Child’s The Frugal Housewife is among the most popular American cookery and domestic manuals but has no specific recommendations for picnics. The 1830 edition does have a recipe for buffalo’s tongue; “Buffalo’s tongue should soak a day and a night and boil as much as six hours.” But the rising popularity of picnicking made no impression on Child.
See Lydia Maria Child. The Frugal Housewife, Dedicated to Those Who Are Not Ashamed of Economy. Boston: Marsh & Capen, and Carter & Hendee, 1829.
*Child’s novel Hobomok was published in 1824 under the pseudonym “An American.”