Unpacking the Great British Picnic

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2021

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In a country where weather is notoriously fickle, how has the picnic become such a beloved institution?

Jaega Wise rolls out a blanket and invites a group of al fresco aficionados to share their picnicking expertise over a spot of lunch outdoors.

Joining her in the picturesque setting of Windsor Great Park on the edge of Berkshire are Robert Szewczyk - head chef at Cumberland Lodge, the park's residential conference centre, which provides picnic lunches for the famous Ascot races nearby; Kate Bielich - founder and chef at Konoba, a Manchester-based private caterer that, during the pandemic, launched home meal kits and picnic hampers; and Max Halley from Max’s Sandwich Shop in North London, who recently released 'Max's Picnic Book', teaching people to "picnic like a boss!"

Over lunch, the group discusses the British love of eating outside, and reflects on how the pandemic has forced us to embrace al fresco dining - driving more adventurous portable eating options.

Jaega also hears from food historian Polly Russell from the British Library, who helps unpack the history of the picnic, its strong social and cultural connotations in the UK, and how our approach to picnicking has evolved in recent decades.

Presented by Jaega Wise Produced by Lucy Taylor in Bristol

Featuring excerpts from: - ‘The Wind in the Willows’ by Kenneth Grahame; read by Michael Bertenshaw and produced for Radio 4 by Karen Holden. - ‘A Passage to India’ by E.M. Forster; adapted for radio by Tanika Gupta, produced and directed for Radio 4 by Tracey Neale, and featuring the voices of Penelope Wilton as Mrs Moore, Shubham Saraf as Dr Aziz and Jonathan Firth as Fielding.

Transcript

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0:57.0	Welcome to the food programme, that place for hungry minds. I'm Jagoise and today I'm
1:03.6	celebrating summer which is probably tempting fate just a tad. But anyway I've
1:08.5	invited a crew of picnic lovers to join me for lunch in the great outdoors to figure out why we're so
1:14.9	fond of a good old alfresco meal here in the UK and of course to eat some
1:19.7	delicious food.
1:36.0	Life is full of opportunities for deliciousness that we often let pass us by and I think that the picnic is one of those moments. I think that picnics are in some way associated with our best version of ourselves as a nation.
1:43.4	What is more British than a picnic?
1:46.0	Lashings of homemade jam, freshly baked scones, cream.
1:50.3	It kind of just makes everything taste a little bit better.
1:53.0	Yeah, we've got quite a sort of motley crew and stuff with us, haven't we?
	...

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