A picnic invitation invariably sparks a nticipation and a sense of excitement, whatever the weather, says writer Sharon Parsons
When tomboy George in Enid Blyton’s Five Go Off in a Caravan said, ‘I don’t know why, but the meals we have on picnics always taste so much better than the ones we have indoors,’ she hit on a universal truth. Even though she and the gang weren’t exactly pushing the boat out on the culinary front, munching happily on hard-boiled eggs with bread, butter and a dish of salt, but she still has a point.
Her know-it-all cousin, Julian, would doubtless have explained that studies show our sense of taste is triggered by tiny molecules in the air being detected by nerves in the nose, not on the tongue. So it stands to reason that fresh, well-circulating air allows us to smell more acutely, which makes good food become even more appealing.
Circumstances also have an impact. A stressful situation – grabbing a sandwich as we rush for a train, say – triggers a ‘fight or flight’ response, when energies are directed away from the digestive tract to our limbs. The opposite is the ‘rest and digest’ mode: when we’re relaxed, we tune into our senses more keenly, which impacts on our enjoyment.
But there’s something else, too. On a deeper level, picnics seem to tap into a sort of childlike pleasure that evokes memories of ‘making camp’ as we shake out rugs and unpack all the essential paraphernalia. And, if everyone contributes in pot-luck fashion (this, it turns out, has always been a picnic tradition), it only adds to the slightly haphazard sense of fun.
UNPACKING HISTORY
Of course, there’s nothing new about eating outdoors. In the Bayeaux Tapestry, Norman soldiers are seen eating at a temporary trestle table, while noble medieval huntsmen would gather to enjoy an alfresco feast before galloping off in search of prey. At the other end of the scale, agricultural workers toiling in the fields may have paused at midday for a hunk of bread and cheese, but this was in no way a sociable repast.
‘The picnic we recognise today is really defined by its social implications – the company we enjoy it with and, most importantly, where we have it – be it a posh event where picnickers lug the hamper out of the back of the Range Rover or a meal in an isolated spot where there’s nobody else for miles,’ explains Pen Vogler, a food historian and author of Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain (Atlantic Books, £9.99). But how did we get to this point – and why?
The word picnic itself is French, derived from a combination of picquer which means ‘to peck’, and nique which loosely means a ‘small amount’. After being amalgamated into picque-nique in the 17th century, it was used to describe an occasion where everyone brought food to a social gathering, w
