<div class="page photo" style=""> <article> <header style=" background-image:url(/uploads/53889d5da5490.jpg); "> <div class="box"> <div class="intro" style="color: #fff;"> <h1 style="color: #fff !important;">The Death of the Picnic </h1> <p class="summary"></p> </div> </div> </header> <div class="main"> <div class="container"> <p class="byline">John Budinsky </p> <p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">We can all recognise the time of year when the weather allows us to pack our wicker basket, lay down a quilt, and partake in a time-honoured tradition. Picnic season has begun.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The mere word is enough to conjure an idyllic image of homemade sandwiches and summer dress, of happy friends or lovers lounging in a beautifully rustic landscape. This beautiful impression is nearly universal, and its appeal widespread. It is therefore a bit surprising that very few of us will actually have a picnic this year.&nbsp; Those who do will not take it lightly, working hard to consciously recreate the classic picnic scene that we have inherited from our Victorian forebears. We do what they do because the art of the picnic is static and unchanging. The picnic is static because it is dead, and only lives on through meticulous re-enactments. Picnics are nostalgic relic of a bygone era; a static piece of the historical record. But do not despair, because although though the picnic is dead, it seems like it will never be forgotten.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">To examine this point, we need to define exactly what a picnic is. After all, people eat outdoors all the time, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Our definition must rule out picnics that are brought about by necessity, such as road-side meals or camping dinners. Those meals need to be eaten outside, and the meal isn’t the sole purpose of the outing. Similarly, when someone grabs a bit of fast food and eats it outdoors, a picnic has not necessarily occurred. These instances lack the somewhat formalised planning and leisurely aspect. Scoffing down some curbside McDonalds is not a picnic. I will therefore a group excursion with homemade food meant to be enjoyed outdoors, with the added caveat that the meal is the main purpose of the trip, to exclude situations where a picnic is unavoidable.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">When we decide to plan a picnic, it immediately become clear that we are taking part in something more elaborate than a spontaneous romp; it can be better described as play-acting. We need a blanket, ideally made of cloth and ideally plaid. We also require a basket. This specially-designed contraptions, with multiple compartments designed to hold all the necessities, are probably the only wicker baskets most people own nowadays. They are designed and purchased for this one specific purpose. A duffle bag or reusable shopping bag simply will not do. According the picnic-basket.com, the requirements are even more specific. They separate their basket offerings into a general “picnic baskets” page, but “romantic picnic baskets” have their very own category. Wine baskets can be integrated into a larger basket or purchased separately. The site also offers a wide range of picnic-specific blankets, sorted into four general types for different situations. If you want to become a lifestyle picnicker, you’d better get rid of those cross-country skis to free up some closet space for an assortment of wicker receptacles.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">A proper picnic date seems to require a host of specific accessories. I am fairly sure that the mandatory equipment includes the basket, at least one cotton blanket, white trousers (prone to grass stains), an ascot, a solitary tree on a gentle hill, a bottle of champagne, the difficult-to-transport champagne flutes, and possibly a beret. this image comes straight from popular culture, which is a reinterpretation of older fashions and perceptions, but it still constitutes the only image I have to work with. Without the full ensemble, the basket or quilt would look completely anachronistic. In fact, the whole practice is anachronistic; it wouldn’t be unreasonable to don my steampunk goggles and kindly request that the ladies wear corsets.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">For comparison’s sake, we can look at cocktail parties, which constantly adapt to changing trends and fashions. You can pick up magazines from any point in past half-century, and obtain different advice on how to hold a cocktail party in accordance with the current trends. Why has picnicking failed to evolve with the times?&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The history of the modern picnic is often perceived to be quite long, although I would argue that picnicking only existed for a few decades as a living institution. Some historians will trace the lineage back to medieval hunting feasts, but I find this connection somewhat absurd. People have been eating outdoors for far longer than we’ve been constructing buildings to eat in. A true picnic has to be a rare leisure outing, worthy of pursuing for its own sake, and enjoyed by common working-class people.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The etymology of the word itself can be traced back to pique-nique, a French term for potluck meals served in someone’s home. Some folks claim that the word is gruesomely associated with American lynchings, but that fascinating theory has been thoroughly debunked (see pique-nique, above). Regardless of the remote etymology, the only development of real importance involves the rise of the modern version, which only occurred in the second half of the 19th century.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">At that time, in Britain and North America, social changes created an environment that was incredibly conducive to eating on the grass. Urban parks were just becoming a standard feature of cities; novel and exciting places. Parks provide relief from industrial urban landscapes, and offer respite for working class people. At the same time, the middle class prospered, enjoying traditionally upper-class symbols like porcelain tea sets, fashionable clothing, and leisure time. Given the relatively limited transportation options in the Victorian Era, and fewer recreational choices than we enjoy today, spending time in the new parks offered a novel way to relax and socialise. Homemade luncheons, cloth blankets, and wicker baskets represented the cutting-edge of Victorian picnic technology, and made perfect sense in that context of their day.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">This image has superficially endured as an odd relic of the past century, which has somehow become lodged in our collective consciousness (alongside our widespread sexual repression and those oh-so-catchy Gilbert and Sullivan tunes).&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">If this is where our idea of picnicking originates, doesn’t it make modern-day picnicking fundamentally nostalgic? It reminds me of twenty-something’s have a twee little tea party, which only bears a superficial resemblance to the semi-formal affairs hosted by their great-grandmothers. The re-enactment is cute and fun, but steeped in irony. My own mother was often among a small group of suburban moms who took their kids on picnics, and I recall them fondly, but I suspect that this ritual was not so much a time-honoured tradition as an idea sprung from the question “you know what would be funny?<em> A picnic!</em>” Instead of taking on new life and interpretations as time goes by, the picnic is ultimately focussed on emulating a cultural memory.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">It may simply be that the concept of idyllic country leisure appeals to our modern sensibilities, and our desire to identify as something other than corporate urbanites. Picnicking may be something we wish we did, and it becomes incorporated into our identity even though very few of us actually walk the walk. If you search online for picnic-related blogs, you’re much more likely to find cute photo collections and journals with “picnic” in their title than any stories or information pertaining to actual picnics. OkTrends, the brilliant demographic research organisation that operates behind a dating-site facade, provides some useful insight into this broad phenomenon. Among the top self-descriptors used by white women in their largely-urban userbase we find: <em>a country girl, bonfires, horseback riding, and thunderstorms alongside more generically twee pastimes like new recipes, flea markets, and eat pray love.</em> Obviously these stats don’t paint a very nuanced picture, but the tendency of modern women to want to project a cute and rustic self-image goes a long way to explaining the idea of a picnic’s long endurance.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The next question to ask is, if we like picnics so much, why do very few of us actually make the effort? Although a longing for the country life may be a staple of our modern society, we actually have significantly more exposure to it than our Victorian forebears. After all, in the age of horses, steam trains, and streetcars, a trip out of the city was a pretty major ordeal – and required a significant excursion. Nowadays, almost all jobs allow ample time off, most people own cars, and almost everyone has access to a cottage or campground. We can get to a National Park in the time it took our ancestors to lug their basket to a city park. Why settle for the pseudo-pastoral vistas of an inner-city green space, if such a compromise is no longer necessary? Other modern pastimes have also robbed parks of their once-great appeal. The Victorian bandstand was once a major urban gathering place, but the few examples still around today are only maintained for the sake of historical preservation. The same is true for picnics.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">We should put the picnic in its proper place, somewhere between an ironic joke and cosplay, and use this new understanding to make the best of things. After all, labelling something an old-timey tradition doesn’t necessary disparage it. Traditional courtship falls under the same umbrella, and it has its fair share of proponents. A picnic date can fall into the same category. It is no longer relevant, or even practical, but it can still be a nice symbolic gesture: like a prospective husband asking a father for permission to marry his daughter, without the troublesome element of misogyny.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;">We can use the 1920s as a baseline to help us design the best, most authentic picnic possible. Like all historical reenactors, we can strive for authenticity. Modern accoutrements are a definite no-no, while impractical rustic artefacts are particularly appreciated. Instead of a plastic liquid container, use an antique glass bottle. Skip the wicker basket entirely if you can find an old wooden box with peeling paint and an ornate metal lock. Allow no synthetic fibres or plastics. Metal utensils feel much nicer in the hand than disposable ones. Straw hats are great! Always dress semi-formally, or to put it in Edwardian terms, extremely casually. These details matter, because a picnic isn’t just about eating outside. It’s about eating outside in the 1920s, or at least a fantastical and romantic reinterpretation of that bygone age.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span></p> </div> </div> </article> </div><!-- /page-->