Picnic hampers
Salad days al fresco
Nigella Lawson
Of all social situations, picnics must be among the most fraught. The perfect picnic demands an atmosphere of delightful spon- taneity. This is somewhat unreasonable given the degree of planning, preparation and list-checking thoughtfulness that is required. And that does not even take into consideration the weather. Men tend to be the more active picnic- Pushers, driven by a strangely literal nos- kilgie de la boue which makes them think lying on the ground eating is so much more exciting than sitting at a table in some coolly shaded room. Those of us who actually do the work, however, know that eating al fresco is no picnic. Buying a hamper ready-packed would seem to be the obvious, if expensive, solution, though you should proceed with caution. Of all the samples I tried, most wavered unconvincingly above the dis- aPpointing mark; only one was beyond reproach, and one — from the most `reputable' firm — was a disaster. So if you'd thought you had to go no further than Fortnum & Mason's, think again. They kindly provided me with their Midsummer's Day Picnic and I am still reeling from the shock. In an indisputably elegant hamper are packed cellophane boxes of curls of cold roast beef resting limply on some rather sad lettuce, deco- rated with a tomato rose, a couple of giant
prawns — same sad lettuce, same tomato rose — an unspeakable salad of mayonnaise-bound avocado, cucumber and melon, a bread roll and choux buns with the texture of damp, cold Yorkshire
pudding, filled with strawberries and creme patisserie. This is airline food, and even
with a bottle of champagne thrown in, £42.95 (plus £40 returnable deposit for the hamper) seems a monstrous charge.
Harrods fared slightly better. Their Knightsbridge Picnic (for two) comprises asparagus and mayonnaise, oak-smoked duck with orange and watercress salad, brown rolls and butter, chocolate mousse and a bottle of moselle, and costs £26 if in a little cardboard suitcase, £36 in a hamper filled with coolbag, linen, china and cut- lery. You'll have to decide whether paying extra and having to drag yourself back to Harrods the next day in order to return the basket outweighs the undesirability of drinking warm wine. Not that this is the hamper I'd recommend anyway: the aspar- agus tastes like waterlogged bamboo, and the smoked duck, while delicious, would not sustain many people through the last lap of Glyndebourne.
Partridge's in Sloane Street offer four picnics — regally designated Balmoral, Sandringham, Buckinghamshire and Windsor — ranging from £9.50 to £19.50 a head. You can hire disposable plates and cutlery for £1.95 each, a box to put everything in for 75p or pay a returnable deposit of £20 for a proper wicker basket.
The Buckingham Picnic (£15.75 a head) gives a choice of three starters, four main courses, three puddings and cheese. From it you could have parma ham with melon, half a cold roast chicken with three salads — sweetcorn, asparagus, olive and egg mayonnaise and three-bean salad (which had a hair in it) — sliced oranges in curacao with shortbread and three English cheeses which come with grapes and oat- cakes. All of this was perfectly all right, if not better, though I can't help feeling you might as well go to Marks & Spencer's and get much the same for considerably less.
Justin de Blank's hampers are, as one might expect, very good. I tried the Sal- mon Hamper, their most expensive, I'm afraid, at £19 per person. For this you get cucumber and mint mousse or chicken liver pâté, poached salmon with mayonnaise, salads, raspberries and meringue or straw- berry creme brillee, and cheese and bis- cuits. Here, a hamper is provided for a returnable deposit of £50. Salmon features in many of these ready-made picnics, though I can't think why. I would not be at all happy about eating it after two hours in a hot boot, but if you're going to risk food poisoning you may as well risk it with Justin de Blank's: it tasted perfect. This hamper was definitely the runner-up.
But the best was so much better than all
the others. Duff & Trotter offer two picnics, each for a minimum of four peo- ple, with the price depending on the choice of the main course. So, if you have the Glyndebourne Picnic you could, for £11.95 a head, have some excellent parma ham with figs, chicken Kalidasa (cold chicken, somewhere between strips and chunks, in a spice-gritty coriander and lemon mari- nade), a minty new potato salad, cherry tomatoes with basil, strawberries, baby meringues and yin d'orange cream. A wicker hamper with proper china and cutlery can be hired for £3 a head and £20 returnable deposit. Everything was per- fect.
For variation on the hamper theme — a picnic you're giving at home or a present for someone — there's Leith's Good Food and Crabtree & Evelyn. Leith's gave up hampers some time ago, but they will deliver any amount of food to you (menus range from £5.30 to £19.30 a head). The crudités with tzatziki, smoked chicken mousse, smoked salmon rolled round a filling of yoghurt, celery and dill, cherry tomato, melon and cucumber salad and chocolate tipsy cake (estimated cost £16) that I tried were all excellent, though now I'm so smitten with Duff & Trotter I don't think I could abandon them.
If you're going away for the weekend and are afraid you won't get enough to eat, go to Crabtree & Evelyn and get them to make up a large basket for you. Ginger biscuits and drink-soaked jams may not be ideal picnic food, but they do make a sustaining tuck box.
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