Yep, it looks like it was meant to be a jigsaw puzzle! I think I can see cold waffle triangles, orange slices, grapes, kiwi, berries, cold triple-decker pancake & hashbrown patty sandwiches (?), and I’m not sure what else. Some kind of baloney or summer sausage? and are those biscuits at 12 o’clock? What’s on the sticks in the upper-left corner?! lol!

eta: interesting… I checked and verified that daisies are edible!

I think the upper left are the banana pancake dippers, and kind of surrounding what look like white cheese triangles are Japanese soufflé pancakes. I've never eaten one, but essentially, they're pancakes where you make meringue with the eggwhites and sugar, make the rest of the batter with the yolks, and fold them together. Or something like that. There's more sugar than most pancakes and other variations. Made on a griddle in one of those rings they make towers of food in. Some of the pancake kebobs have chocolate and caramel spread between, and others have egg and cheddar. You have to accept their digital cookies to see more of the list, even in the ad.

https://www.realcaliforniamilk.com/recipe/pancake-and-waffle-party-board

^Sure does!🥴

I love grazing appetizers, but I want each thing in a separate bowl, tray, etc. I have one glass tray that looks like grapes with leaves, that I use for assorted pickle stuff, but I want the cheese in another tray and the crackers in their own tray. (My sweet husband bought me two glass cracker trays one Christmas). If it needs to stay cold or hot, it needs the correct dish.

ETA: I also like to have small plates for every one to fill. ( And if you have someone like my sweet MIL, who did NOT understand double dipping, I adapted the dishes or the serving to prevent that.)

That is like a nightmare for guests who don't like their food to touch. (Yes, I know adults like that)

The fact that it is a Milk Board board has skewed the selection on that board..... there is only one savory item and then there is salsa to dip in. But when you have to include milk and buttermilk, you end up with your pancake and waffle board that is begging for a companion board of savory items.

But, who wants cooled pancakes and waffles?

Ricky hit the nail on the head!

Rusty

I'm with you, pillog. While it's sort of pretty in a jigsaw-sort-of-way, I wouldn't care to eat any of it.

I agree - very pretty, and also super impractical.

What ARE those things on the toothpicks/skewers?

Oh OK, just saw the comment that they're banana pancakes.

As my pre schooler used to say " touch, touch, touch" as he did so to all the food. I say unsanitary besides unappetizing.

Ack.

There was another ad today. “Breakfast Sopes”. Best I can discribe it is sopes topped with avocado toast (toppings, not bread). I think I'd rather have a sope or avocado toast than the mashup, but it was reasonable food. ;D On a proper dish...

Maybe it is just a photo shoot? Photo shoots of all kinds are often widely ridiculous.

Or maybe it is from TikTok, where Americans flush their intelligent thoughts down the toilet and embrace total idiocy.

That really is just awful!!!

No maybes. As I said, it is from the California Milk Advisory Board and has recipes for all the components. The photo itself, complete with daisies, is obviously from a photo shoot, as are the pictures in cookbooks and magazines. As a visual composition, it's pretty, and full of interesting visual textures, which is why we were saying it looked like a nice jigsaw puzzle picture. In fact, however, it is a ”serving suggestion” and rather appalling.

But if you bothered to read threads before dumping negativity all over them, you'd know that.

I'm trying to think why or when I've eaten a daisy. I do know they taste about like the foliage smells and its not really good. I'm not sure why I know that.

But no, the above food board doesn't tempt me to grab a plate. We do like breakfast foods, more for dinner than breakfast but I see no way to keep any of those things that are best hot at a good temperature. I can think of several milk based things that would make a better presentation for an ad than that, but I wouldn't be the one to artfully arrange them. Not my strong point.

Before the link was added i thought maybe a cover page for a chapter on kid breakfast food ideas. Following with recipes. Like a test kitchen 'end of day' food styling. (some food stylist just can't help themselves, 😂)

A party of 4 year olds would be thrilled. Kids love tiny foods. They don't care about food temps. Not an adult spread. Especially the room temp American cheese squares on silver dollar pancakes.

I don't at all find it 'gross'. I was just curious what everything was and why, like others.

I don't do much food play except for bento nigiri faces as a joke ocasionally.

I've been making sticky rice balls this past year. A holiday appetizer this year. I purchased a couple nori stamps about 10 years ago.

Kids love this stuff with so little effort....

Those are cute!

You're right about the kids! I didn't think of that. My mind was completely stuck on butter boards. I get the grazing table concept, especially in small spaces, but there are usually still sanitary dishes, and a lot of the abundance is edible “filler” which will be rewashed and used for salads, etc., for several days following. These (not organized nor charcuterie) boards are small and seeing them in use, with everybody standing around them and picking at the food, reminds me of farm animals at the trough, bumping and ....

OMG!!! I just ”got” it: These messy boards are the ”grown up” form of Twister! An excuse to rub clothed body parts together without the social pressure of dancing.

I don't know. That board is no different to me than a cheese board or a charcuterie board. Or, in fact, those veggie or fruit trays that seem to be at every event involving food. Having the choices on all different serving dishes might be less overwhelming to people who get overwhelmed by such a sight, but hygienically, its no different if people are all picking off one board or if a bunch of people are picking off a bunch of little dishes. People are still picking over the same food. I avoid any sort of potluck or similar type thing, because i think people are gross. Whether or not its piled on a wooden board or in individual plates or each item, seems the same to me, ick-wise anyway.

The whole "board" thing is a new trend. I have seen taco boards, bagel boards, dessert boards, breakfast boards, sandwich boards, (formerly known as sandwich trays), etc. While butter boards seem dumb and messy, they are not any grosser hygienically than a bowl of dip served to a mass of people. And I suppose I am in the minority here, as I find the board posted to be more aesthetically pleasing than I would if each item were plunked down in separate, plain white plates or bowls, looking stark and desperate..........

The difference is the crowding around. And not picking! One assumes serving pieces for things with no skewers. One and dones (little bins for used ones) for groups who aren't intimate.

Who wants to eat cold waffles? and those other baked things there look liek something that is best warm from the oven and not very appealing like that, at all.

What has it got to do with milk? I dont get it.

It all looks pretty awful

The recipes have milk in them, and there's cheese. The sopes are mostly not molk, but have a bit of chrese and crema. The Milk Advisory Board promotes using all dairy products, even in small ways.

The breakfast sopes look tasty. But the toppings are pretty typical for a sope, except for the eggs added in instead of another protein.

Yeah, I think the eggs were the "breakfast", but generally one doesn't see avocado and radish on sopes, nor crema. No reason why not. Could be regional. But, being about milk, the crema and cheese are the point. :)

Waht is a sope? Never heard of it. Must be a regional thing, somewhere.

What an odd way to present milk. It might just as well be promoting flour.

Any way, it looks pretty lame and unappealing, with cold waffles and whatever those little cyliinder shaped things are.

It looks more like debris that was emptied from breakfast trays.

I think my grandkids would love it, but like others here, I want things like pancakes and waffles to be served fresh and hot, not cold and fiddled with. It doesn't bother me that it could be unhygienic or touching each other, other than if a banana touches it I'm not eating it. I don't have a problem with the concept, but it doesn't appeal to me and I don't quite get the "board" concept for everything although I've certainly been known to put various meats, cheeses and pickles all together on a serving platter.

It does seem unrealistic, though, to put that much work into frozen waffles and pre-made pancakes, although the manufacturers probably would disagree.

To each their own, I say. I won't be doing a butter board any time in the near future either, although others may embrace it.

Annie

I'm one who does not like foods to touch, although there are exceptions.

I really hated the trend in the 1990s when restaurants would stack food and put meat on top of mashed potatoes, salad, or whatever. When I order a Cobb Salad, I order it laid out, if given a choice, and then I will mix it the way I want it. I always order salad dressing on the side, but then I haven't been going to restaurants for the past two years, except for when we took a trip to Borrego Springs last year.