The duo Utah didn’t know it needed: Charcuterie and mountains

It’s just as enticing as any charcuterie board you’d order in a restaurant, complete with cheese, meats and crackers, but with a couple of important differences: It’s served on a mountainside, on a pair of skis (or snowboard).

The spread is called a “charcuteski” (pronounced “shar-koo-teh-ski”), and according to Kera Pezzuti and some of her friends, it’s the only way to snack when you’re on the slopes. The word itself can be a noun or a verb, according to Pezzuti, and it’s a trend that’s starting to catch on around the world.

While the group’s more recent charcuteskis have included top-shelf ingredients like Champagne and multiple fancy cheeses, Pezzuti said their first charcuteski was “not grand.” It consisted of a grilled peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, a Cutie, some Goldfish crackers, a bit of havarti and some Triscuits, and was attended by four people.

“We were in Centennial Trees in Deer Valley and just had such a lovely day, brought a speaker, and it was a quiet, sleepy day in the trees,” Pezzuti said.

To be fair, Pezzuti, E.J. Elliot, Mizelle Mulder and Jesse Stathis didn’t exactly invent eating cheese off skis, Pezzuti said. But they were the first to call it “charcuteski,” popularize the idea, create a business out of it, and start building a community around it, mostly via social media.

Now, the group gets submissions to their Instagram from charcuteski enthusiasts in Australia and Europe and throughout the United States, who hold their own meetups and send in photos of their spreads. Pezzuti and her group also hold meetups around the country so as many people can experience charcuteski as possible.

“I do get upset when when we see comments that just make us feel like we’re gatekeeping the idea, because that’s not at all the case,” Pezzuti said. “We want everyone to do it. We want people to go together.”

Cheaper than resort food

Pezzuti and her friends had their first charcuteski in February 2021, when ski resorts were having their first season open since COVID-19. There was “a very different vibe,” she said.

“Everywhere was just to-go sandwiches wrapped in single-use plastics, and lodge dining reservations,” she said, “or they took out 50% of the tables or whatever it was, so it made in-resort dining more stressful than it needed to be. And we just wanted to kind of deviate from that.”

She said people who have gotten into the idea of charcuteski want a different experience, instead of eating in a lodge and “sweating through your clothes and your goggles get all fogged up,” and having to pay for overpriced food.

Believe it or not, creating a charcuteski spread that’s then shared among a group can be a much cheaper lunch option than eating in a lodge. “I had a $20 slice of pizza once and it obviously wasn’t even good,” Pezzuti said.

Skiing is an expensive sport, she continued, and if they can help people “maximize their ski day as much as possible from a financial perspective, I think that’s really huge.”

She said all their charcuteskis are done potluck-style, where everyone just grabs what they have in their fridge.

“Last year, we had a huge debate within the community about whether mini cupcakes should or should not be allowed on the charcuteski,” Pezzuti said. “I, of course, say yes, because there’s no gatekeeping here. if you have mini cupcakes, bring freaking mini cupcakes. Who cares?”

Charcuteski’s reception online

Pezzuti and the other co-founders of Charcuteski have gotten a “mixed” reception from some online commenters about the lifestyle that the business promotes.

Many of the snarkier comments are in regards to eating food off of skis in the first place, since the bottoms are covered with wax. The commenters say that people shouldn’t be eating off of skis because high-end race waxes often contain PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” which are found in the environment and our bodies and can cause harmful health effects, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

There has been a push to stop using ski waxes that contain PFAS, and the co-founders of Charcuteski use a biodegradable wax that doesn’t contain these substances, but the comments come in nonetheless.

“We use a plant-based wax. There are plenty of alternatives that are way better for the environment that you should be using anyway,” Pezzuti said, whether you’re doing a charcuteski or not.

Overall, though, charcuteski has been met with positivity from people excited about the idea, she said.

When Pezzuti and her friends first created their charcuteski Instagram account, they did it sort of as a “joke,” she said. But within a day, they had a couple hundred followers, within a week they had about 1,000, and within two weeks, they were getting submission posts from across the country.

“We’ve just really prided ourselves on being able to create a community around it that really hadn’t existed before,” Pezzuti said.

Let’s go charcuteski

Anyone who wants to charcuteski has multiple options. This season, Pezzuti and the others behind Charcuteski will begin creating “CharcutePacks,” which will be available to order along the Wasatch Front and Back, and contain all the ingredients one would need for a charcuteski.

They also offer “charcuteski as a service,” where they will shop for, prepare, set up and clean up the charcuteski. All you have to do is show up at the set location with your friends and enjoy the spread. This option is available in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Denver, upon request.

On Charcuteski.com, there is also a map of their favorite places to charcuteski, should you need some inspiration.

And then you could always just wing it by putting some of your favorite snacks in a pack, heading into the mountains with some friends, and setting up your charcuteski wherever you like the view — just remember to submit a photo to Charcuteski.

That freedom and flexibility is what has set apart their business, Pezzuti said.

They want to show people who “otherwise didn’t know about it, or wouldn’t have thought to do it, that you can do this, too,” she said. “You and your friends can sit down — it’s a really low barrier of entry — and you can just continue to enjoy your day outside.”