International Picnic Day

Five Food Finds about Picnics

  • Did you know that a “picnic” ham is really not a true ham? It is cut from the upper part of the foreleg of a pig – a true ham is cut from the hind leg.
  • Italy’s favourite picnic day is Easter Monday. It is called “Angel’s Monday” or Pasquetta (“Little Easter”).
  • After an ant has visited your picinc, it lays down a scent as it returns to the nest for the other ants to follow!
  • In the year 2000, a 600-mile-long picnic took place in France to celebrate the first Bastille Day of the new millennium.
  • The first table designed specifically for picnics (in a style similar to what we know today) appeared in the late 1800s.

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

1865 R.I.P. Edmund Ruffin. He was a pioneer in the study of soil chemistry in the U.S.

1892 Macadamia nuts were first planted in Hawaii.

1897 R.I.P. Juliet Corson. Librarian, cookery teacher and writer, founder of the New York Cooking School in 1876. Her books include ‘Cooking Manual’ (1877), ‘Twenty-five Cent Dinners for Families of Six’ (1878), and ‘Miss Corson’s Practical American Cookery’ (1886).

1898 Atlantic City, NJ opened its Steel Pier (boardwalk). The world-famous Steel Pier had 9 miles of food, beverages, concessions, amusements, concerts, etc. Ed McMahon, of the Johnny Carson Show and Publisher’s Clearing House fame, was a barker on the pier in his youth.

1913 Robert Mondavi was born. A leading Napa Valley vintner.

1964 The African Groundnut Council was founded in Dakar.

1993 So-called ‘killer bees,’ Africanized honey bees, have reached Tucson, Arizona; a small dog was killed from a bee attack. Their original source was Brazil, where African bees were imported for experimental cross breeding.