Southworth’s The Motorist’s Luncheon Book hypes motor picnicking. “The love of the great outdoors grows with each new automobile,” she writes, “The friendly road beckons, the trusty motor champs at the brake.” It’s very like Ford Motors’s advertisements for the 1923 Touring Car and the slogan “Every day without a Ford means lost hours of healthy motoring pleasure.” 
Southworth is hyper: “The love of the great outdoors grows with each new automobile. The friendly road beckons, the trusty motor champs at the brake, and the urge to take to the open are irresistible for anything from a few hours to a day or a week . . . The design of this little book is not recipes, but only an endeavor to lighten the burden of the one whose task it is to cater to these joy hampers and fill them full, for who ever knew a motorist to arrive except in a starving condition?”
For practicality, Southworth suggests tending the fare with thermos bottles, a refrigerator basket, baskets, paraffin paper, and a small aluminum-lined fireless cooker. Her Camp Fire Luncheon includes tenderloin steak cut into pieces, poppy rolls, hash brown potatoes, alligator pear salad, jelly sandwiches, Spanish cream, Lady Baltimore cake, and hot cocoa with marshmallows.
Featured Image: “Every day without a Ford means lost hours of healthy motoring pleasure.” Ford Touring Car. Collections of the Henry Ford Museum
See May E. Southworth’s The Motorist’s Luncheon Book. New York: Harper Brothers, 1923; Julian Pettifer and Nigel Turner. Automania; Man and the Motor Car. London: Collins, 1984.
Menu Suggestions
Tenderloin Steak Cut Into Pieces
Poppy Rolls, Hash Brown Potatoes
Alligator Pear Salad
Jelly Sandwiches
Spanish Cream
Lady Baltimore Cake
Hot Coffee or Tea
Hot Cocoa With Marshmallows
Menu Suggestions for a Cold Luncheon
Sliced Cold Turkey Sandwiches
Spring Salad
Cucumber Relish
Veronique Wafers
Vienna Twist Rolls
Butter
Arabian Jelly [Dromedary Dates with English Walnuts and Lemon Jelly]
Fruit Punch
See May E. Southworth. The Motorist’s Luncheon Book. Harper Brothers: New York, 1923