Who killed the spirit of picnics? Was it Harry Potter — invited to dine on cockroach clusters and maggoty haggis instead of homemade sandwiches like the Enid Blyton generation of find-outers? Is it the American-style super highways that insist we speed along to identical restrooms and fast-food bars? Or the glamorous, clamorous charm of a resort-style life, where food is laid out in such abundance that all you want to do is stretch out and murmur to the young and exquisitely turned-out chef’s assistant: “Yes, yes, quail eggs with caviar will do fine for me.”
It’s the abundance of choice. Canned entertainment for a pre-packaged life embalmed in plastic. The hunger lies in the digital eye. It relentlessly beams images of celebrities endorsing exotic locales wearing designer labels. The global village has become a bazaar of banalities.
Picnics on the other hand bring out the nomadic spirit that lurks somewhere within us. They suggest a spirit of rebellion from the drudgery of everyday life. Consider, for instance, one of the most celebrated and fiercely debated images of a picnic between two men and two women under the trees in a secluded forest glade in Paris. When it was first exhibited, Napoleon III declared that “It was an offence against decency”.
The painting by Édouard Manet is called Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863) or Luncheon on the Grass . It depicts the essence of what it means to leave the constraints of city life and become a part of nature. The main figure is of a woman in splendid rose-tinted nakedness looking straight at the viewer as though to ask: “Would you like to join me?”
Inclusive gatherings
Picnics are like that, they tend to include people, not exclude them. The two men are fully dressed. They are involved in a serious discussion, maybe about business. Another half-clad woman appears to be washing herself, or maybe the picnic plates, at a small pool in the distance.
What is fascinating is to look at their lunch. It is casually thrown together on a piece of cloth spread on the grass. There’s a marvellously shaped round crusty bun, figs, cherries, plums, more bread, and we should hope some cheese, lurking in the depths of the basket. A clear glass bottle lies empty on the grass, maybe they have just finished drinking it. This was the golden age. Lust and food casually spread on the grass to be enjoyed in all its complementary decadence.
For us, the picnic age started with the Ambassador. Joint families crammed themselves into an Ambassador car or two, and rode out in a convoy looking for a deserted spot just like Manet’s wood. It could be under the shade of a spreading tree, or near a rock pool under a hidden bay, or the ruins of a fortress standing atop a hill. The nuclear family did not exist then. Uncles, aunts, grandparents, friendly neighbours, a motley bunch of girls who could sing and long-haired young men with a guitar were welcome. There was no dress code. No one had heard of sunscreen creams, and shoes and sandals, if worn, were invariably Bata.
Luncheon spread
Lunch was, of course, the main point of a picnic. Aunties — I particularly recall a favourite one called Padma Mukundan, who at 92 has written a cookbook of recipes — would consult each other on what they might bring. Sandwiches were a must, but mince cutlets, chicken patties and maida puffs, made at home, in small crescent shapes, their edges crimped with a fork and stuffed with potato for the most part were also deemed necessary. My mother’s speciality was Russian salad, difficult to make in the days when mayonnaise had to be hand-whipped with a wooden spoon; others would bring fruit cakes, pies and roast chicken English-style. The uncles, especially if they were in the Army, looked after the drinks. These were stuffed into ice-boxes, or taken out and cooled by the rocks if there was a river nearby. After lunch, the group split into the searchers and the nappers. The younger crowd disappeared into the hillside and returned with stories of wasp stings, love bites and nettles. The older ones dozed.
Then, in its more elevated form, there was the ‘midnight picnic’. I recall a magical one drifting down the backwaters of a river off the town of Mahe in North Malabar. We were in a boat that was punted along the river bed. There were no lights from the palm-fronted banks except the luminous eyes of wild animals, the occasional leap of a fish from the phosphorous-rimmed water. What we ate were called “bullets”, deep-fried stuffed mussels, and what we drank was liquid fire.
Is it any wonder that I still have fond memories of a picnic under a night of stars?
SUNDAY RECIPE
Bullets or stuffed mussels
Known as arikadukka in Malayalam.
INGREDIENTS
Mussels — 1 kg, approx. 15 mussels
2 cups of boiled rice
Grated coconut — half a cup, freshly scraped
1 tsp. fennel seeds and cumin.
Chopped green chillies, chopped shallots, ginger, curry leaves
Salt
For the batter: 1 tbsp rice powder, small amounts of chilli, turmeric, fennel powder, salt
Oil to fry the bullets
METHOD
1. Make the rice paste first by soaking two cups of boiled rice for five hours. Add freshly grated coconut, a tsp. of fennel seeds and cumin, a small quantity of chopped shallots. Green chillies, ginger ground fine, a few chopped curry leaves and salt. Grind and mix well into a firm spicy dough
2. Meanwhile, wash and clean the mussels thoroughly under cold running water and steam till all the shells have half opened. Gently prise open the bivalves. Take the mussels out and remove the hair-like beards, the innards, and any other marine detritus.
3. Make pellets of the rice dough and gently stuff the mussel into each pellet and carefully put the stuffed pellet back inside the shells. Tie with a coconut fibre string. Steam cook these until the rice feels firm to the touch.
4. Remove the steamed pellets and dip each of them in a thin batter made of rice powder, chilli powder, turmeric powder, fennel powder, salt and a little water. Deep fry each pellet till brown and crisp. They can be served in the mussel shell itself.
The media critic and commentator decodes the baffling variety of human behaviour in our global village.
