Marleen Gorris Antonia’s Line  (1995)

Marleen Gorris Antonia’s Line  (1995)

Antonia is the matriarch of an extended family: her daughter, child, and partner, her friends, and castoffs who need a home. Each year, a long table is set in the barnyard for the extended family to picnic. See Marleen Gorris. Antonia’s Line  (1995). Screenplay by...
“Thumbers” or Bookmaker’s Sandwiches

“Thumbers” or Bookmaker’s Sandwiches

“Thumbers” are thick beef, pork, or mutton sandwiches that were popular crowd food at the Newmarket racetrack. The name alludes to the small-sized sandwiches held between the thumb and forefinger. Except for gastronome Edward Spencer. in his Cakes &...
Grace Metalious’s Peyton Place (1956)

Grace Metalious’s Peyton Place (1956)

Allison McKenzie and Norman Page teenagers ride bicycles to a picnic on the Connecticut River. Metalious’s picnic is similar to Carson McCullers’s in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter; during which Mick Kelly and Harry Minowitz talk about adult life and...
Theodore Boyer’s  Luncheon with the Devil (2012)

Theodore Boyer’s Luncheon with the Devil (2012)

The Devil is portrayed as a smiling horned goat enjoying a picnic with a man and two women dressed in contemporary clothing. The food is watermelon. There is a story for this picnic that is yet to unfold. Featured Image: Theodore Boyer. Luncheon with the Devil. Oil...
La Compagnie des frères de bacchique de Pique-Nique (1649)

La Compagnie des frères de bacchique de Pique-Nique (1649)

P During the War of the Fronde, supporters on all sides of the contributed by writing vers burlesques satirizing all parties: Jules Cardinal Mazarin, the Queen mother, under-age King Louis XIV, the Prince of Condé, members of parliament, guild members and the...
Food and Drink Variations

Food and Drink Variations

There aren’t any specific special foods that are cooked, served, or eaten at a picnic. Picnic food, however, must be transportable. Any food or drink will do, depending on your taste, how much you can carry, and the size of your basket. Eleanor Roosevelt hunched...
Children’s Picnic Food

Children’s Picnic Food

In picnic stories, unlike real-life children who are often persnickety, there are no arguments about food choices. Most importantly, most juvenile stories associate fun with baskets full of sweets, carbs, and fats. Presumably, well-behaved children require tasty...
Selected Cookbooks

Selected Cookbooks

Any cookbook to which picnic is added to the title is a picnic cookbook. Even the first specifically themed picnic cookbook, Linda Larned’s 1915 One Hundred Picnic Suggestions, might be any cookbook. New picnic cookbooks, each striving for some novelty every...
Pic Nic: A Club for Gamblers, Actors, and Pic Nic Dinners (1801)

Pic Nic: A Club for Gamblers, Actors, and Pic Nic Dinners (1801)

The Pic Nic Society attracted obsessive gamblers, eager amateur actors called Dilettanti, and gourmand diners. Taking advantage of a truce in a decade-long war with France (lead by Napoleon, then First Consul), the Pic Nics wagered (and lost) that London might have a...