The Picnic Luncheon: Meats!

Roast Beef. Chicken Pie. On a field expedient Cutting Board.
(Thanks to the reenactors for loaning me a crate.)

This post was written during the progress of making these dishes, and so the tenses and times of the various recipes and commentary may reflect a sort of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey approach. Please excuse that, and do not let it hamper your appreciation.
 
For the Victorian Day Picnic Luncheon I am making two meat items, chicken pie and roast beef. I've spent most of the afternoon shopping and preparing these two items, mostly the chicken pie.

I've been somewhat closely following a recipe from Buckeye Cookery for the chicken pie:

Cut up two young chickens, place in hot water enough to cover, boil until tender; line a four or five quart pan with a rich baking-powder or soda-biscuit dough quarter of an inch thick, put in part of chicken, season with salt, pepper and butter, lay in a few thin strips or squares of dough, add the rest of chicken and season as before; some add five or six fresh eggs or a few new potatoes in their season; season liquor in which the chickens were boiled with butter, salt, and pepper, add a part of it to the pie, cover with crust a quarter of an inch thick, with a hole in the center the size of a tea-cup. Keep adding the chicken-liquor and hot water if needed, since the fault of most chicken pies is that they are too dry. There can scarcely be too much gravy. Bake one hour in a moderate oven, having the heat turned to the bottom, as great care is necessary to have the bottom crust well baked.

The Picnic Luncheon: The Plan

Last Year's Picnick, by Blue Dragon Media

Having gazed at Mrs. Beeton's picnic menus (see my last post,) and at the menu suggestions provided by Buckeye Cookery, to wit: 

Cold roast chicken; ham broiled on coals; fish fried or broiled; sardines; tongue; hard-boiled eggs; eggs to be fried or scrambled; Boston corn bread; buttered rolls; ham sandwiches prepared with grated ham; orange marmalade; canned peaches; watermelon and beet sweet-pickles; euchered plums; variety or bottled pickles; chow-chow; quince or plum jelly; raspberry or other jams; Scotch fruit, rolled jelly, chocolate, Minnehaha, old-fashioned loaf, and marble cake; coffee, chocolate, tea; cream and sugar; salt and pepper; oranges.

I have thus come up with a somewhat simple plan for our own picnic. I'm hoping to stay away from fish, simply because it's an expense and a process that I don't want to engage myself in right now (as much as I'd like to smoke a side of salmon for my friends, the cost might be a bit prohibitive, even with a good job such as I have right now.)

A simple luncheon, then, to serve roughly 12 people:

• Chicken Pie (2)
• Cold Roast Beef with Appropriate Sauce (1 large joint)
• Cucumber Salad (1 quart)
• Pickles and Relishes (1-2 quarts)
• Hard-Boiled Eggs (1 dozen)
• Fresh Berries and Fruit (2 quarts)
• Fruit Tarts (12 small)
• Cheese, Butter, Bread, Biscuits, Jam
• Iced Tea (4 bottles)
• Wine (2 bottles)

You may as well put away your picnicking-baskets, I think this will win the all-time award for 'best picnic ever.'

Another Picnic!

Once again, yours truly will probably
win the annual croquet game.

Once again, it is May, and with the advent of spring comes picnics and celebrations. This year, I'm off (once again) to the Grand Ledge Victorian Days celebration, and have resolved to provide a completely different picnic luncheon experience to my friends and companions who will be joining me.

As with last year, we shall once again be taking part in that great Victorian tradition of picnicking by a battlefield, enjoying the great sport of war! It's never caused us any trouble before, you see: We go down, watch the battle from an encampment, and go home, the war concluded in an afternoon of glory and honor. There's no way it could go any differently, is there?

We are provided, as mentioned in last year's post about this very event, with some picnic luncheon menus by the Buckeye Cookery cook-book, and these are quite lovely, but Mrs. Beeton also offers two menus for picnics that I had not previously paid much attention to—so it is to them that I intend to look first.

A Picnic! (Part One of Two)

Roast Capon

This past Saturday saw the much-needed trip to an event in my area, Grand Ledge Victorian Day. It is an incredibly enjoyable event, featuring croquet, Civil War reenactments, a low tea, quilts, antiques, a parade, a beard and mustache contest, and educational programming about the Victorian era. In particular, my friends and I (a motley group including Miss Kagashi of The Steamer's Trunk and our various associates, some from the Imperial Anti-Piracy Squadron) have established a tradition (which I have taken to calling "The First Manassas/First Bull Run Memorial Picnic" in homage to that battle) of picnicking during the Civil War skirmish. This year, Miss Kagashi and I coordinated ourselves to prepare some picnic items from the book Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, which says:

The following bills of fare may be picked to pieces and recombined to suit tastes and occasions:

SPRING PICNICS.--Cold roast chicken; ham broiled on coals; fish fried or broiled; sardines; tongue; hard-boiled eggs; eggs to be fried or scrambled; Boston corn bread; buttered rolls; ham sandwiches prepared with grated ham; orange marmalade; canned peaches; watermelon and beet sweet-pickles; euchered plums; variety or bottled pickles; chow-chow; quince or plum jelly; raspberry or other jams; Scotch fruit, rolled jelly, chocolate, Minnehaha, old-fashioned loaf, and marble cake; coffee, chocolate, tea; cream and sugar; salt and pepper; oranges.

We set upon having a somewhat simpler picnic, not using everything off that list, and designed the following list of provisions, which we believed would suffice: