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Elevate Your Charcuterie Board With Canned Delicacies

Like tossing together a salad, building a charcuterie board is always a little more labor than you bargained for. You have to source and assemble the meats (the word "charcuterie" literally only refers to meat; anything else, like cheese, is buffered by an "and") in a pleasing fashion, arrange any accoutrements accordingly, and then monitor the darn thing throughout service to make sure it doesn't descend too far into disarray. Heck, even the surface itself can be hit or miss, which is why it's worth securing the best board (one approved by the pros). There has to be, as they say, a better way. Fortunately, you can enhance and sometimes even fully swap your standard charcuterie selections with tinned treats.

Tinned fish, for example, has come a long way from the chicken of the sea you might remember from childhood. There's plenty of beautifully packaged and consistently delicious products, like Fishwife's seven-seafood variety pack, which includes smoked rainbow trout, smoked salmon, and the always underrated mackerel. You can also find less common seafood varieties like octopus and fancier stuff like caviar (which will be refrigerated and in slightly different tins) at your local specialty shop.

Even more ways to win at charcuterie with tin

Although it is among the most robustly available of all tinned provisions, seafood is (quelle horreur!) not for everyone. Fortunately, those swimming advancements we mentioned also apply to plenty of other canned foods, too, so you can still curate a tinned charcuterie ensemble sans fish. We've recently enjoyed Trader Joe's canned eggplant, for example, and were even surprised how close it tasted to homemade. Likewise, canned grape leaves have always been a favorite, and, where TJ's nightshade-hued veg isn't much to look at even when plated, those dolmas present rather nicely. You can also find canned pâté, if you're looking for something to signal similar finery as fish eggs would.

Even when they're canned, green olives can still bring some freshness to your shelf-stable snack tray, too, as will fruit like lychee and cherries. Swapping in just a few tinned, canned, or otherwise airtight goods can make your board building a little easier. Or you could always theme a whole appetizer station around the ever-evolving, almost everlasting hors d'oeuvres, from here clear to next year.

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