Butterboards: is Tiktok craze bacteria heaven?

BUTTER boards, the polarising stepchild of charcuterie, have taken Tiktok to new food-craze heights as some horrified safety and nutrition experts look on. And now, heading into the holidays, the boards are landing on tables as quick, inexpensive alternatives to the meat- and fancy cheese-laden fare, despite a winter butter shortage projected for the US that could drive up prices and make it more difficult to find in supermarkets.

“I wish they’d just go away. The idea of smearing something on a wood board with other food, sharing that with other people and having them all dip into it. It’s a bacteria heaven,” said Laura Cipullo, a registered dietitian in New York City.

Justine Doiron, who creates food content as @justine-snacks on Tiktok and Instagram, got the butter board party started on September 15. She is credited with coining the term in a video that has her spreading it with abandon on a cutting board and topping it with, among many other things, edible flowers.

She got the idea – jazzed up butter on wood – from chef Joshua Mcfadden’s 2017 cookbook with Martha Holmberg, Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables.

“I think the draw is that it’s super customisable,” Doiron told The Associated Press. “You can be so creative with it, and people are always looking for something they’ve never seen before. It’s a low effort way to have some fun with food.”

Side note: She has a plant named Butter.

Doiron went viral with her busy butter board and hand swipes with thick, crusty slices of bread. Copycat videos under the #butterboard hashtag have since racked up more than 240 million views on Tiktok. Searches related to the topic have reached 10 billion on the platform, with decorated mountains of butter also going strong on Instagram.

And the boards themselves have spawned sweet sister versions, vegan cousins and ice cream aunts and uncles.

Magnolia Bakery posted a video of buttercream frosting being spread artfully on a cake stand with pieces of cookie, brownies, rainbow sprinkles and other goodies for swiping. Toothpicks were involved, as opposed to all hands in. Ben & Jerry’s filmed a frozen version.

Private chefs are fielding lots of requests from clients now looking for spreadables on boards. Kevin Hart’s Los Angeles chef, Kai Chase, said she created several of the boards for him as a splurge.

While some eateries have been smearing butter on boards for years, Magnolia, for one, has no plans to sell boards of its own. As for the notion of promoting sugar overload, Magnolia’s CEO and chief baking officer, Bobbie Lloyd, said: “We believe that moderation is the key to a sweet, balanced life.”

Doiron has some butter board regrets, food handling wise, though she’s reluctant to put the “yuck in anybody’s yum”.

“I prefer a knife. The big mistake in my video was swiping it because I only had 28 seconds. But I think just like a charcuterie board, serve it with a knife, let people serve themselves. But it’s really up to personal preference,” she said. | AP