One of my favorite plans this time of year is to go on a picnic. The first to go on a picnic were cavemen, on a hill, on a huge slate stone; they just didn’t know they were having a picnic. The menu was not the same as it is nowadays, and besides, checkered tablecloths and thermos flasks had not yet been invented.
Moreover, in the Stone Age, wasps ran away from men, not the other way around. And the truth is that eating in the middle of the countryside in prehistoric times didn’t make you very original. As a picnic expert, I want to help you prepare yours today. (READ MORE from Itxu Díaz: The Best Kind of Hippie: A Classy One)
Choose the Right Place
I guess you can have a picnic wherever you like. Pay attention to the signs, see where the wind comes from, figure out if you’ll need to set up an umbrella, and frown. Above all, frown a lot. This will make the rest of the family think you know exactly what you’re doing when it comes to choosing the right picnic spot.
In the countryside, some places are marked with a sign that says, “No picnic.” That’s the perfect place to have a cigarette.
The Sting
At any picnic, one of the guests will be stung by an insect, usually a wasp or a bee. The likelihood of the sting being suffered by the most allergic of those present is directly proportional to the distance from the nearest hospital. You know you are allergic when you look worse than the bee, which dies after the sting.
Since it’s unavoidable, and that means it can’t be avoided, the best thing to do before unpacking is to have a volunteer snatch at a wasp or a swarm of bees and provoke the sting. This saves time and avoids the always unpleasant element of surprise.
Guest Animals
A common mistake made by vacationers who go on picnics is believing that animals will respect their food, their hammock, or their chosen space. You are in the countryside. Therefore, no matter where you put yourself, animal rights will prevail. Unless you’re picnicking on a rooftop in Times Square, which in turn presents other drawbacks.
Food
The ideal picnic food is omelet, croquettes, and blue cheese spherification over frozen tomato drops with wild manzanita liver foam and petals of pink pepper still tonic butter.
Fire
Nowadays it is forbidden to light a fire in a field, and almost anywhere on earth. If you really want to organize a barbecue and you want to avoid the fine, try to do it under water.
The Season
The real purpose of going on a picnic in summer is to enjoy a nap in the open air in the shade of a tree, one of life’s great pleasures. It is customary to comment on “how different things taste in the countryside!” while savoring a slice of vacuum-packed tasteless cooked ham and offering it to others, who in turn must reply, “It’s true, how wonderful, what a different taste.” After this stupid ritual, you can go to sleep.
The Car
The picnic never takes place in an easily accessible location. It is almost always held in a beautiful meadow that cannot be accessed by car. An age-old controversy always arises around Dad in these circumstances. Once the place to put the checkered tablecloth is chosen, the big question arises: Do I put the car there too, or not?
From my extensive experience, I will give you a piece of advice: Don’t put it there. However, from that same experience, I will give you another piece of advice: Put it there as soon as possible. You’re going to park it there anyway, so save yourself the hesitation, measuring the potholes, the investigation of possible rocks hidden in the grass, and the odds of wrecking the underbody. If you hear rattling, bumping, or squeaking during the operation, you’re going too slow. Speed up. If you hear screaming, count the passengers again.
The Dog
When you have a picnic in the middle of a field, the smell of your food floats for miles and reaches every dog on earth. This means that your picnic sends an automatic invitation to lunch for about 400 billion dogs in the world, not counting political dogs. Not all of them are likely to come. Or at least, not at once. But you should be prepared for at least one very hungry canine diner to show up uninvited.
The dog will show up, and you’ll have to decide between throwing food off for him (doesn’t work, because he eats it and comes back even more eagerly), not flinching (they say if you don’t move, I don’t know what), standing up, picking up the whole picnic and running away (it will bite you on the ass), or trying to reason with the mutt (my experience: Dogs couldn’t care less about your constitutional rights).
Whether the dog is friendly and domesticated or a wild animal that wants to kill you, ideally you should get in the car until it has eaten everything, including the checkered tablecloth. But remember not to lock the rest of the diners out if you don’t want the dog to eat more than your lawyer can justify.
Translated by Joel Dalmau.
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