Root + Bone: How not to picnic
My first childhood memory of eating outdoors is of a family road trip to Kerry in the south of Ireland. Pulling over by the side of a country road, we ate sandwiches out of the back of the car. No picnic blanket, just the kids perched on the grass verge, adults sitting awkwardly in the open car boot.
My grandfather wanted salt for his tomato sandwich, so marched up the driveway of the nearby farm to ask the farmer for some. It’s only weird in retrospect – at the time it seemed perfectly normal because eating outside was simply a matter of having no choice, not the professional, Instagrammed pursuit it is now.
Gritty sandwiches, damp crisps and lukewarm tea – those are my memories of so-called picnicking in the nineties. Rusty barbecues propped up by cinder blocks, dutifully eating anaemic chicken portions I knew full well might give me food poisoning. My brother turning sad burgers over in the drizzle under a large golf umbrella while the rest of the family waited around the dinner table inside.
Things are supposed to be different now, particularly in London. Packets of salt and vinegar and ham and cheese rolls don’t impress on Instagram, however many filters you apply, and barbecues don’t cut it anymore without aged beef burgers and homemade relish. We’re upping our al fresco dining game, but do fancy nibbles and filtered photos disguise the horrible truth about eating outside – that it’s at best tolerable and at worst pretty crap?
At the first glimpse of sunlight in April, we’re lugging our blankets and baskets into any available green space in London, desperate to start living the life that the Marks & Spencer ads told us was possible. We have pretty picnic blankets with waterproof nether regions, six packs of the most alcoholic craft ales, brie and crackers and six different kinds of hummus. And for a while, it all looks glorious.
Anyone who has ever passed the barbecue section of London Fields after sundown on a Saturday night will know – the glory inevitable fades. Plumes of smoke from dying embers cloud the air, crumpled cans and discarded brioche buns litter the grass like the detritus of a battle that nobody won. Those delicious cans of Pimms work their magic a little too well and the Marks & Spencer dream turns into a grim shadow of its former self.
Visions of the perfect picnic go mostly unfulfilled. As a teenager, I used to lug around a square picnic backpack around the size and shape of a medium microwave oven. A present from my mother, it was the height of sophistication, complete with plastic cutlery, wine goblets, saucers and a corkscrew and made regular appearances over the summer holidays.
But there was always something missing. If it wasn’t the salt and pepper, it was the wine – usually the requisite lukewarm bottle of rosé. A grown-up picnic without wine or beer is an exercise in pointlessness – it’s amazing how copious amounts of prosecco can compensate for a soggy chicken sandwich, minus the salt and pepper.
Like the perfect Christmas dinner, the perfect picnic is something we aim for and dream about but almost never achieve. It should be all graceful lounging under the shade of an oak tree, nibbling delicacies with one hand while sipping daintily with the other. Not a mashed strawberry, warm cider or pissed-off wasp in sight.
Another fundamental problem with outside dining is that there’s usually nowhere to sit besides the ground. Some people have the knack of sitting elegantly on the grass and those people make good picnickers. Others sit cross-legged and their back hurts, lean back and their wrists hurt, lie down and they can’t drink their beer without a straw. Others bring folding chairs and those people are smart but slightly embarrassing.
Maybe we’re aiming too high. Expecting too much, consuming too much and demanding too much perfection. Maybe accepting that your beer is going to be flat, your salad is going to be underwhelming and your back is going to hurt is the true path to picnicking fulfilment.
Because we’re all going to do it anyway, aren’t we? And I’ll be among them, dusting off my tartan blanket, looking for the perfect patch of grass, away from the playground but not too close to the bins. Clutching my homemade pastrami and rye in one hand, as I drag my blanket further and further across the lawn in search of that dwindling patch of sunlight with the other. And I’ll love it, til the sun goes down.
