SUMMER is almost here, and it’s time to leave the confines of your house, pack a picnic lunch, and head for the great outdoors. A well-cooked sausage or grilled chicken leg tastes so much better when you’re lounging on a picnic blanket than when you’re seated at the dining table, or hunched in front of the TV.
A picnic in the garden.
So even if you find it tiresome to decide what kind of food to pack, find a picnic spot, and unpack everything again, in the time of coronavirus it seems a good option to a sit down meal inside a restaurant.
In The Before Time, lunch parties at home with friends were events to look forward to, but as cases of Covid-19 continue to increase, people are reluctant to admit anyone other than a family member into their house, even if they’re wearing a mask. So if you’re in danger of losing your social skills and missing the company of friends, organise a socially-responsible picnic, where you spread individual picnic blankets on the grass, and remain a distance of at least fifteen boerewors sausages apart from each other.
In Enid Blyton’s children’s adventure novels, written in the 1940s, five young children and their dog Timmy head off on a series of adventures, while their mother stays at home knitting. They never leave without a carefully packed picnic, and insist that ‘the meals we have on picnics always taste so much nicer than the ones we have indoors’. Sandwiches were always a feature, whether made from potted meat or ham, also hard boiled eggs, ‘served with a screw of salt’, large slices of cherry cake, and ‘lashings of ginger beer’. Sometimes, as a special treat, there would be a chocolate cake.
Sandwiches are still a popular choice for picnics, but fashion and tastes change, and the preference today, at least for adults, might be for something more complex, such as a BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich) or a French loaf stuffed with chorizo, roasted red peppers, olive oil and rocket. Today’s pre-teens prefer pizza and chicken wings to sandwiches, and I don’t think boiled eggs are high on anyone’s list.
In the past, I’ve seen posh picnickers setting up folding tables and chairs and unpacking white linen table cloths, silver cutlery and crystal glasses from wicker hampers. There were probably fancy foods stored with ice in cooler boxes to match, such as smoked salmon and caviar, quiches and quinoa salad, with home made scones with strawberry jam and cream to follow.
For a more standard picnic, the basic requirement is a picnic blanket. Take melamine plates if you have them, but china plates can travel safely if wrapped in newspaper. Wine tastes better in a wine glass rather than a paper cup, so pack any glassware with care. If your family group includes grand parents or an elderly aunt or uncle, it would be helpful to pack some folding chairs; everyone else can stretch out on the picnic blanket.
Start preparing your picnic feast a few days in advance. Make vegetable or meat samoosas to serve as pre-lunch snacks, and fry them early on the morning of the picnic. Don’t cover the samoosa container, or the crunchy pastry will go soggy. If you’re planning to have a braai, marinate some chicken pieces with your favourite spices the night before, in a ziplock bag. Cubed beef kebabs (beef fillet works best) can be marinated in a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic, a small chopped onion and salt and pepper. Thread the pieces (3 cm is about right) onto skewers before you leave, and pack them into a container, ready to throw onto the braai at lunch time. About seven minutes on each side should do the trick. If your skewers are metal, take an oven glove with you to help with turning over.
After a snooze on the picnic blanket, or a game of football, bring out the chocolate cake and tea cups. Kettles take far too long to come to the boil over a wood fire, so make tea before you leave home, and pour it into a large flask.
One of the loveliest local picnic spots is Ewanrigg Botanical Gardens, 38 km outside Harare along the Shamva Road. On our last visit, some years ago, we were able to buy firewood for the braai, and some plants from a small nursery. The air was fresh, the msasas majestic, and having timed our visit for July, we could stroll through the fine aloe gardens.
Should transport be difficult, why not take your picnic blanket into the garden, have a glass of wine, a slice of chocolate cake, and read a good book. The simple things in life are often the best. A Matter of Taste with Charlotte Malakoff
Comments to: cmalakoff@gmail.com
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