Pique-Nique, or Picnic, an American pastime
When you ask friends to talk about picnics of their youth, many people conjure up nostalgic images of their mother’s wicker basket often lined with checkered fabric. Inside would be all sorts of family favorites: fried chicken, deviled eggs, sweet butter finger sandwiches, homemade cookies and a thermos of lemonade or iced tea. That’s just the food part of the equation. As we remember them, picnics or tailgating also always involved eating in the great outdoors. Be it on a sandy beach, inside a national park, tubing down the Delaware River, or merely in your own back yard, fresh air and sunshine were essential.
NOT ALL PICNICS ARE OUTDOORS
Not me. When I think of picnics growing up, I see them as a simple feast on wheels. Instead of a picnic table or a blanket spread out under a shady tree, I recall them being inside a car served from my mother’s lap. Growing up in France and Belgium, my parents felt the obligation of showing their two young daughters Europe’s many historic sites. This translated into countless road trips in the 60’s. My father insisted on leaving our apartment before sunrise to get maximum distance behind us before the early morning traffic began. Our small family would pile into Dad’s white Chevrolet—always a conspicuous standout of American super-sizing dwarfing the teeny-tiny European cars—and begin our journey well before breakfast.
Naturally, my older sister Sharon and I were already hungry. Before we were even a block from our home, one of us would whine, “Mom, can we eat now?” The mantra my mother would have to repeat multiple times before she gave in was, “Girls. You know the rules. No sandwiches until we leave the city limits.” At that point, if we had not fallen back asleep, Mom would spread a tea towel over her lap, reach into her multi-stripped, plastic shopping bag and start pulling out the most delicious sandwiches.
THE MARVELS OF MIRACLE WHIP
My father, the driver, got served first: a fried egg sandwich on dense, country bread slathered with ketchup. For the kids, it was usually egg or chicken salad sandwiches with cucumbers for crunch. If we were lucky, Mom would make her mother’s recipe from scratch the night before for pimento cheese or country ham salad using an old-fashion grinder and lots of Miracle Whip. I salivate now just thinking of the crinkling sound of those waxed paper-wrapped sandwiches being opened releasing their heady aromas of old-fashioned goodness.
Ever since childhood, picnics have been one of my favorite ways to eat food. My mother’s lap picnics did not preclude the more traditional format where, like other families, we also enjoyed outdoor feasts using a blanket on terra firma, not just inside the Chevy. We considered Mom the “Princess of Picnics.” I proudly inherited the title.
PICNIC ROYALTY STRAEGIZES HER ATTACK
When Ed, my late husband, and I would travel abroad visiting various wine regions for work or pleasure, we used picnics as a vehicle for exploring local food products. We always traveled with a picnic supply bag packed Stateside. In fact, making sure this was properly stocked was more important than packing our clothing. It contained all the essentials: a brightly colored tablecloth; two matching napkins; two decorative aluminum plates purchased one year at the V&A museum; two sturdy wine glasses carefully bubble-wrapped; a corkscrew; a small wooden cutting board; a sharp knife; and metal eating utensils. The bag also contained a tea towel—in recognition of my mother—some insect spray, as well as paper towels for cleaning up and plastic bags for carrying out trash. Not that I condoned doing so, but Ed would discreetly stuff a “borrowed” airline blanket into his briefcase on the flight over.
Food was always the centerpiece of any journey to new destinations. Whenever we traveled dinners were designated for formal restaurant dining. But lunches, our favorite meal of the day, were reserved for picnic scavenger hunts. Both foodies, we researched in advance what type of local food specialties we might encountered abroad.
GET OUT THE DICTIONARY AND LET’S GO FOOD SHOPPING
Our travel routine never varied. Ed and I would pull into a village late in the morning, park the car and start exploring for la spécialité de la région. That expression would be translated into other languages based on our foreign location. We would find small, artisanal shops to buy our bread, cheese, cured meats, prepared salads, and wine. On the first day of any trip we’d invest in a local version of mustard (moutarde, mostarda, senf, mostanza, or mustár) and olives (universally the same word!) to keep on hand for the duration of the trip. Naturally, we would add treats such as seasonal fruit or small tarts from the local pâtisserie for dessert.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
The location scout in me would kick into high gear once our provisions were safely in hand. My eternally patient husband indulged me as I hunted down—sometimes for hours—the perfect venue for our picnic. The criteria demanded that our final spot include a breath-taking view plus be completely isolated.
During our 40+ years of marriage we enjoyed our various déjeuner sur l’herbes in meadows on hill tops, in vineyards, alongside famous rivers, and sometimes amongst ruins. Century-old churches, monasteries and even graveyards were perfect for laying out our picnic blanket. These quiet, off-the-beaten-track sites were ideal for enjoying our purchased culinary discoveries. They were also made-to-order for post lunch naps.
WHAT? A BLT WITHOUT THE BACON?
I asked several friends to reminisce about their fondest memories of picnics either as adults or children. My trainer, Jenn Spina, recounted how her mother used to stop by the local sandwich shop to order a picnic lunch for the kids on the way to their swim club. Their favorite sandwich was a minimalist’s choice of lettuce, tomato, and lots of mayo on a hard roll. “The man behind the counter would ask if we wanted anything else such as cheese or ham, as if our sandwiches were missing something!”
When Jenn was a young adult she went on a trip to London with her sister and aunt. They had enjoyed a late afternoon tea one day so when dinner time rolled around no one was that hungry. Walking by Marks & Spenser, they serendipitously decided to go into the food hall and pick up some provisions—cheese, meat, bread and wine—which they took back to their hotel. “I know we dined at some great restaurants on that London vacation, but I can’t remember any of their names nor what we ate. However, I still recall what fun it was to kick off our shoes and enjoy our simple picnic in our hotel room.”
PICNICING AS THEY DO IN MINNESOTA
Corporate chef and cooking schoolteacher, Janeen Sarlin, grew up on a dairy farm in Minnesota. As you might imagine for people living in a rural community, family and church picnics were a popular pass time. Janeen’s mother was an exceptional cook. She was also keenly aware of healthy eating and food safety when packing picnics for her husband and five daughters. As Janine recalls, “In addition to standard picnic fare such as fried chicken, potato salad and deviled eggs, my mother would pack cherries or watermelon for dessert, never fattening desserts. And when she made potato salad, instead of adding boiled eggs she would substitute with olives stuffed with pimento. Normally she would make her own mayonnaise but for picnics Mom always used store-bought as it was more stable. She taught us that food was particularly perishable in the sun. To resolve this issue problem of spoilage, she would carefully pack everything in a cooler with plenty of ice.”
Janeen remembered that on those occasions “whenever we could do some grilling, Mom would bring all-beef hot dogs which we all loved, but never hamburgers for some reason.” Of her mother’s picnic repertoire, Janeen’s hands down favorite was fried chicken. (NB: the “Dessert” section in this week’s post has the recipe). “Mom always tenderized the chicken pieces first in whey, then cooked them in lard using an old cast iron skillet. Her other secret was adding cinnamon and other exotic spices to the dredging flour.”
DOESN’T EVERYONE ENJOY BAKED ZITI AT A PICNIC?
Not every family, though, takes classic American picnic fare on their outdoor excursions. Food marketer, Eleanor Sigona, grew up with four sisters in a traditional Italo-American household in Brooklyn. Here Italian, not American cuisine, reigned supreme. She recalls her family going to Valley Stream State Park on Long Island for summertime picnics. The community park offered a freshwater beach with paddle boats, bocce courts and a whole range of recreational facilities perfect for city children to burn off pent up energy. In lieu of fried chicken and coleslaw, her mother packed sheet pans of eggplant parmigiana, lasagna and/or baked ziti.
As soon as her father parked the car and popped the trunk, little Eleanor would scoot out of the back seat and put her chubby little fingers into the bake ziti. Her mother would invariably gently smack her hands while Eleanor would yelp, “But Mom, I’m hungry.” Her mother would patiently explain that Eleanor needed to wait until the dishes were properly heated up on one of the park’s public grills. Eleanor even remembers her mother carrying a huge pot for boiling water for pasta on one of their family picnics. Not exactly your standard grilled hot dogs and s’more menu. But Eleanor recollects, too, with great fondness that all the Italian dishes her mother traditionally made at home tasted infinitely better under the trees with wild little animals scurrying around.
EATING AND SWIMMING, THEN DOING IT AGAIN
Wine writer Eunice Fried remembers as a child going to the beach at Seaside Park in Connecticut. Her mother, who loved to cook, would organize all sorts of homemade sandwiches and treats (never anything store-bought) plus a huge thermos of lemonade. “My mother would drive my sister Marilyn and me to the beach. We’d spread out an enormous blanket on the sand and then watch our mother unpack her picnic basket. We would spend the entire day swimming and eating, then swimming and eating again. At the end of his workday, my father would join us for a quick swim and then devour the remainders of my mother's homemade goodies.”
EXERCISE MAKES PICNIC FARE EVEN MORE SATIFYING
Everyone agrees that eating outdoors intensifies your senses making everything taste even more delicious. Add yet another 50% to that gustatory pleasure when you picnic after exercising. Years ago, we joined our friends, the Hazards, in Connecticut for a 20-mile bike ride. Halfway through, we spotted a perfect location along a river for the picnic lunch we had brought with us. We parked our bikes and sat under a vast tree shielding us from the intense noon sun.
Ed uncorked the chilled white wine he had strapped to his bike rack with an ice pack and passed it around in plastic cups. Jan, our host, pulled our lunch from her knapsack. Out came a plastic container of lobster mixture along with four brioche-style, hot dog buns. We watched with our mouths watering as she assembled lobster rolls sandwiches, topped with lettuce from a plastic bag. Jan handed them out to her hungry cycling pals along with individual bags of potato chips.
A LOBSTER ROLL VIRGIN
This was the first time I had ever eaten a lobster roll. To this day it remains one of the best things I’ve ever consumed on a picnic. The morning of our bike ride Jan had cooked and cubed fresh Maine lobsters, added diced celery and scallions, then toss it altogether with a dressing of mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, lemon juice and Old Bay Seasoning. The combination was magical. Not even the legendary Luke’s Lobster could have made it more satisfying and delicious.
As we were complimenting Jan, we noticed over her shoulder that a couple had just capsized their canoe in the river. It was springtime when the just-released, rapid waters required a certain level of boating skill. We witnessed two over-sized adults shouting obscenities at each other as random pieces of clothing and an enormous cooler floated down the river ahead of them. Luckily, the water was not deep so the people were not in any danger. Somehow they managed to up right their canoe and pull their heavy frames back into the boat. Alas, the cooler and other personal possessions were long gone. A delicious lunch and entertainment, too!
PICNICS IN THE PARK, CENTRAL PARK
Say “picnic” to New Yorkers and the Pavlovian response for many of us would be, “Yes, Central Park Great Lawn!” Indeed, for years Ed and I would join friends and several thousand other locals to hear the New York Philharmonic Orchestra play classic favorites after enjoying a summer picnic.
Someone in our group would be designated as scout and arrive several hours in advance of the scheduled performance. He or she would commandeer space for several blankets and mark it with balloons. Next, the scout would call us to give an approximate location and the color of the balloons. Our gang would arrive before the concert with pillows and a pot-luck picnic dinner to share. Invariably, it included: pasta salad; cheese boards; guacamole with taco chips; vegetable crudité and hummus; brownies or chocolate chip cookies; and lots and lots of wine!
Getting to our designated blankets was precarious. Considering there were throngs of people scattered about cheek by jowl, you needed to tip-toe over blankets and picnic spreads apologizing as you gingerly made your way towards the scout madly waving at you. Once we found our spot, we’d plop down, open the wine and begin to relax. After a sumptuous communal picnic, we’d recline like Roman nobility and listen to the orchestra tuning up. If Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” were performed, we would also be treated to spectacular fireworks making our picnic in the park even more memorable.
THE ORIGINS OF THE WORD PICNIC
Did you know the word “picnic” comes from the late 17th century French term Pique-nique? The first part means “to pick” and nique means “a small something.” Whether it had anything to do with eating outdoors as well is questionable. But no one can dispute the fact that picnics are a satisfying way to dine alfresco. They can be simple or complicated, enjoyed solo or with family and friends. You can bring your sushi takeout to a green area at lunchtime and make it an impromptu picnic on a park bench. Or, you can prepare something more elaborate in advance at home. Remember, all it takes is a picturesque spot, some privacy for dreaming, and a few delectable treats. Consider it a mini vacation as it liberates us from our routine.
I’ve already staked out a secluded spot overlooking a small pond in Central Park for a future picnic. Fried chicken from Janine’s mother, a green bean salad, sweet butter finger sandwiches and rosé wine from a can is the planned menu. As a descendant of picnic royalty, eating in the great outdoors is in my DNA. I can’t wait for next week’s outing to roll around. Check out my Instagram account @marshapalanci to discover my hidden spot but promise not to tell anyone.