Right! Gotta love those snowflake cookie cutters!

Cute and convenient! The cookie cutter cheese is perfect.

How imaginative!

That's lovely and with winter bugs, much more hygienic. It took me back to that ghastly plank spread with butter and covered with food.... this is the total opposite. LOL

I think that this is the perfect way to serve charcuterie, the platters always get so bedraggled after a few folks have partaken.

Islay, definitely more hygienic!

Sooo pretty!

Great idea. I think a charcuterie board is fine for a small gathering, with just a few select items, with space between the items so it is easy to take items off and it doesn't get messy. Those fancy boards crammed with stuff only look nice before folks start taking things off. Unless they are super careful, the board can get messy real quick. And if you throw kids into the mix . . . oy vey.

I love the idea of seperate cups. It makes it all so much more contained and clean.

I have a SIL who is a nurse and she has for years provided little paper medicine cups to serve loose things like nuts and such. I guess it is like those little cups that you get samples in at Costco.

I saw that butter board idea and that looks like complete nonsense, to me. What a mess!

As others have pointed out, that assortment begins to look pretty darned unappetizing after the order of has been breached.

After the acquired sensibilities after the virus, many of us are wary of communal platters.

The only real problem that I see with this is the fact that it is quite a lot of munchy in each of those cups and it makes more of a commitment to eat the whole cup, rather than a piece of cheese and cracker here and there. But, still a good idea, I think.

Yeah, I see some potential for waste there. Perhaps a selection of smaller pairings . . . anyway, I like the grab and go as opposed to folks serving themselves. That was kind of problematic even before the pandemic. Not with a small group, but a large gathering with lots of folks with varying degrees of dexterity/buffet etiquette . . .

Note: I had a fabulous platter of Italian pastries at my wedding, from a fabulous bakery. I figured three pastries per person was the equivalent of a piece of cake. Since my wedding was a buffet, I figured this was a wonderful way to serve a nice special dessert without the fuss of cake cutting and serving. Of course I planned for some extra . . . but hubs grandkids were not well supervised and didn't eat hardly anything at the dinner part, so made quick work of demolishing the pastry tray. I don't think any of the adults went without, but there was definitely a slimmer selection due to their making quite the meal of the pastry tray. I could see this happening with a charcuterie board, not overeating it, but definitely making a mess. My folks once took me to a smorgasbord restaurant, I loved it, even the name sounded fun, but I got yelled at quite a bit for various faux pas. I was about five or six. Big mistake, my folks didn't make that one again, we almost never went out to eat even at a regular restaurant. But now it is pretty common to take kids all kinds of places with marginal supervision.

I think they are gorgeous but not for our friends and extended family. A four year old will demand she have her own and spill bits all over the floor and not liking most of it...my dad would take one to the couch and say "ack, what is all this stuff?". He doesn't care for seedy berries or olives. Bad eyesight he will drop some on the floor and walk all over it going to the table to pass it off. My mother loves olives but not proscuitto or hard salami. Dad will look for the container of blueberries in the fridge and eat then all from the container. (on the couch)

My solution, having the only vacation home of both families, on an island that requires lots of air travel...7-10 day house guests.

I have a half dozen identical oval plates from Ikea. Day before or morning of, i prep three charcuterie meat sliced varieties and three cheese platters. Covered in plastic wrapped and stacked in the fridge. Crackers in a glass cookie jar. Mixed nuts and dried fruits in big covered goblets for snacks. My family snacks and grazes all damn day. One tray out with pate and proscuitto, sliced salami, and one tray out with various cheese selections.

When looking ugly and tragic and picked over, i replace it with a fresh one. Yada, yada over and over.

Always something in the fridge if someone gets peckish. Lots of fruits and cheeses and meats in packages stacked on the fridge drawer for sandwiches.

I make a big dinner meal...breakfast and lunch are fridge choices...friut salads, yogurt, granola. And snacks. Cheese etc.

Great idea.

I know that child! For sure, I think these are more for grown-up cocktail parties. ;) pre-pandemic I made some kind of similar dip and veg cups using plastic jaegerbomb cups, with the dip in the shot holder and veg sticks around. The young and ”with it” loved them, but some guests were just confused by new technology. I think these charcuterie cups are probably easier to understand, but Sleevendog makes a good point about what to do with the unwanted olives, etc.

I thank the Lord that people here aren't such picky eaters!!! Life is so much simpler. LOL

I don't know if we're pickier eaters or if we're just more willing to advertise our pickiness, but we certainly do have a lot of them! If it's not something I'm very allergic to, I'll eat just about anything I'm served, ever so politely, but I'd want to rehome the olives from my individual charcuterie cup if it were a possibility. There are men I can boss around and just slide the olives into one of their cups and say, "Eat these," so I don't have to eat them myself, grind them into the carpet (that's a joke, haha), or insult my hostess by wasting them :)

I often put out mixed nuts and olives as an appetizer. During Covid, I started putting a spoon in the mixed nuts and picks for the olives. Prior to covid, hands were used and now I prefer the spoon and pick method.

Ah the grand return of the cocktail fork!! I have my Mom's old set. Sadly, no one to have cocktail parties with . . . they are out of fashion with my social set. Everyone prefers to spend time with their grandchildren, or else they have to because they are halfway raising them.

I just did a cocktail holiday party! It was with a "foodie" group so everyone wanted to bring things too. We actually started out with a 50's theme! I made a punch of Cranberry Juice, Pomegranate Liqueur and POM juice with Vodka and a bit of Cointreau. I even did an juice ice mold for the punchbowl (well for the original and 1 refill) the next refill got raspberry sherbet in it. I put out a veggie plate, cold cuts, cheese plate and put my mice on the cheese.

We also had antipasto, stuffed mushrooms, bacon wrapped dates, pigs in the blanket and deviled eggs. (I don't eat gluten containing foods so most of the people did not bring "bread" items). Oh and both a shrimp platter and individual shrimp cocktail cups.

Separate dessert table was filled with homemade cookies and a Lemon cheesecake.

To save myself from the clean up I used disposable cups etc. but If we hadn't had 24 people we would have used the fancy footed punch cups.

Adorable cups but not Charcuterie in the 2020s use of the term!! We were planning a board for our pre-Thanksgiving snacking. I purchased tiny adorable fall themed 'cookie' cutters. Suggested we use them for the cheese. DD pitched a fit "then you can't have REAL cheese mom!" What's cute is not always what's tastiest. hahahaha These would be perfect for large party featuring appetizers!! At least each guest would get more than a bite before the next tray is passed!!