“We have to take a picnic”
my husband announces, pouncing on any occasion to pursue the picnic imperative. A meal must be packed, an adventure undertaken and food eaten at a destination divined through shamanistic second sight; if a more auspicious spot is sighted later the failed oracle is doomed to an eternity of bad karma that can only be expiated by ritual suicide. These meals take place on snowy hillsides after skiing, on islands reachable only by canoe, at the beach, by a castle, in the park, under a tree, beside a river, over a rushing fall, alone or with family, accompanied by birdsong, the tuning of an orchestra or the dull tinkle of bells on sheep. In the Saguenay we picnicked every day – gazing at the plummeting fjord where we spotted the tiny white sprays of distant whales, but we also ate staring into a downpour through the windshield of the car munching salmon pie straight out of the box.
Picnic rules?
The picnic tent is broad and inclusive, unfolding unexpectedly like undiscovered rooms in a house in a dream. As with love or a good novel, you know a picnic when you taste it, but the exact ingredients are mutable and elusive. The definition seems straight forward, until you realize that all of the rules can be defied or broken. 1. A picnic must be outdoors. But it could also be in a cave or on the enticingly shady porch of an empty summer house. In an emergency, it can be at a rest stop next to pamphlets touting local attractions or the waiting room of an airport. 2. Travel is required. A picnic can’t just be held in the back yard. Unless it’s for a party of delighted two-year olds. Or if your backyard is a country estate in Scotland, runs down to the shores of the Chesapeake or includes a pasture, forest or babbling brook. 3. The location should be scenic: possessing an overlook, vista, point of view, or object of historical interest. Often enough, though, the site is pedestrian: statue of an unknown politician surrounded by municipal landscaping that barely screens your view of the couple sitting next to you. Ideally a picnic should be idyllic, but it can also be wild, with fish caught in the river and a camp fire surrounded by stars with no one in sight.
Couples go from spark to flame when eating outside, away from home and fanned by the winds of nature. Picnics are a setting for intrigue in 19th century novels where looks and promises are exchanged during a country ramble or in the back of a carriage on the way to The Falls. Hunting parties provide the dual opportunity of accidents (rescue from a ditch by a charming stranger) and impromptu meals peppered with flirtatious banter. In our own time of virtual rendezvous and relationship caution, what better way to assess a potential mate’s long-term suitability than a picnic? Does the candidate panic at the sight of an ant? Will they share a fork? Did they give you the last of the cherries?
Children play hide-and-seek, their fingers blackened and faces sticky
A picnic is also a loose and companionable way to gather with friends or family. Everyone brings something, not much is organized in advance. There are too many salads or desserts, the cheese gets runny, ice-cream melts and wasps drown themselves in abandoned drinks. Children play hide-and-seek, and chase unwary squirrels or dogs, their fingers blackened and faces sticky with strawberries, brownies, potato chips – favorite or forbidden foods gorged on as grown-ups talk and laugh, keeping only a distracted eye on the eddying tide of young life swirling around their legs, pulling roughly or gently like insistent waves, in the long, slowly descending summer twilight.
The food must be … Well, what must it be? It isn’t usually chateaubriand, or soufflé, but it could be, and on some far-off day summer day on the bank of the Thames at Kew or on the beach in Newport, it probably was. For us there are usually sandwiches, or just salami and cheese, perhaps hard-boiled eggs, some tomatoes, fruit. I have two favorites, my husband’s empanadas, Argentinian style with beef, olives, raisins and egg. They are savory and satisfying, rewarding a successful trek and consoling for rain or other misfortunes. The other is Congo bars, plain with chocolate chips, an instant one-way taste-ticket to childhood and liked by almost everyone. As kids we sold them for 25₵ at the lemonade stand we ran, preying on thirsty tourists looking for the beach. Most of the time we were eager entrepreneurs, counting our pile of quarters, so we were tolerant of the smiling condescension adults reserve for children. But on a couple of occasions we took suddenly against the manners of people from the better parts of Jersey or Rhode Island and sent them down the dirt road to the dump or the long way back to town.
Uninvited visitors are expected at a picnic. Columns of ants, preceded by a lone scout, arrive within in moments of the first sandwich being unwrapped. Our anniversary was graced by an apparition of slugs whose speed and stealth surprised us. Lunch in an English garden was rendered magical by the appearance of toads so tiny they must have been the pets of the gnomes and fairies thought to inhabit the place. Insistent geese, marauding seagulls and troublesome squirrels have all disturbed our peace. I’m sure that if we settled down to potted seal on an ice-flow in Antarctica penguins would line up for the scraps.
In the end what is it that makes a picnic essential, irresistible – imperative? Whether you have wine and pâté on the lawn of an estate or tuna sandwiches by the side of the road, a picnic is unique, a slice lifted out of our daily lives. It’s not just another meal with knives and forks, it’s a festivity. We made it to the top! Did you see that bird? That cheese is so good. Tomorrow it’s toast for breakfast and chicken for dinner, but today we’re making a gypsy feast in a place we’ve never seen before and probably never will again.