Celebrating Christmas with gourmet grazing tables

This Christmas you can make your traditional Turkey and Plum cake party special by adding amazing delectable delights in the form of a lovely ‘Grazing Table’ at your house party! It's what is trending now at house parties and giving an extra zing to the season of cheer.

So what is a Grazing Table and why is everyone talking about it? It's simply speaking a wooden board or tray filled aesthetically with an array of cold cuts, cheese, crackers, seasonal fruits, vegetables, edible flowers, desserts, dips, decorations, serving utensils and dishes. Without the formalities of a sit down dinner, all the guests partake of the food and wine from this board and the hosts can mingle in a relaxed manner without cooking and serving a formal meal. It's called a grazing table because guests can easily pick and nibble on a variety of finger foods and the assorted dishes are usually served on a large flat surface like a table, wooden board or a platter.

A lady who once ordered a grazing table says, “The variety on offer by restaurants as well as home-chefs is mind boggling. While some specialize in eco-friendly platters featuring home-grown cheese, crackers, fruits and meats, now there are others who do pure vegan tables.” There are picnic hampers and then there are Lebanese tables, Kids’ platters, Kerala food grazing boards, pure dessert platters and also pure sushi ones. And they are all so artistically laid out that naysayers convert to foodies as the eye feasts on these gourmet delights.

Says Gurmeet Rathod, Co Founder ‘The Theatric Platter’ Mumbai, “We started serving these platters in 2020 during the pandemic and now a lot of players are there in the market.” She says that one of the reasons the trend is picking up is because people are bored of gifting cakes, chocolates and flowers. “Recently, a client ordered a wonderful assortment of cheese, fruit and dessert for her mother-in-law who turned 65. Also, a lot of people now want to wrap up eating early and since grazing tables offer bite sized portions, with a lot of variety, it works well for an early dinner” she says. She also says that since the food presentation looks so good, it's immensely Instagrammable! It's true- what works well on social media does well.

Bhakti Mehta, Chef and Founder ‘Little Food Co’ also based out of Mumbai says, “We are doing ‘Grazing Boxes’ and these Christmas boxes consist of Roast chicken, Mac n Cheese, Dips, Crackers and a whole lot of other goodies.” She says that these boxes were quite popular during the World Cup matches and people often take them along for parties. They are a great option for Christmas gifting and can be curated as per the customer’s requirements.

“In Bengaluru, Valentin Melchior, a French cheese maker, offers a large variety of cheese grazing tables with feta, goat cheese, brie, mozzarella and creamy four-month aged ‘Kempe Gouda’ cheese,” says food writer Anurag Mallick. Having tasted some of this cheese, he is a great fan of its authentic flavour. Valentin’s restaurant ‘Melchior Fromagierie’ at Hennur is now offering a ‘Graze-mas Gift box’ for Christmas which has a cheese and dessert charcuterie experience. (A charcuterie board is similar to a grazing table offering a beautiful spread of bread sticks, artisan cheeses and lots of other yummy finger food).

Says French chef Amiel Guerin who owns ‘Amiel Gourmet’ a European restaurant at Sahakarnagar, North Bengaluru, “We offer a lot of canape platters with vegetarian and non-vegetarian options. For Christmas we are offering wild honey roasted goat cheese, green asparagus on parmesan biscuit, Brie Cheese, smoked Duck breast, smoked salmon and lamb loin on fondant potato.”

With options ranging from totally desi to world cuisine, from small boards to massive tables, small parties to grand scale ones, indoors to outdoors - sounds like grazing tables and platters will make this indeed a very Merry Christmas!