…made me wonder if we could get a poll together for the types of foods and treats you would expect to have at a picnic, a July 4th outdoor party, or any other summertime feast.
Add to the list and when we get 20 or so I’ll put up a poll for “favorite(s).”
If such a poll already exists, just link to it and I’ll shut up.
Anyway:
Potato salad
Deviled eggs
Cream cheese and pecan sandwiches
Bread and butter pickles
Melon balls
Scotch eggs
Sandwiches
Tomatoes
Baguettes
Onion bhajis (well, they’re common here)
Pork pies
Tortilla
Chicken drumsticks
Olives
Strawberries
Other berries - blueberries, raspberries etc
Crisps
Quiche
Ham
Green salad
Pasta salad
Rice salad
(Other salads too, but they’re the most common)
Sausage/cheese and onion rolls
I usually make Confetti salad- SUPER easy & always gets rave reviews:
2 cups frozen corn, 2 cups frozen peas, 1 can French cut green beans, drained. 1 small jar pimenttos, 1/4 cup finely diced onion. Simple vinagarette dressing. SOOOO good & easy!
I think is yet another UK/US difference, because to me a picnic is something eaten outdoors with no cooking apparatus. Mind you, it would be cool to see someone make ice-cream on the spot - I thought it was a bit more difficult than just cranking a machine; doesn’t it require freezing?
Barbeques are barbeques, not picnics. If you’re including bbqs and even casseroles (as above - and yes, I know the American definition of casserole is different) then ‘picnic food’ just means ‘food eaten outdoors,’ which is pretty much anything really.
I’m in the South, which means “barbecue” (the correct spelling) is itself a food, not a cooking method or a kind of event. I’ve seen tubs of warm barbecue packed in hampers and then eaten by people sitting on blankets in the grass, along with various other traditional picnic items as have been mentioned, so I call that a picnic. The meat wasn’t necessarily cooked on the same site.
The ice cream event was actually billed as a picnic. I suppose in a city a similar event would have been called a block party.
Of course ice cream making involves chilling; in that case there were some big blocks of ice cut into chunks to go into the outer chamber of the ice cream machine, mixed with salt. This particular approach to ice cream is actually best done outside where you have some place to let a stream of salt water run out. The ice and salt don’t go into the finished product, that’s just where the chilling comes from. With a non-electric model, there’s a lot of cranking to be done, so an outdoor event with a pack of children who want to help (and thereby earn their treat) is just about ideal.
I understand that bbq can be eaten cold - it was that plus another poster mentioning hotdogs and hamburgers that made me think you were including food cooked on scene.
That ice-cream machine does sound very cool, no pun intended. TBF though, I don’t think it’s what you’d usually expect to see at a picnic.
At the fourth of July block party growing up, my parents would dig out the ice cream machine, and the kids would take turns cranking it to make fresh ice cream. So, yes, it actually happens just as you say!
barbeque as a food takes many hours of cooking. Some people who have large outdoor house parties may put the pig on to roast the night before in an outdoor pit and then serve in the afternoon. It may also be cooked at home and taken somewhere to eat (or purchased) I can’t recall anyone ever having a family pick nick at a park or something and taking the time to prepare barbeque on site. It would be tacky to take up public property in such a manner. I would guess that preparing other meats for Barbeque would be similar.
Home made ice cream made with a hand crank machine is time consuming and messy but oh so good. Since it is made on site you don’t have to have refrigeration to keep it cold, it doesn’t last long enough.
