Bingo 4: Golden
Since this square is about perception, appearance, status, and maybe also the question of gilding vs purity vs who cares, I’m going to use Mostly Plant-Based Platters & Boards. The foodie board trend is almost always about appearance and about interesting frequently high end ingredients that must go together. The pictures in these kinds of cookbooks are almost always really pretty, but how reproduceable are they really? And then there’s the question of who really has access to locally, and has the space and money for, about a half dozen different flavored honeys? Who really has all the boards and serving vessels to get the look in the picture? Who keeps the entire Trader Joe’s fruit and nut aisle, along with the cheese section, around for entertaining purposes? Anyone? That’s what I thought.
I like board books; they are pretty and often the combos are genuinely yummy. Thing is I don’t entertain much, and I usually use these things as bento-style lunches or occasionally breakfasts. I also frequently do not fully follow the ingredients, and I sure as heck don’t even bother trying to get the look. For example, there’s a board called the “Always Hummus” which is basically hummus, a chipotle almond dip (where does one even find this? There’s no recipe for it included, so it’s supposedly apparently openly findable?) a couple of types of nuts, some cheeses, olives, dried figs, and pretzels sticks and crostini. The recipe specifies vegan Havarti, but regular Manchego (I’m not sure I’ve seen vegan Havarti, and most vegan cheeses aren’t that good anyways), rosemary almonds (not a fan of the rosemary, and where does one get these?), Thai curry cashews (oddly specific), and marinated green olives (I hate olives in most forms). I would also probably skip the fresh sage and thyme garnishes (those aren’t even edible raw to me, so what’s the point), and the dusting of chili lime over the whole thing (kind of ruins the Mediterranean vibe). The assumption that I’d both obtain all ingredients and artfully place it on the board per something even remotely like the picture is just ludicrous.
Even something like the “Manchego River” where I’d keep most of the ingredients (substituting only the Mission fig honey with local regular honey), I would not set up a board for because cheese next to fresh fruit or veggies would not keep, and neither would the fresh fruit right up on the crackers. The feeling that this is Instagram only is definitely real here. It’s a good set of things, but again the thought of doing all the set up seems pointless. There’s also an emphasis on various flavored goat cheeses, and I don’t much like goat cheese; it’s almost always too dry and I’m not a fan of the goaty funk.
Final snobbery note: a few of the recipe titles are misleading in a way that almost suggests willful pretension. “Tropical Guacamole”. What are you thinking of right now? Was it an actual type of avocado, and an otherwise entirely mundane recipe (lime, cilantro, a little onion, and salt)? The sourcing note reads as follows: “While it may be difficult to find tropical avocados in your area, you can get them via an online subscription box. I recommend Tropical Fruit Box for your avocado needs.” Who has “avocado needs”, and why would I want an entire subscription for one avocado? To be fair, the note concludes “Or feel free to swap out the tropical avocado with three or four fruits of a smaller, more common avocado variety.” But wording this like an afterthought, as opposed to what the majority of people are likely going to do sounds like someone blissfully unaware of the fact that a lot of people either do not live on the Pacific coast, and/or probably don’t care enough to go looking for the exact recommended avocado variety.
Again, I do actually like this cookbook, and I will use it, but definitely will have some ranty fun with both the recipe making and writing.