During the War of the Fronde, hundreds of satires, vers burlesques, were published in Paris, read and forgotten. All parties in the war were satirized: Jules, Cardinal Mazarin (First Minister), the Queen Mother, under-age King Louis XIV, the Prince of Condé, members...
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...
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...
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)]()
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...
Elliott’s moral tale The Mice and Their Pic Nic failed to persuade readers that a “pic nic dinner,” especially in London, is sinful. Elliott’s readers were expected to recognize her mouse story as an adaptation of Aesop’s fable...
Dinner on the grounds (always with an “s”) is a Methodist revival meeting picnic. There are many geographic variations throughout the United States, but Southerners seem to hold sway, scheduling the meeting for “lay-by time,” sometime between...
Corny picnic satire was in vogue among English music before Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1871 Thespis, or The Gods Grown Old. Typical “The Pic-Nic” is sung to the air of “Here’s the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen” from Sheridan’s The...
Homer’s A Picnic in the Woods is a pleasant joke, suggesting that the usually staid picnic might also be tumultuous. The action here is everywhere. A large picnic blanket is spread and filled with food: a bowl of fruit, a large ham with a knife for carving, a...
Donald Duck’s beach picnic makes a joke of expectations. Intending a pleasant day at the beach, Donald is upset and bedeviled with turmoil. Especially the ants, dressed in war paint like “Native Americans,” steal Donald’s picnic. The idea is...
