Seneca says that eating ripe figs at a picnic brings “me a New Year feast every day, and I make the New Year happy and prosperous by good thoughts and greatness of soul.” Figs—only figs—that he claims is a substitute for bread. It is among the oddest main dishes for a picnic, so odd that you suspect Seneca is making a joke.
Seneca’s “Letter 87” suggests a simple Roman picnic: My friend Maximus and I have been spending a most happy period of two days, taking with us very few slaves – one carriage-load – and no paraphernalia except what we wore on our persons. The mattress lies on the ground, and I upon the mattress. There are two rugs – one to spread beneath us and one to cover us. Nothing could have been subtracted from our luncheon; it took not more than an hour to prepare, and we were nowhere without dried figs, never without writing tablets. If I have bread, I use figs as a relish; if not, I regard figs as a substitute for bread. Hence they bring me a New Year feast every day, and I make the New Year happy and prosperous by good thoughts and greatness of soul.”;
See Loeb Classical Library edition; translated by Richard M. Gummere at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_87