an all inclusive resort in Mallorca. The thought of everyone breathing on the food and touching the tongs (or not using them at all) is gross.

Nobody will be breathing on the food because they will all be wearing masks. Masks have to be worn indoors in Spain.

@JustJustWhy

I could roll naked on that.

It looks like somebody has.

Oh I’m so pleased that others hate them too,
It’s the way chocolate is sweating next to meat, and crackers sat absorbing moisture from wet things, and then the idea of fingers rooting through everything digging it all up
These foods don’t go together anyway.
It’s just heavesome, so much prepackaged crap just moved about and wedged onto a board. It’s just wrong!

@habibihabibi

Someone I know runs a wedding and events catering company in Australia , where these have been very popular for a few years. She calls them piggy troughs and bucks the trend. Grim

Calling it a piggy trough just makes it even less appealing. Who wants to be labelled a pig? Absolutely not for me

I’m with the OP. Unacceptable unless it’s an individual sized board. And it should be either savoury or sweet, not both. And, different types of food should be separate. Meats, cheeses, leaves etc should be all grouped in their own areas. Olives should be in bowls! So, not at all like a graze board, really.

@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba - that was exactly the thought that came to my mind!

To me they look like you’ve set up a marquee for an event but the caterer dropped the tower of plates and only one of the three buffet tables you ordered was delivered.

We get lovely grazing boxes from a place close to me. Everything in them is compatible and nothing is smooshed together, so cured meats, different kinds of cheese, dried fruit, different crackers, olives, nuts, berries and a few square of good quality dark chocolate. You order them on line and can can customise them as you wish. A box for 2 is twenty pounds, which did me and DH 2 nights of lovely full grazing. Zero waste. They come from a lovely local cafe with a 5 star hygiene rating.
TBH im finding this post pretty goady. It smacks of snobbery and seems to suggest that if you dont buy good brie from Fortnums you dont care that your cheese is full of smarties and cat hair and you still think its the height of sophistication to have Chorizo. Lots of small cafes depended on things like this to keep them afloat during the pandemic and honestly, I havent seen any like the one in the first picture.

The naff pizza boxes have filled my FB feed recently.

They look grim, are overpriced and are from the kitchen of some random woman down the road (who knows what her kitchen looks like!) who has graduated from sweet trees and hot chocolate sachets that are supposed to look like Rudolph.

For crying out loud. Is this a joke?

In precisely what kind of muddle-headed hell would someone need to be to pay for this nightmarish mish-mash of junk food, all of which has almost definitely been licked by a dog in a dirty kitchen before being left in a warm car all afternoon?

For some reason it's giving me the same feeling as the photos on vintage recipe cards where all the ingredients are set in aspic.

They also make me think that somewhere, just out of shot, there’s an Environmental Health officer with a single tear trailing down their cheek.