The great British picnic

A blanket, a teapot, some sticky buns and wasps - Peter Rhodes celebrates the Great British picnic.

In an age dominated by barbecues, there's something about the traditional English picnic that gladdens the heart.

For a start, there is no chance of setting fire to anyone or dying of food-poisoning. The barbie may look like a treat but who knows what dangers are lurking in the warm, pink interior of that sausage?

And anyway, barbecues are so dashed foreign and frightfully vulgar. A barbie goes with Hawaiian shorts, baseball caps and all that silly Australian nursery talk about Eskies, rellies and tinnies. (insulated boxes, relatives and tinned beer).

The picnic is essentially English. It goes with floral frocks and big hats, with blazers, white flannels and cravats.

This is England distilled, a scene unchanged since John Betjeman penned his sunny idyll on a young officer and his fancy.

Okay, you may not look much like Betjeman's dashing young subaltern but with a crustless little sandwich in one hand and a china cup of Twining's in the other, by golly you can dream.

The picnic is prepared in advance. You know it's 100 per cent safe and fresh, although quite how the grit gets into the lettuce, or the wasp into the cream cake, is anyone's guess.

And so here we are, on a typical overcast June day, doing the picnic thing. Blanket on the ground, kettle whistling over a little gas stove. That's me in the Panama. The posh totty in the big hat is E&S photographer Nicky Butler.

Yes, you could take a Thermos but that's a bit slapdash. You could do the Brideshead thing and take a teddy bear along but that's just a tad pretentious. It's all about striking the right balance.

Entertainment? There's a cricket match going on in the background. Ah, the timeless thwack of willow on leather and the dull, eye-watering thud of leather on groin box.

Music? In a perfect world we'd have one of those old wind-up gramophones playing Ivor Novello's greatest hits. Failing that, a discreet little radio tuned to Classic FM would be fine. If you're into live music, a tin whistle, squeeze box or ukulele are acceptable.

A little gentle exercise? Pack some badminton rackets or your second-best bat for a game of French cricket.

But the food's the thing. Marks & Spencer has just announced a revamp of its picnic range with rugs, cool boxes and disposable plates and champagne flutes, with a range of snacks featuring chicken satay, edamame bean dip, prosciutto, artichoke and parmesan tartlets.

Frankly, it all seems a bit fiddly. The traditional English view of good is that it should be plain, simple and non-fiddly.

The French may enjoy nancying around with tartlets and tiny wafers but we Brits feel much happier with a slice of game pie and a jar of cranberry jelly.

There's nothing wrong with good old British sandwiches, ham baps and sticky buns. Champagne goes nicely with the sweet course but so does a well-chilled classic cider ("classic," incidentally, means cider in a discreet glass bottle, not a liver-poaching two-litre flagon of 9 per cent tramp juice).

Picnic comes from the French piquenique, based on the verb piquer meaning to pick and nique, an old word for a small or trifling thing. From the 17th Century piquenique meant a fashionable party to which everyone brought along some food. The idea of an outdoor meal emerged in the 19th Century.

And for some, the notion of the picnic as a full-blown meal will not go away. While most of us settle for a few sandwiches, a slice of pie and a little cake, there are some who turn the picnic into a gourmet event.

They're the ones who turn up at open-air concerts complete with folding chairs and trestle tables. Having erected these in front of you (and blocked the view), they then produce a table-bending selection of cold roast meats and salads, and enough booze to float a small boat.

With luck, the wasps will arrive and spoil their picnic. If no insects show after 10 minutes, try speeding the process by furtively flicking spoonfuls of strawberry jam their way.

Dash it all, we have to maintain certain standards.

By Peter Rhodes