April 23rd is a day for everyone to enjoy a meal outside. It is National Picnic Day!
There are a variety of ways to take part in a picnic. This meal hearkens back to mid-18th-century al fresco French dining when all you needed was a bottle of wine, a loaf of bread, some cheese and fruit and you could have a party under the sky.
From the French for piquenique, picnic means a meal eaten outdoors.
From barbecues to simple cold plates, picnics are light informal affairs intended to be relaxing and fun for everyone to enjoy the day.
- Did you know that a “picnic” ham is really not a true ham? It is cut from the upper part of the foreleg of a pig – a true ham is cut from the hind leg.
- Italy’s favourite picnic day is Easter Monday. It is called “Angel’s Monday” or Pasquetta (“Little Easter”).
- After an ant has visited your picinc, it lays down a scent as it returns to the nest for the other ants to follow!
- In the year 2000, a 600-mile-long picnic took place in France to celebrate the first Bastille Day of the new millennium.
- The first table designed specifically for picnics (in a style similar to what we know today) appeared in the late 1800’s.
- In the first half of the 19th century, a Picnic Society met in London at the Pantheon, a place of public entertainment in Oxford Street.
- The French started the modern fashion for picnics when they opened their royal parks to the public after the revolution of 1789.
- The 1955 film Picnic, with William Holden and Kim Novak, was nominated for six Oscars and won two for best art direction and best film editing.
- 4th of July or America’s Independence Day is the US’ most popular picnic Day as the public uses the holiday to visit parks and other picnic sites to relax.
- Tales of Robin Hood gave us the first accounts of picnics. His Merry Band of Thieves would informally dine of bread, cheese and ale under the forest cover.
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