picnic

1. A meal eaten outdoors, as on an excursion.
2. Slang. An easy task or a pleasant experience.
3. A smoked section of pork foreleg and shoulder.

[French pique-nique, probably reduplication of piquer, to pick. See pique.]

Definition: very easy undertaking
Antonyms: difficulty, drudgery

There is no reliable etymology for the word picnic, with the original use of the word lagging about three hundred years behind the first descriptions of alfresco (open air) dining. From about 1340 until the very early 1800s, there are three contextual descriptions of picnics, whether or not the word is actually used: a pleasure party at which a meal was eaten outdoors; a hunt assembly; and an indoor social gathering or dinner party. An outdoor meal in a garden is described in Italian literature by Giovanni Boccaccio in a poem that dates from about 1340. Sixty years later a similar event occurs in one of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It seems certain that the assemblée, or meal served during the hunt that is described and illustrated in the hunt manual of Jacques du Fouilloux's La Vénerie (Hunting) (1560) and George Turberville's The Noble Arte of Venerie (1575), are picnics in all but name. By 1692, the concept of the alfresco meal shifted, and when cited in Gilles Ménage's Dictionnaire du Etymologique de la Langue Françoise (Etymological dictionary of the French language) piquenique is assumed to be of unknown origin, but means un repas où chacun paye son écot (a meal where each pays his share). By 1750, Ménage's editors suggest that piquenique may be of Spanish origin and that it appeared in 1664 in a French translation of works by Francisco Quevedo. Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of Great Britain, had a dinner served on the grounds of Hyde Park in 1654. Samuel Pepys, the English diarist, ate many meals while boating on the Thames or sitting on its banks. These are picnics in all but name, but they are only recorded as a dinner alfresco.

The Oxford English Dictionary says that the word "picnic" originally referred to fashionable social entertainment in which each person contributed a share of the provisions, and says that the first recorded use of "picnic" in English appears in 1748 in a letter from Lord Chesterfield to his son, in the sense of an assembly or social gathering. It seems that the word was used in this sense widely in Germany, as Chesterfield's son was in Berlin at the time. A subsequent mention occurs in a letter from Lady M. Coke to Lady Stafford in 1763 from Hanover. Gustaf Palmfelt, a Swede, in a 1738 translation into Swedish used "picnick" (in the sense of an assembly); Swedish continues to use "picnick" and suggests that it is of French or English origin. Larousse Gastronomique (2002) states that 'picnic' is a contraction of pique (to pick), piquante (sharp or pungent), and nique (of small value). This suggestion seems commonsensical, but it is guesswork based on the technique of word formation by clipping words together to form a new word.

In the arts and literature, picnics tend to be more concerned with place, action, and figurative meanings and less concerned with food, if it is mentioned at all. Oliver Goldsmith, whom Georgina Battiscombe (English Picnics, 1949) credits with describing the first picnic in English literature in The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) provides these bare bones: "Our family dined in the field, and we sat, or rather, reclined round a temperate repast, our cloth spread upon the hay." Battiscombe insists that a picnic must be a meal eaten outdoors to which diners bring something to eat, even if there is no sharing. She suggests that before the Romantics made nature fashionable "no one connected the idea of pleasure with the notion of a meal eaten anywhere but under a roof" (p. 4).

In London, the so-called Picnic Society (1802) was a short-lived elite social club organized for entertainment. But a decade later "picnic" is used only in the sense of a meal eaten outdoors. Occasionally, it was used in the sense of an anthology, as in Charles Dickens's The Pic-Nic Papers, by Various Hands (1841), or as a term of disapprobation as in a person accused of picnickery and nicknackery, or being frivolous.

Germans use picnick in the sense of holding a meeting, as in the phrase ein Picknick halten. The verb is picknicken, which literally means holding a picnic as you would hold a meeting or a party. Italians use scampagnata (holiday in the country), or lolazione sull'erba (luncheon on the grass). Spaniards use comida al aire libre (luncheon on the grass), or comida campestre (eat in the country). Spanish dictionaries seem unaware that Ménage thinks the word may be of Spanish origin. Koreans use both the Chinese so pong (a little meal in the country) and "picnic." Their favorite picnic time occurs when the cherry trees are in bloom. The Japanese have a long history of depicting meals taken outdoors, often celebrating hanami, the cherry blossom season, or another seasonal event. In 1862, "picnic" was translated as shokuji (meal), and in the twentieth century, the Japanese adopted the loanword pikunikku.

Food Writers on Picnics

Cookbooks are excellent resources for picnic menus and recollections. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin delights in the hunt assembly ("Halts of a Shooting-Party"), which he does not call a picnic: "At the appointed hour we see arrive light carriages and prancing horses, loaded with the fair, all feathers and flowers. . . . Seated on the green turf they eat, the corks fly; they gossip, laugh, and are merry in perfect freedom, for the universe is their drawing-room, and the sun their lamp" (Physiologie du goût, pp. 152–153). Mrs. Isabella Beeton's recommendations for a picnic for forty persons are for formal entertaining carried outdoors in some location where an elaborate feast could be organized and served by servants.

Elizabeth David, a known lover of picnics, says that

Picnic addicts seem to be roughly divided between those who frankly make elaborate preparations and leave nothing to chance, and those others whose organization is no less complicated but who are more deceitful and pretend that everything will be obtained on the spot and cooked over a woodcutter's fire conveniently at hand (Summer Cooking, p. 208).

James Beard suggests that a picnic requires that you travel somewhere to eat. He is certain that

Wherever it is done, picnicking can be one of the supreme pleasures of outdoor life. At its most elegant, it calls for the accompaniment of the best linens and crystal and china; at its simplest it needs only a bottle of wine and items purchased from the local delicatessen as one passes through town. I recall a recent picnic in France where we bought rilletes de Tours (in Tours), and elsewhere some excellent salade museau, good bread, ripe tomatoes and cheese. A bottle of local wine and glasses and plates from the Monoprix helped to make this picnic in a heather field near Le Mans a particularly memorable one (Menus for Entertaining, p. 272).

Claudia Roden, aficionado of picnics and outdoor eating, describes English picnics, Revival Week picnics, a Middle Eastern Affair, a Japanese Picnic, and a Picnic in the Himalayas. Roden confesses,

The pleasures of outdoor food are those that nature has to offer, as ephemeral as they are intense. A bird will sing his song and fly away, leaves will flutter and jostle the sunlight for a brief second—sky, flowers, and scents have each their small parts to play in the perfect happiness of those enchanted moments. They serve, as Jean Jacques Rousseau said, to "liberate the soul" (Everything Tastes Better Outdoors, p. 4).

An Egyptian Picnic

Claudia Roden's "A Middle Eastern Affair" in Everything Tastes Better Outdoors (1985) tells that her favorite picnic spot was in the dunes of Agami in Alexandria, where she was raised as a child. She explains that in the Middle East eating out is a way of life: "There are even official occasions for picnic. Among these are the mulids, when people flock to the principal scenes of religious festivals, public gardens, shrines, tombs of saints, and burial grounds. Thousands gather sometimes for days and nights, sleeping under tents . . . . The most important of the national picnics in Egypt is not a religious occasion. It is Shem en Nessem, which celebrates the arrival of spring. Town dwellers go out in the country or in boats, generally northward, eating out in fields or on the riverbank, smelling the air, which is thought to be particularly beneficial on the day" (pp. 167–168). Picnic foods include blehat samak (Fish rissoles), qras samak (Arab fish cake with burghul,) brains Moroccan style, sanbusak (pies filled with meat and pine nuts), meat ajja (an omelet) kukye gusht (an Iranian omelet) kibbeh naye (raw lamb and cracked wheat paste), bazargan (burghul salad), tabbouleh (cracked wheat salad), stuffed vegetables, stuffed onion, leeks, zucchini, lemon chicken, lahma bil karaz (meatballs with cherries), salq bi loubia (spinach with black-eyed beans), lentil tomato salad, and loubia bi zeit (green beans in olive oil).

Bibliography

Battiscombe, Georgina. English Picnics. London: Harvill Press, 1949.

Beard, James. Menus for Entertaining [1965]. New York: Marlowe and Company, 1985.

Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme. "Meditation XV," Physiologie du gout [The Physiology of Taste: Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy] [1825]. Translated by Charles Monselet. New York: Liveright, 1948.

Craigie, Carter W. "The Vocabulary of the Picnic." MidWestern Language and Folklore Newsletter, 1978: 2–6.

Crookenden, Kate, Caroline Worlledge, and Margaret Willes, compilers. The National Trust Book of Picnics. London: The National Trust, 1988.

Cunningham, Marion, ed. The Fanny Farmer Cookbook. 13th edition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

David, Elizabeth. Summer Cooking [1955]. London and New York: Penguin Books, 1965.

Eyre, Karen, and Mirielle Galinou. Picnic. London. Museum of London, 1988.

Hemingway, Joan, and Connie Maricich. The Picnic Gourmet. New York: Random House, 1977.

Hern, Mary Ellen. "Picnicking in the Northeastern United States 1840–1900," Winterthur Portfolio, 24 (2–3) 1989: 139–152.

Roden, Claudia. Everything Tastes Better Outdoors. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.

—Walter Levy

For other uses, see Picnic (disambiguation).

Australia Day Picnic, Brisbane, 1908

Friends and family gather for a picnic in Columbus, Ohio, c. 1950

In contemporary usage, a picnic can be defined simply as a pleasure excursion at which a meal is eaten outdoors (al fresco or en plein air), ideally taking place in a beautiful landscape such as a park, beside a lake or with an interesting view and possibly at a public event such as before an open air theatre performance, and usually in summer. Descriptions of picnics show that the idea of a meal that was jointly contributed and was enjoyed out-of-doors were essential to a picnic from the early 19th century.^[1]

Picnics are often family-oriented but can also be an intimate occasion between two people, or a large get-together such as company picnics and church picnics. It is sometimes combined with a cookout, usually a form of barbecue; either charbroil-grilling, griddling, braising (by combining a charbroil grill with a broth-filled pot), or a combination of all of the above.

On romantic and family picnics a picnic basket and a blanket (to sit or recline on) are usually brought along. Outdoor games or some other form of entertainment are common at large picnics.

Some picnics are a potluck, an entertainment at which each person contributed some dish to a common table for all to share. When the picnic is not also a cookout, the food eaten is rarely hot, instead taking the form of deli sandwiches, finger food, fresh fruit, salad, cold meats and accompanied by chilled wine or champagne or soft drinks.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Usage 3 Related historical events 4 Cultural representations of picnics 4.1 In literature 4.2 In art 4.3 In film 4.4 In music 5 References 6 Further reading

Etymology

Hunt Picnic by François Lemoyne, 1723

The first usage of the word is traced to the 1692 edition of Origines de la Langue Française de Ménage—which mentions 'pique-nique' as being of recent origin; it marks the first appearance of the word in print. The term was used to describe a group of people dining in a restaurant who brought their own wine. For long a picnic retained the connotation of a meal to which everyone contributed something. Whether picnic is actually based on the verb piquer which means 'pick' or 'peck' with the rhyming nique meaning "thing of little importance" is doubted; the Oxford English Dictionary says it is of unknown provenance. The word does not come from any racist origin, as a false rumor spread mostly via the internet suggests. ^[2]

The word picnic first appeared in English in a letter of the Gallicized Lord Chesterfield in 1748 (OED), who associates it with card-playing, drinking and conversation, and may have entered the English language from this French word.^[3] The practice of an elegant meal eaten out-of-doors, rather than a harvester worker's dinner in the harvest field, was connected with respite from hunting from the Middle Ages; the excuse for the pleasurable outing of 1723 in Lemoyne's painting (illustration, left) is still offered in the context of a hunt.

Usage

A typical picnic setup on the ground with picnic basket and red plaid sheet.

• In British and American English, the phrase "no picnic" is used to describe a difficult or trying situation or activity. For example, "Driving in rush hour traffic is no picnic."
• In established public parks, a picnic area generally includes picnic tables and possibly other items related to eating outdoors, such as built-in grills, water faucets, garbage containers, and restrooms.

Related historical events

After the French Revolution in 1789, royal parks became open to the public for the first time. Picnicking in the parks became a popular activity amongst the newly enfranchised citizens.

Early in the 19th century, a fashionable group of Londoners formed the 'Picnic Society'. Members met in the Pantheon on Oxford Street. Each member was expected to provide a share of the entertainment and of the refreshments with no one particular host. Interest in the society waned in the 1850s as the founders died.^[4]

From the 1830s, Romantic American landscape painting of spectacular scenery often included a group of picnickers in the foreground. An early American illustration of the picnic is Thomas Cole's The Pic-Nic of 1846 (Brooklyn Museum of Art)^[5] In it a guitarist serenades the genteel social group in the Hudson River Valley with the Catskills visible in the distance. Cole's well-dressed young picnickers have finished their repast, served from splint baskets on blue-and-white china, to stroll about in the woodland and boat on the lake.

A picnic in front of the Orangerie Kassel, Germany, c. 2003

The image of picnics as a peaceful social activity can be utilised for political protest too. In this context, a picnic functions as a temporary occupation of significant public territory. A famous example of this is the Pan-European Picnic held on both sides of the Hungarian / Austrian border on the 19 August 1989 as part of the struggle towards German reunification.

In the year 2000, a 600-mile-long picnic took place from coast to coast in France to celebrate the first Bastille Day of the new Millennium. In the United States, likewise, the 4th of July celebration of American independence is a popular day for a picnic. In Italy the favourite picnic day is Easter Monday.

Cultural representations of picnics

Perhaps the most famous depiction of a picnic is Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, painted by Edouard Manet in 1862.

"A book of verse beneath the bough,

A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness –
Ah, wilderness were paradise enow!"

—Omar Khayyam, in his 12th century Rubaiyat^[6]

The active Canadian children's health association Pediatric Investigators Collaborative Network on Infections in Canada carry the acronym PICNIC

The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame begins with a boating picnic enjoyed by Rat and Mole that exemplifies an English tradition:

"The Rat brought the boat alongside the bank, tied it up, helped awkward Mole safely ashore, and swung out the picnic basket. The Mole begged to be allowed to unpack it all by himself. He took out all the mysterious packets one by one and arranged their contents, gasping 'Oh my! Oh my!' at each fresh surprise."

In literature

• From Charles Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood: "...Miss Twinkleton (in her amateur state of existence) has contributed herself and a veal pie to a picnic." (Project Gutenberg Entry: [1])
• In Jane Austen's novel Emma at the Box Hill picnic which turned out to be a sore disappointment, Frank Churchill said to Emma: "Our companions are excessively stupid. What shall we do to rouse them? Any nonsense will serve..." (Project Gutenberg Entry: [2])
• In Fernando Arrabal's Picnic in the Field the young and inexperienced soldier Zepo is visited unexpectedly by his devoted parents. Despite the war setting they have a cheerful picnic together.
• The novel Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, which was written in 1972, was the source for the film Stalker (1979) by Andrei Tarkovsky. The novel is about a mysterious "zone" filled with strange and often deadly extraterrestrial artifacts, which are theorized by some scientists to be the refuse from an alien "picnic" on Earth.
• No Picnic on Mount Kenya, by Felice Benuzzi recounts the attempt of three Italian prisoners of war during the Second World War to reach the top of Mount Kenya.

In art

Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (Manet, 1862)

• "Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe" (1865-1866), often referred to as "The Picnic" or "The Luncheon on the Grass" in English, was one the earliest works of Manet.

In film

• The film Picnic, which is based on the Pulitzer Prize winning play by William Inge, was a multiple Oscar winner from 1955. Since then the film has been remade twice, once in 1986 and again in 2000, but neither subsequent version received much acclaim.
• With Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Peter Weir constructs a film of haunting mystery. Three girls and one of their teachers on a school outing mysteriously disappear. The only one that is later found remembers almost nothing.
• Baji on the Beach, Gurinder Chada (1993). The German version of the film is titled Picknick on the Beach. Nine Indian women of various ages flee from their everyday life into a joint excursion to the English resort town of Blackpool. A rather unharmonious journey because conflicts between generations raise emotions to a fever pitch.
• Blissfully Yours, a film with a picnic in a jungle.
• Picnickers are used to illustrate the scale of one metre in the film Powers of Ten.
• The Office Picnic (1973) is a dark comedy set in an Australian Public Service office. It was written and produced by film maker Tom Cowan, who is now famous for his work on the series Survivor.

In music

• In 1906, the British composer John William Bratton wrote a musical piece originally titled "The Teddy Bear Two Step". It became popular in a 1908 instrumental version renamed "Teddy Bears Picnic", performed by the Arthur Pryor Band. The song regained prominence in 1932 when the Irish lyricist Jimmy Kennedy added words and it was recorded by the then popular Henry Hall (and his BBC Dance Orchestra) featuring Val Rosing (Gilbert Russell) as lead vocalist, which went on to sell a million copies. The Teddy Bears' Picnic resurfaced again in the late 1940s and early 1950s when it was used as the theme song for the Big Jon and Sparkie children's radio show. This perennial favorite has appeared on many children's recordings ever since, as well as being the theme song for the AHL's Hershey Bears hockey club. lyrics and audio from the BBC
• "Stone Soul Picnic", by Laura Nyro (released in 1968) It was a major hit for the group The 5th Dimension. cover version by Swing Out Sister
• "Malcolm's X-Ray Picnic" was a moderate hit for the indie-pop group Number One Cup.

References

1. ^ Mary Ellen W. Hern, "Picnicking in the Northeastern United States, 1840-1900", Winterthur Portfolio 24.2/3 (Summer - Autumn 1989), pp. 139-152.
2. ^ http://www.snopes.com/language/offense/picnic.asp
3. ^ The German Picknick , nor part of lord Chesterfield's cultural sphere, may simply be a parallel borrowing from French pique-nique.
4. ^ English picnics are described in Georgina Battiscombe, English picnics, (London: Harvill Press) 1949; there is also a National Trust Book of Picnics, 1982.
5. ^ Mary Ellen W. Hern, "Picnicking in the Northeastern United States, 1840-1900", Winterthur Portfolio 24.2/3 (Summer - Autumn 1989), pp. 139-152, illus. fig. 1.
6. ^ Austin Chronicle article A Loaf of Bread, a Jug of Wine - The simple but elegant art of picnic pairing published APRIL 22, 2005 says "But what constitutes the Perfect Picnic? Some sandwiches you throw together or grab and go? An elegant plate of poached salmon accompanied by a fruit and cheese platter? A couple of dogs on a grill? Each of these menus has its charms, but it doesn't get any better than the outdoor dining menu devised by Omar Khayyam in his 12th century The Rubaiyat."

Further reading

• BBC Food Picnic Guide
• Urban Legends: Language (Picnic)
• Picnic Recipes, Games and Ideas
• Picnic Ideas

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - picnic, skovtur
v. intr. - tage på skovtur

Nederlands (Dutch)
picknick, sinecure (figuurlijk), picknicken

Français (French)
n. - pique-nique
v. intr. - pique-niquer

Deutsch (German)
n. - Picknick
v. - picknicken

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - πικνίκ, εκδρομούλα, φαγητό στο ύπαιθρο ή σε εκδρομή
v. - πάω πικνίκ, τρώγω στην εξοχή

Italiano (Italian)
fare un picnic, picnic

Português (Portuguese)
n. - piquenique (m)
v. - fazer piquenique

Русский (Russian)
устраивать пикник, пикник

Español (Spanish)
n. - excursión al campo, merienda campestre
v. intr. - merendar en el campo

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - utflykt, picknick, en lätt sak (sl.)
v. - göra en utflykt/picknick

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
野餐, 远足, 去野餐, 参加野餐, 在户外用餐

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 野餐, 遠足
v. intr. - 去野餐, 參加野餐, 在戶外用餐

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 피크닉, 저마다 먹을 것을 가져오는 연회, 표준형 깡통
v. intr. - 소풍 가다, 피크닉에 참가하다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - ピクニック, 野外の食事, 楽にできる仕事
v. - ピクニックに行く, 野外で食事をする

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) نزهه : للأكل في مناطق خلويه, شيء سهل وممتع (فعل) يخرج للتنزه, يتنزه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮פיקניק‬
v. intr. - ‮ערך פיקניק‬

If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.

To select your translation preferences click here.