Finally, there’s a TikTok food trend that doesn’t start with a genius making something unreplicable out of rice paper; something I can try at home and, more to the point, want to. Meet the butter board. Initiated by Brooklyn-based food influencer (foodfluencer, yes, it’s a thing) Justine Doiron, what you do is get a pack of butter, not too cold, and spread it on a board. Then you can sprinkle anything you like on it – toasted almonds, roasted garlic, nasturtium petals, honey, chilli flakes, figs if you’re mad – and then spread it on bread, much as you would regular butter, except much more exciting. The board isn’t the point, the butter isn’t the point; it’s a synergy thing.
My mother likes to eat slices of cold butter with nothing at all, not even a cracker, and says it’s because she grew up with rationing – there’s nothing quite like the sheer exotic plenty of being allowed to. But I didn’t grow up with rationing, and I like to eat butter on its own as well, and thus we can sideways prove the inheritance of acquired characteristics on our way to making a butter board.
