The well-loved cookbook challenge #12

What to make and take on a picnic

AI generated image of summer picnic on the grass

For the benefit of new subscribers who are unfamiliar with the well-loved cookbook challenge it’s about revisiting the bespattered books on our shelves, the ones we go back to time after time.

It stems from one of my most popular posts where everyone piled in to share the books they loved most and prompted the idea of cooking a recipe each month from a book that’s 10 years old or older.

It’s a regular free feature on my Substack but it you’d like my weekly food, travel and moneysaving wine tips as well as other exclusive content you can subscribe for as little as £5.

Living in the UK, picnics are always associated for me with cold blustery walks and drizzle, if not driving rain.

Huddling in the car with a thermos of Heinz tomato soup and - if we were lucky - some hot chipolata sausages.

But with this crazy hot summer we’re having, picnics seem a better solution than eating indoors.

What should we make and take though and can books that are 10 years old or older provide inspiration?

I may be a bit old school about picnics but I don’t want the kind of food I could eat in my back garden or that smacks of a multi-course meal.

I like handheld food. Sausage rolls. A scotch egg. A pork pie A pasty - pasties are made for picnics* “All such meals should be easy to carry, tasty and nourishing” says Mary Norwak in the ‘Meals in a Field’ section of her 1975 book The Farmhouse Kitchen, including, of course, a recipe for a pasty, though she doesn’t specify white pepper which I personally think is essential. Jane Grigson also has a recipe in her Observer Guide to British Cookery (1984)

* I remember - can still taste - the ones we used to buy, still warm from the bakery in Rock in Cornwall before it became Notting-Hill-on-Sea and took down to the beach at Daymer Bay.

Quiche is also an option but bettered by a slab of bacon and egg pie from Margot Henderson’s excellent You’re all Invited (2012 and fetching up to £100 so just as well you can find the recipe online.). In New Zealand, where Henderson comes from “You’re not a proper mother if you don’t pack your kids off with a bacon and egg pie for their sports day”

I also love a a fat, overfilled sandwich. Thick slabs of ham and English mustard or a jambon beurre, as the French call their version, with a crisp baguette.

Crab sandwiches if you’re by the sea.

Pan bagnat by Cristina.A at shutterstock.com

Rolls, or better still, whole loaves stuffed with filling like the Provençal Pan Bagnat - basically salade niçoise in a sandwich. Elizabeth David has three versions in her book Summer Cooking (1955) which is a good book to dip into at this time of year.

Or, given Bastille Day is coming up this weekend, what about what the French call ‘cake’ which is not really cake at all but a quick, savoury bread that doesn’t need kneading.

You can find my smoked salmon, goats cheese and dill cake here or consult Liz Franklin’s 2005 book Quick Breads which includes a tempting-looking basil and sun-dried tomato bread (Remember sun-dried tomatoes?)

What we more commonly think of as cake makes good picnic fare too. Annie Rigg’s Lemon and Blueberry Drizzle Cake would make a fine finale along with a few apricots or cherries.

Then off to the nearest ice cream van for a ‘99 . . .

Tell me what did you have for picnics as a child and what do you take these days? Anything from your mum or gran’s old cook books or do you favour newer recipes? Do share your favourites!

If this post made you feel joyfully nostalgic about picnics it would be great if you’d give it a ❤️