Picnic celebrates English summer

This week is national picnic week and picnics can be such fun, but a memorable picnic is more than just food and drink. It’s about making an effort to get things right, so it becomes a celebration of the English summer, good food and friendship.

The Oxford English Dictionary describes a picnic as a pleasure party including an excursion to some spot in the country where all partake of a repast out of doors: the participants may bring with them individually the viands and means of entertainment or the whole may be provided by someone who ‘gives the picnic’. The dictionary also traces the oldest print evidence of the word picnic in the English language to 1748.

Earlier, particularly during Elizabethan times, they were hunting feasts. Picnics really came into their own during Victorian times as observed by novelists of that period, including Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope who pointed out that they were not the relaxed impromptu occasions we enjoy now, but very formal affairs calling for extensive and elaborate menus, tables and chairs, starched linen, crystal glasses and an entourage of servants. The food provided resembled that of the sophisticated French cold buffet table according to the shooting party luncheon menu published by Mrs Beeton: Fillets of sole in mayonnaise, iced lobster soufflé, braised beef with savoury jelly, dressed ox-tongue, fillets of duckling with goose liver, braised stuffed quails, roast pheasant in crust, Japanese salad border of rice with stewed prunes, African cakes, savoury cheese fingers, cheese and dessert.

How different from the backpacks or picnic baskets we take to an ideal picnic spot today. Perhaps the similarities between those early picnics and today rests with the rural surroundings we select, which often include a rippling stream, overhanging tree branches for shade and a view. Tables and chairs are seldom carried into the countryside these days, a table cloth laid out on the grass being considered more relaxing.

Unfortunately there is far more chance of things going wrong when you are eating outside and away from home, forgetting to pack the bottle opener being one of them. Securing the dog is equally important. My last picnic, on May Hill, Gloucestershire, would have been perfect had I only secured Barnaby, my dog, and not allowed him to run free. It’s amazing just how much a damage a dog can do when rushing toward a tablecloth, covered with food, that is laid out on the grass.

Pineapple, with a good cutting knife, brings back memories of Rio

I have now purchased a heavy-duty dog stake that can be twisted into the earth. It looks rather like a large corkscrew on which he can be secured, so this should not happen again. Bottles and glasses have a habit of falling over if balanced on the grass so it’s worth getting a couple of stylish bottle and glass holders that can also be secured into the grass. Food and drink may be the main element of a picnic, but the surround-ings in which you eat are just as import-ant. Setting up a little table and folding chairs on a motorway layby must surely rate as the most unimaginative picnic ever, yet despite the noise and dust many travellers opt for this rather than bothering to turn into a small country road to seek a field where they can enjoy the delights of the countryside.

The World Cup has awoken vivid memories of one picnic I shall never forget, as it took place on Rio’s Copacabana Beach in the shadow of the Christos statue that dominates Sugar Loaf mountain. My companions and I had packed up much of the food we had been served for breakfast to make up a picnic on the beach when pineapple vendors wearing colourful outfits and carrying baskets of pineapple wandered among the crowds. Using a large knife glistening with pineapple juice that would not have looked out of place on Midsomer Murders, they cut us all a slice in exchange for a handful of coins. As we ate pineapple, juices dripped down our chins, but that didn’t matter . . . the cleansing ocean waves did their stuff when we’d finished. This was such a simple meal, just fresh pineapple and breakfast left-overs, but what a pineapple and what amazing surroundings. Even now, more than half a century on, I can remember the sweetness of that pineapple.

There’s no need to go overboard as the Victorians did when arranging their picnics, though it is worth making an effort. Plastic containers may be necessary to carry the food, but it’s worth taking a few extra dishes or plates to display the food attractively.

I attended a spring picnic earlier in the year which was staged by a friend known for adding amusing touches to her meals. This time she wrapped all the sandwiches up in brown paper tied up with string. This made them easy to transport and easy on the eye.

The children loved undoing their little parcels and still talk about “Sally’s picnic” which proved a moveable feast to be remembered.