When Life's a Picnic

Our fabulous Kenyan picnic set and blanket

I have something of a picnic basket fetish. It all started years ago at the Globe Theater in London, where you are allowed to eat during the performances. “Let us dine and never fret!” is the motto, borrowed from Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.

We were watching the Merchant of Venice and eating mushy sandwiches bought from the theater’s snack bar. Meanwhile, the people next to us were enjoying champagne, smoked fish sandwiches, and strawberries pulled from a beautiful picnic basket, complete with crystal flutes and porcelain plates.

I was mesmerized. It was all so civilized and compact.

Within the week, we had bought our first picnic basket. It was green, wicker, and had straps to hold things in place. We got to pick out the enamel cups and plates that came with the set. We used the basket until the wicker gave out, and still have the dishware. 

Enamel dishes from our original picnic set

Over the years, we’ve picked up more picnic sets. There’s the Yogi Bear picnic hamper we found in an antique shop, probably dating from the late 50s or early 60s. The top opens up like butterfly wings. The plastic plates have compartments like an old-fashioned TV dinner, and come in the retro pastels and aqua blue so typical of that era. We also have a backpack picnic set for hikes. We have a pretty basket lined with blue and white-striped fabric and filled with place settings for four, which lives in France and accompanies us on European car trips. There’s one that had a special place for wine bottles, which we gave to friends upon leaving Peru.

Our retro Yogi Bear picnic set, circa 1950s-60s

For Christmas, Britt got me a Kenyan picnic basket set, complete with metal dishware and a waterproof Maasai fabric blanket (made by a woman who turns out to be Peruvian).

I love it.

Kenya is especially conducive to picnics. The weather is often sunny and mild, and there is no shortage of spectacular spots for spreading one's basket and blanket. The trick is to steer clear of monkeys (avid food stealers), large carnivores, or angry herbivores. We once had a lovely picnic lunch with a giraffe, and enjoyed watching hippos and a lioness (from a safe distance) during a picnic breakfast on safari.

Obviously, people have been eating their meals outdoors and on the ground since early man climbed down from the trees. But evidently, the term picnic is relatively recent, dating back to 18^th century hunting parties and country feasts.  Picnics are very popular in art and literature from the 19^th and 20^th centuries, where they take on the romantic air of the English countryside, French Impressionism, Tuscan sun, or such.

Picnic food has varied over time, and picnic menus reflect all that is traditional in the culinary habits of various cultures.

Our 1988 edition of Joy of Cooking offers six different picnic menu suggestions. Some are more traditional, as in grilled frankfurters, barbecued ribs, or cold fried chicken. But there’s also fried fish or lamb kebabs. The side courses are predictably American, too, including corn, coleslaw, potato salad, tossed salad with 1,000 Island dressing, and celery or carrot sticks. Then there are things like oat bread cockaigne, dill batter loaf, and nut creams rolled in chives.

For comparison's sake, here are the suggestions from the 1953 edition:

1.     Wieners or hamburgers rolled in pancakes, chilled tomatoes, rye crisp, cheddar cheese, gingerbread in cup cake pans, pears and grapes, coffee.

2.     Sautéed Canadian bacon on hard rolls, snap bean salad with lettuce, onions and French dressing or potato salad with lots of lettuce, deviled eggs with liver sausage, watermelon, poppy seed cake, coffee.

3.     Baked ham, Italian salad, bran muffins, Roquefort cheese balls rolled in chives, sour cream apple pie, berry pie, coffee.

4.     Broiled steak, canned French-fried potatoes, picnic salad, soft buns spread with butter, pickles, white cake with chocolate icing, salted nuts, coffee.

5.     Sautéed eggs with bacon or sausages, baked beans or jambolaya, olives, toasted buttered French bread loaf, apples, gold layer cake with caramel icing, coffee.

6.     Fried fish or chicken, baked potatoes, potato chips or green corn, coleslaw, dill pickles, beaten biscuits, banana chocolate cake, peaches, coffee.

It makes one wonder whatever happened to canned French fries.

Going further back in time, you find menus that include pigeon pie, beef tongue sandwiches, a souse of pigs' feet, veal loaf, boned herring, and lamb cutlets in aspic jelly.

My tastes tend towards lighter fare – and to following the wise words of Omar Khayyám:

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

Hidden Art in the Park

Rock art figures in Nairobi National Park

Rolling over another bump along the dirt roads of the national park, the passenger door of the beat up Land Cruiser in which we are riding swings open – again. The door latch is old and doesn’t hold. There’s a risk of tumbling out onto the savanna at every curve and landing amidst the wild animals that inhabit this stretch of savanna. We laugh.  The car is turning out to be as rickety as the adventure on which we have embarked.

It is the last day of my mother’s visit to Kenya. We’ve celebrated her birthday on the warm seafront of Lamu Island, off the northern coast of Kenya. We’ve slept in a luxury tent, had a cheetah sit on the open roof of our vehicle, and enjoyed other great sights in the Maasai Mara reserve. Now we are on a final quest, to discover the African rock art hidden in Nairobi National Park.

The trip has been a long time in the making, and it has involved numerous contacts with the Trust for African Rock Art (http://africanrockart.org/). Known as TARA, they are involved in preserving rock art and promoting awareness and income-generating opportunities for the communities that live near it.

According to TARA, rock art can be found on rocks, caves, and rock shelters all over the continent, from the Sahara to the southern-most regions of Africa. Many depict human figures and animals, some dating back as many as 12,000 years or more.

Rock art predates writing by tens of thousands of years, and is found across vastly diverse countries and cultures. Some of it is quite beautiful, and often a bit mysterious. You see animals that no longer exist, like aurochs and wooly mammoths, in climates that have changed radically from icy cold to temperate or lush jungle to desert. The famous Wadi Sura, or Painted Valley, in Egypt (featured in The English Patient) contains a cave with images of people who seem to be swimming, in a part of the Libyan Desert that’s now completely arid.

In Kenya, rock art is not part of the usual tourist circuit, and it is not readily accessible for most visitors. The best sites are in western Kenya on some islands in Lake Victoria, and further north along Lake Turkana.  But there are some small sites near Nairobi, including the one to which we are headed – presumably.

So far, our quest has been something of a fiasco. As is too often the case here, attempts to plan ahead and secure logistical details have failed completely. We’ve waited over an hour for a park ranger to accompany us, who never materialized. So, we’ve left accompanied by a park guide (plucked at the last minute from his other duties) and a TARA staff member. They are both well-meaning, but neither knows the exact location of the site.

Our guides do have written instructions and lots of determination. So we drive to a spot where we have been told to leave the car. The rock art is supposed to be fairly close by and within easy walking distance from the road. So we get out and follow the guides as they start off, climbing up a steep hill. There is no path. And for the time being, there’s no immediate sign of danger providing you ignore the antelope skull, picked clean, and scatterings of water buffalo poop.

Within a few minutes, our guides are far ahead and out of sight. I begin to feel that we look a bit too much like potential prey for nature’s version of the hunger games.

We hike back to the car.

The minutes tick by.

Knowing I have afternoon meetings on the other side of the city, our time starts to run out. But just as we are about to call it quits, shouts echo across the valley. Our TARA guide has found the spot.

No one knows the true age or origin of these geometric figures, painted on the sides of a rock shelter near a small river. Presumably, they were made by pastoralists, either Maasai or their predecessors. One resembles a shield, the rest are pretty abstract.

The painted images aren’t particularly compelling or beautiful, but what is amazing is the resilience of this art form. If you’ve ever tried to etch or paint something on a rock, you’ll discover that it’s not easy, particularly if you want your artwork to survive the tests of time and natural forces.

We leave satisfied. We’ve attained our goal. And we’ve survived the tests and frustrations that come with quests that take you off the usual tourist circuits and beaten paths. The annoyances will soon be forgotten, leaving only the adventure and elements of a good story for later.

Found! Elusive rock art site in Nairobi National Park