Keep it simple
Rose Prince
The picnic knife I carry in my handbag came from Seville. It has a smooth, polished olive-wood handle, a built-in corkscrew and the kind of blade that would give airport security something to get truly alarmed about: a curving, rocksteady lump of steel with a terrifying point. But in fact the most mischief I ever cause with my knife is to whip it out halfway up a hillside and lop the end off a saucisson sec that has been tied to my belt. That done, out of my pocket comes the bread which, with another swipe from the knife, is ready for the dry cured sausage. And there you have an almost perfect picnic.
Picnics, of course, come in other, more impressive guises. We are in the grand picnic season right now, when families pack the entire contents of the sideboard into the back of the car and eat on a cashmere rug. Britain is deeply in love with outdoor eating. My Argos catalogue devotes 20 pages to canopies, thermal boxes and weird chairs that open out like torn umbrellas. And it’s true that knife-and-fork picnics are helped along by the advent of cold-boxes and even the in-car fridge, but my piece of advice to posh picnickers is not to worry too much about food being chilled. People need to rediscover the deeper flavours of food eaten at ambient temperature. Believe me, no matter how well hung, a roasted fillet of beef has stacks more taste if removed from the fridge for an hour. So too the pâté, cheeses, potted shrimps and the picnic pie. There’s nothing more bland than a very cold pork pie. Home-made mayonnaise is ruined if refrigerated; so make the minimum needed for sauce or potato salad. I am not suggesting allowing meat to rot in the hamper, but choose food that travels happily. Remember, sashimi is for sushi bars.
If it is a gourmet picnic, at the opera say, think of soups before salads. Appetites at picnics are not big, and it is nice to eat smooth, cool vegetable soups from small espresso cups. Take more than one soup, perhaps even four; ripe tomatoes blended with olive oil, cucumber and mint; Spanish almonds with garlic and bread; a classic leek and potato vichyssoise or perhaps beetroot with yogurt.
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