40 Fun Facts About Picnics

English borrowed the word picnic from which language, where it first appeared in a satirical verse of 1649?

French pique-nique meant a meal where every guest paid or brought a share, and only around 1800 did English speakers move it outdoors.

In which park does the cartoon character Yogi raid campers' picnic baskets while dodging Ranger Smith?

Jellystone Park spoofs Yellowstone, and the joke became real estate: a chain of family campgrounds has traded under the cartoon park's name since 1969.

Which toys gather for a picnic in the woods in the 1907 tune that Jimmy Kennedy set words to in 1932?

Teddy bears were still a novelty when John Bratton wrote the tune: the toy had been named after President Theodore Roosevelt only five years earlier.

Which picnic toy is named after a Connecticut bakery whose empty pie tins Yale students tossed to one another?

Frisbee was what college students were already calling Wham-O's plastic Pluto Platter, so in 1957 the company made the nickname official.

Which picnic staple is named after an 18th-century English earl, said to have ordered it during long card games?

Sandwich honors John Montagu, the 4th Earl, whose valet is said to have brought him roast beef between two slices of toast so he could keep playing cribbage.

Which checked cotton fabric, a favorite for picnic blankets, did Dorothy wear as her blue dress in The Wizard of Oz?

Gingham reached Europe in the 17th century as a striped cloth, and only became the familiar check when Manchester's mills began weaving it that way in the mid-1700s.

Which word for highly seasoned food, in print since 1786, names the mustard-spiked stuffed eggs of American picnics?

Deviled sounded too sinful for some church suppers in the American South and Midwest, where the same dish is politely called stuffed, salad or dressed eggs.

At the Pan-European Picnic of 1989, hundreds of East Germans fled to Austria through a border gate in which country?

Hungary let the gate near Sopron open for a peace picnic, and the escape that followed was the largest from East Germany since 1961; the Berlin Wall fell under three months later.

Which picnic-day contest of strength was part of the Summer Olympics from 1900 to 1920?

Tug of war at the 1908 London Games was a clean sweep for British police: teams from the City of London, Liverpool and the Metropolitan force took gold, silver and bronze.

Which song does Maria teach the von Trapp children during their mountain picnic in The Sound of Music?

Do-Re-Mi was a static number on stage, and the film turned it into a montage around Salzburg, with the picnic itself shot above the town of Werfen.

What color must guests wear to the secret-location outdoor dinner that François Pasquier started in Paris in 1988?

White was a practical idea: Pasquier asked friends to wear it to his first dinner in the Bois de Boulogne so they could find one another. The event is now called Dîner en Blanc.

Which chemical signals do ants lay along the ground so that nestmates can follow the trail to a picnic's food?

Pheromones let foraging ants range up to 200 meters from the nest and still find their way home, even in the dark.

Which novelist sends her characters on a bad-tempered picnic to Box Hill in Surrey in the novel Emma?

Jane Austen was among the first English novelists to name the picnic, and Emma holds two: strawberry picking at Donwell Abbey and the quarrelsome outing to Box Hill.

What do the British call a large wicker picnic basket, a word Americans mostly use for a laundry container?

Hamper is probably a worn-down form of hanaper, the medieval case that held a large goblet, so the word was carrying drinks long before it carried lunch.

Which lemon-scented oil, taken from a tropical grass, is burned in garden and picnic candles to deter mosquitoes?

Citronella has been a registered insect repellent in the United States since 1948, although studies find the candles do little to keep mosquitoes away.

Which brand of airtight picnic containers, launched in 1946, was sold at home parties championed by Brownie Wise?

Tupperware began with a bell-shaped tub by Earl Tupper, who had worked at DuPont, and its party plan gave 1950s women a way to earn without holding a regular job.

From which language does coleslaw take its name, an 18th-century borrowing of a term meaning cabbage salad?

Dutch koolsla means cabbage salad, and early American writers often heard its first half as cold, giving the folk spelling cold slaw that stayed common until the 1860s.

Which painter scandalized Paris in 1863 with a picnic scene of a nude woman lunching beside two fully dressed men?

Édouard Manet saw Luncheon on the Grass rejected by the official Salon jury, so he hung it in the Salon des Refusés, where it drew crowds and outrage.

What is the Japanese name for the custom of picnicking beneath blossoming cherry trees, known since the Heian court?

Hanami is said to have begun with plum blossom, admired in the Nara period in imitation of a Chinese custom, before cherry trees took over the party.

Which tennis tournament's ticketless fans picnic on a grassy bank nicknamed Henman Hill, facing a giant screen?

Wimbledon's hill is officially Aorangi Terrace, and its nickname shifts with British hopes: fans have also called it Murray Mound and Raducanu Rise.

Which carmaker turned factory wood scraps into charcoal briquettes, later sold with portable grills as Picnic Kits?

Henry Ford first sold the briquettes only through his car dealerships, and the business was renamed Kingsford after new owners bought it in 1951.

Which author opened his 1908 riverbank novel with Rat packing a wicker luncheon basket for a picnic with Mole?

Kenneth Grahame first told the tales as bedtime stories for his son Alastair, and their opening riverside lunch became a model of the English country picnic.

On which holiday in 1900 do the schoolgirls of Picnic at Hanging Rock vanish in Joan Lindsay's Australian mystery?

Valentine's Day 1900 saw no such vanishing: Lindsay framed the novel as a true story, but its events are apparently fictional, and she said the plot came to her in dreams.

Which Piccadilly store, famed for its luxury picnic baskets, claims to have invented the Scotch egg in 1738?

Fortnum & Mason began in 1707 with a royal footman, William Fortnum, who made money on the side by reselling the half-used candles of Queen Anne's household.

Which Japanese word names the boxed meal packed for outdoor lunches and sold at railway stations as ekiben?

Bento grew out of dried rice carried to work in the Kamakura period, and the first station version, sold in 1885, is believed to have held two rice balls and pickled radish.

On which holiday do Italians traditionally head to the countryside for a family picnic, a day they nickname Pasquetta?

Easter Monday is an official public holiday in Italy, formally the Monday of the Angel, and friends often turn the outing into a barbecue.

From which part of the pig does a so-called picnic ham come, a cured cut that is no true ham?

Shoulder meat from the lower arm is cured on the bone to make it, while the upper part of the same section is the confusingly named Boston butt.

In which country do families spend Sizdah Be-dar, the thirteenth day of the Nowruz new year, picnicking outdoors?

Iran also calls the festival Nature Day; sizdah is the Persian word for thirteen, and the outing marks the end of the Nowruz holidays.

Which tree's flexible young shoots, known as osiers or withies, are traditionally woven into wicker picnic baskets?

Willow was used for its flexibility and because it is easy to grow and harvest; the word wicker itself comes from a Scandinavian word for willow.

In tech-support slang, the acronym PICNIC says the problem is not in the computer but in which other place?

The chair is where the user sits: PICNIC is help-desk shorthand for user error, a cousin of PEBKAC, which puts the problem between keyboard and seat.

Which national holiday in 2000 was marked by a giant picnic along the Paris meridian, a line newly planted with trees?

Bastille Day 2000 was marked by a millennium picnic along the whole Méridienne verte, a line of trees planted from Dunkirk in the north to the Pyrenees in the south.

What do New Zealanders call the portable picnic cooler that Australians know as an esky?

Chilly bin is the everyday New Zealand term, while esky began as an Australian brand: the Sydney firm Malley's launched its portable Esky in 1952.

Which Scottish scientist invented the vacuum flask in 1892, the device later sold to picnickers under the Thermos name?

James Dewar built it for his low-temperature research and never patented it, so two German glassblowers were free to market a sturdier household version in 1904.

Which Victorian household writer's picnic menu for forty people ran to lobsters, pigeon pies and a cold plum pudding?

Mrs Beeton's bill of fare also listed cold roast beef, ducks, ham and tongue, yet she ruled out coffee as too difficult to make outdoors.

Which US state is home to the Big Basket, a seven-story former headquarters shaped like a handled basket?

Ohio's Big Basket in Newark copies the Longaberger Company's best-selling market basket, and its handles of almost 150 tons can be heated so ice does not drop onto the glass roof.

Which English opera festival, held at a Sussex country house since 1934, pauses for picnic dinners on the lawns?

Glyndebourne was founded by John Christie at his own house, and the festival stayed in the family: his grandson Gus Christie took over the leadership in 2000.

Which part of Australia has a public holiday called Picnic Day, held each year in the first week of August?

Northern Territory picnic days go back to the late 1800s, among them a railway workers' outing at Adelaide River that was revived in 1936 with a special train from Darwin.

Which Korean roll of rice and fillings wrapped in dried seaweed is a staple of the packed lunches taken to picnics?

Kimbap is served in bite-sized slices and often shares the lunchbox, or dosirak, with yellow pickled radish and kimchi.

In which Nordic country is Vappu, the first of May, traditionally celebrated with a park picnic and sparkling wine?

Finland counts Vappu among its four biggest holidays, and some picnickers go as far as pavilions, silver candelabras and classical music.

In horseshoes, a classic picnic lawn game, what name is given to a three-point throw that lands around the stake?

Ringer disputes are settled with a straightedge laid across the shoe's two tips: if it clears the stake, the throw counts.