Download or read book The Picnic written by Walter Levy and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013-11-26 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Picnics are happy occasions and have always been a diversion from every day cares. We think of the picnic as an outdoor meal, set on a blanket, usually in the middle of the day, featuring a hamper filled with tasty morsels and perhaps a bottle of wine, but historically picnics came in many forms, served any time of the day. This first culinary history reveals rustic outdoor dining in its more familiar and unusual forms, the history of the word itself, the cultural context of picnics and who arranged them, and, most important, the gastronomic appeal. Drawing on various media and literature, painting, music, and even sculpture, Walter Levy provides an engaging and enlightening history of the picnic.