The Good Old Days.

I read, somewhere, quite a while back, that twenty-five years ago the average American family went on a family picnic five times a year, but in recent times the frequency is less than once a year. I suspect that a similar situation would apply in Britain, Australia, and many other developed countries. No doubt a number of factors are responsible. Our 24/7 society means that the entire family are not likely to have all the weekend off simultaneously – and even if we do, we are often spread geographically over too wide a segment of the country to make get-togethers an easy, spontaneous thing to arrange. If time and geography are not a problem – our attitude (and priorities?) are – when we have time to spare, we tend to retreat to our individual rooms to watch our personal televisions or play with our virtual computer friends.

Bring back the family picnic, I say. Not the sort of grand picnic event requiring “a bill of fare for forty persons” such as Mrs. Beeton recommended in 1861 (which included ‘2 cold cabinet puddings in moulds’), or the sort that end in an embarrassing assassination attempt such as happened at the public picnic for Prince Alfred when he visited Melbourne in 1867, but a picnic in the style of the elegant, genteel Edwardian ‘motoring excursion’ picnic that we enjoyed in a previous blog post.

Should you be so inclined as to organise a family picnic, there are some lovely catering ideas in a little book called For Luncheon and Supper Guests, by Alice Bradley (Boston, 1923). Alice notes in her introduction that many of the dishes recommended as ‘Sunday Night Suppers’ ‘will be found desirable for afternoon teas or evening spreads, and for use in tea and luncheon rooms, and for automobile picnics.’ She goes on to say:


Automobile Picnics.
For picnics the beverages and hot dishes may be prepared at home and carried in thermos food jars. The cold dishes may be packed in a small portable refrigerator. The biscuits, sandwiches, cakes, and cookies should be carefully wrapped in wax paper and packed in boxes. Ice creams may be taken in the freezer. Hot sandwiches and bacon may be cooked over the coals or on a portable oil or alcohol stove. In some menus it may be desirable to omit or modify a few of the dishes, if food is to be carried several miles.

Because I know that what most of you like best are retro cake recipes, here is my choice for today, from our book of the day. A lovely cake, quite suitable for a picnic, or luncheon or supper – or breakfast for that matter.


Cream Caramel Layer Cake
Beat until thick
¾ cup heavy cream
1 cup sugar and
¼ cup water. Add
1 cup bread flour sifted with
2 teaspoons baking powder and
¼ teaspoon salt. Add
3 egg yolks and
1 whole egg, well beaten, and
2 tablespoons chocolate caramel syrup.
Bake 20 minutes at 400 degrees F in 2 layer cake pans 7 inches square, and put together with Chocolate Caramel Frosting between and on top.


Chocolate Caramel Syrup
Melt
2 squares bitter chocolate over hot water. In a saucepan put
¾ cup sugar and
¼ cup water, and cook until it forms a dark brown syrup. Add
½ cup boiling water and cook until thick. Add slowly to the melted chocolate and stir until smooth.


Chocolate Caramel Frosting
For frosting boil
Chocolate caramel syrup remaining from cake and cook to soft-ball stage. Beat
2 egg whites until stiff and continue beating while slowly adding the syrup. Then add, a little at a
time, enough sifted confectioners' sugar to make of right consistency to spread.

Quotation for the Day
If the rain spoils our picnic, but saves a farmer’s crop, who are we to say it shouldn’t rain?
Tom Barrett.

“Potted Luck”

The whole concept of a “pot luck” acquired new and magnificent meaning to me recently. The realisation dawned as I was browsing the pages of The Epicure’s Year Book and Table Companion of 1869. The author includes a chapter headed Picnic Reform, in which he bemoans the fact that “half the picnics given under the uncertain sky of England are failures”. He gives the main reason as the fact that “The thorough picnic nature is not common amongst us. We cannot unbend easily.” He goes on to “submit a few observations on picnic gastronomy”.

“The art of lying on the grass, of dispensing with knife or fork, of making yourself generally useless, - is not to be mastered in an afternoon. … there is vast room for improvement in the art of dining with nothing between you and the pendent caterpillar – in a gastronomic direction. … The English picnic, as now ordered, may be described as an incongruous company brought together to eat anything, and everything, in the open.”

The author then pleads for us to learn the art of composing a Menu sous les Feuilles (a ‘menu under the leaves’). He describes how he rescued a batchelor friend “besieged” by female relatives demanding to be entertained at lunch in his chambers, by demonstrating how it was possible (even for a batchelor) to “throw together” a bill of fare from the resources offered by the purveyors of London. He came up with a magnificent feast that included three potages, Russian caviare, butter from Milan, chaud-froid of beef, truffled foie-gras, and many other delicacies, in addition to a large selection of wines and cognac. His “Potted Luck” as he calls it inspires “the ladies” so much that “they resolve to imitate it”. In the fullness of summer, on June 13, in 1868, he is invited to a Potted Luck in Belvedere Park. The day is more than a success - “the oldest picknicker present cordially pronounced our day sous les feuilles to be a glorious revolution.

The menu was as follows:

Potage: Crécy. Vermouth de Turin.
Hors d’oeuvres. Salade d’anchois; salade de homarde; caviare; saucisson de Brunswick; saucisson de Strasbourg aux truffes; salame de Milan; salame de Bologna; olives d’Espagne, anchois frais; écrivisse; potted tongue.
Punch à la Romaine.
Entrées: Pâté de gibier de Yorck; pâté de volaille; pâté de veau; potted Strasbourg meat; poulet aux truffes; jambon de Yorck; gigot d’agneau à ‘Anglais; boeuf.
Wines: Xérès; Bordeaux; Champagne; Carlowitz; Rudesheimer.
Dessert: Fraises; patisserie; Gruyère; Roquefort.
Café
Estratto de tamarindo.

See what I mean about a whole new perspective on the idea of “pot lucks”?


Ham or Tongue Potted.
Cut a pound of the lean of cold boiled ham or tongue, and pound it in a mortar with a quarter of a pound of the fat, or with fresh butter (in the proportion of about two ounces to a pound) till it is a fine paste (some season it by degrees with a little pounded mace or allspice) put it close down in pots for that purpose and cover it with clarified butter a quarter of an inch thick; let it stand one night in a cool place. Send it up in the pot or cut out in thin slices.
The Cook’s Own Book; N.K.M. Lee, 1832

Quotation for the Day.

If the rain spoils our picnic, but saves a farmer's crop, who are we to say it shouldn't rain?
Tom Barrett.