Fried chicken in celebration of picnic month

On a rainy, windy day recently my online travels took me to a site that declared that August was International Picnic Month. In contradiction, another site indicated that no, this recognition of picnics actually happened in July, the official first month of summer and the appropriate time to have a picnic. Whatever the proper month for a celebration, it occurred to me that this household hasn’t been involved in a good, old-fashioned picnic for several years. Each time we drive into Wakamow Valley, I look over at the picnic tables and barbecues and think that it would be fun to gather some friends and have a potluck picnic at one of those sites. Then we drive on and quickly forget until the next drive-by. One of the highlights of the end of the Sunday School season was the annual picnic, either at Besant Park, or in the backyard of one of the CPR houses beside the tracks. At Besant there was the attraction of the swimming hole, a ball diamond and lots of space to run and play the games that were supervised by the parents. Back at the CPR yard, we had some room for games but mostly the attraction was the food — no steaks or hamburgers on the barbecue —but food that came out of cardboard boxes or heavy hampers filled with ice to help maintain a level of food safety. There would be sliced ham, fried chicken, sliced roast beef from a real cow without any thought to hormones or whether free run eggs were used in the egg salad sandwiches. Several varieties of potato salad would appear along with some vegetable creations in Jell-o. The dessert table would include chocolate cakes with thick icing, homemade cookies, watermelon slices and sometimes there would be the opportunity to roast marshmallows over an open fire that today would be against the law. Each family was responsible for its own plates and cutlery — paper plates and plastic knives and forks came along some years later. And each family also brought some extra food and utensils just in case someone attended without realizing the traditional obligations. Definitely no one would go home hungry. On a smaller scale, we as a family would often pack a picnic supper to be eaten at the park or beside the lake where fishing was attempted with nothing much caught besides weeds and a few paper bags. Sometimes the spur of the moment picnic would be sandwiches and some fruit. If planning were involved, fried chicken and potato salad held pride of place. It seemed no one worried about food safety and today’s health inspectors would likely have had a meltdown with their tests of temperatures and storage. We survived quite nicely, thank you, despite some obviously iffy habits. But soon the thermally-lined hampers appeared, insulated carry cases and various sizes of freezer packs popped up in the stores. And on-the-spot barbecued steaks and hamburgers shoved aside the fried chicken. The last picnic with fried chicken for this household was the summer of 2013 when we journeyed to Shamrock Regional Park, found ourselves a secluded spot near a gigantic checker board and unpacked our picnic dinner: fried chicken, potato salad, lettuce salad, some vegetables in Jell-o, cake and watermelon. All packed among frozen water bottles and ice packs in a thermal hamper and eaten off paper plates with plastic utensils — the best of both centuries. And so, this month, I salute the picnic and wonder if there’s still time this August so have a real, honest-to-goodness picnic with home-fried chicken and all the fixings? Just wondering! Joyce Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net