Picnic Time! In Railroad Town, Nebr. July 18th & 19th, 2020

Picnic Time!
             In

Railroad Town, Nebr.

 July 18th & 19th,
       2020

Picnic – From the French pique-nique, (earliest use in print was 1692) originally referred to a group of
people who brought their own wine when they were dining in a restaurant and later came to describe an infor-
mal meal taken outdoors where everyone brought a dish, often as part of an excursion and usually in summer.

     Included below are a sampling of picnic advice and recipes from an assortment of period cook books.

Mrs. Owen’s Cook Book by Mrs. Frances Owens. Chicago: Owens Publishing Co., 1884

Picnics, Lunches, Entertainments
        Here we give a few suggestions which may not come amiss. From the subjoined list a nice variety of
dishes may be selected: Panned oysters, boiled ham, fried chicken, pressed chicken, pressed veal, veal loaf,
plain hard-boiled eggs, stuffed eggs, sardines, sausages, baked beans, Saratoga potatoes, radishes, cold slaw, sa-
lads of any kind, pickled peaches, pickled beans (the white wax beans are nicest, and spice them a little), rolled
sandwiches, plain sandwiches, jelly, pickles, etc. Potted meats that can be procured at grocery stores are quite
nice. Bottled pickles are rather in favor. Take butter in a jelly-glass or other covered dish. Take bread in a whole
loaf rather than in slices, but if slices are preferred wrap each two, buttered and laid together, in tissue paper.
Biscuit are always nice. Ginger cookies are relished more than rich cake. If Saratoga potatoes are used, fry only
a few at a time in hot lard and carry them in fancy papers. Take jelly and preserves in glasses. Cakes and pies to
suit one’s taste. Tea may be put into a bottle of cold water, and will make a good beverage. Portable lemonade is
handy, but lemons should always be carried if they can be procured, together with all seasonable fruits. Don’t
forget pepper, and salt, and sugar.

                  For a social party of 25 —                      Ice Cream and Cake for 25 Persons
           6 dozen sandwiches.                                One gallon of cream and 3 loaves of cake
           100 fried oysters.                                 will serve 25 persons. The writer has gotten
           2 chickens pressed.                                50 large dishes of cream by actual count
           1 pound coffee.                                    from 2 ½ gallons, besides giving out many
           1 gallon ice cream.                                extra spoonsful to different children.
           Cake as desired, in little or great variety.

                         Quantities Required for Church Lunches. For 25 persons —

               4 loaves bread, or 6 dozen biscuit.        1 pint cream and 1 pint milk
               ½ pound butter.                            mixed.
               1 pound coffee in 5 quarts water.          1 quart pickles
               2 ounces tea.                              5 pounds ham before it is boiled.
               2 pounds sugar.                            2 cans fruit, or
                                                          2 quarts cranberries.

For 150 Persons —

             12 dozen biscuit.                             1 gallon pickles. 4 pounds coffee.
             6 loaves white bread.                         1 pound tea.
             6 loaves Graham bread.                        10 pounds sugar.
             150 doughnuts.                                4 pounds butter.
             2 hams.                                       2 quarts cream and
             4 tongues.                                    2 quarts milk mixed.

Tea Ice Cream
         Scald a pint of milk with 4 tablespoons good tea. Take off, and in about 5 minutes strain into a pint of
cold cream. Heat the mixture to scalding, and mix with it 4 well-beaten eggs and 2 cups sugar. Mix thoroughly,
let it cool, and freeze.

Iced Tea
        It is better to put the tea in cold water and set in the icebox the morning of the day it is to be used for
supper. The flavor is better than if steeped in hot water.

Dining Room and Kitchen: Practical Housekeeping for the American Housewife by Grace Townsend. Home
Publishing Co., 1894

Lunches, Picnics and Parties
        For those who enjoy giving lunches and picnics and yet are unaccustomed to planning for the same, we
here suggest a few of the many palatable dishes suitable for such occasions. When rolls are taken, wrap each
two buttered and laid together, in tissue paper.
        Saratoga chips look nicest carried in fancy papers which can be thrown away. Cookies always taste
better than rich cakes at a picnic. Always take lemons and sugar or prepare syrup at home. Take lemons and
squeeze them in a glass jar, add sugar, and stir into a thin syrup. Add no water, as that would be extra to carry.
Serve by putting a spoonful into each glass of water. Iced tea can be served in the same way.
        Ice cream and cake for twelve persons: One-half gallon of cream and one loaf cake and one layer cake
will serve twelve persons.
        For a social tea party of twenty-five: Six dozen sandwiches, two quart pan of escolloped (sic) oysters, 1
dish cabbage salad, 2 chickens pressed, 1 cold tongue, 1 pound coffee, 1 gallon ice cream, cake in variety as de-
sired.
        Quantities required for church luncheon for twenty-five persons: Five dozen rolls, one-half pound butter,
1 pound coffee in 5 quarts water, 2 ounces tea, one and one-half pounds sugar, 1 pint cream and 1 pint milk
mixed, 3 pints pickles, 5 pounds ham before it is boiled, 1 loaf cake and two and one-half dozen doughnuts.

Lemonade
       Take a pound of sugar and reduce it to a syrup with 1 quart of water; add the juice of 5 lemons and a
block of ice in center of bowl. Peel 1 lemon and gut it up into thin slices, and put in lemonade. Serve with a
piece of lemon in each glass.

Ginger Lemonade
         Take a half cup of vinegar, 1 cup of sugar, 2 teaspoonfuls ginger; stir well together, put in a quart pitcher
and fill with ice water. If one wants it sweeter our sourer than these quantities will make it, more of the needed
ingredients may be put in. It is a cooling drink and almost as good as lemonade, some preferring it.

Picnic Coffee
        Coffee or tea may be made quickly by placing the required quantity of cold water in the pot, and adding
the coffee, tied up in a sack of fine gauze, or piece of muslin; bring to boiling point, boil five minutes and serve.
Make tea in the same way, except that the tea is put loose in the water, and simply allowed to boil up once.

Social Etiquettes 1896

Picnic Parties
        Picnics and excursions are delightful summer entertainments. But it is essential that whoever goes on a
picnic should possess the power to find “sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, and good in every-
thing;” know how to dress, know where to go, and above all, know what to carry to eat.
        A very great variety of food should be avoided, also soft puddings and creamy mixtures of any sort,
which persistently “leak out.” Plain substantial food, simple and well-cooked, should ever be chosen, with a few
sweet and simple dainties to top off with. This can be divided up among the party by the one who is the most
executive, with the ladies to furnish the substantials and the gentlemen the beverages. The men assume the ex-
pense of the boats or other conveyances.
        Paraffine paper is indispensable in wrapping up the viands, which are much more wisely carried in
boxes, than baskets, as the former can be thrown away, and the fewer burdens on the home-coming the better. A
rubber coat or mackintosh is also a necessity, for no matter how warm the day, there is a risk of sitting out in the
woods on the bare ground. This can easily be managed in a shawl strap. It is best not to carry a tablecloth, but if
something is preferred to spread upon the ground, a strip of enameled cloth is the most satisfactory thing, and
whatever is spilled upon it can be easily cleaned off. Japanese napkins take the place of linen, the wooden
plates, which can be thrown away, are most desirable, like those which the bakers use for pies.
        There are several important items which must not be forgotten, and among them are hand-towels and
soap, combs, hand-mirror, thread, needle and thimble, a corkscrew and can opener.

What to Eat
        There should be a clear understanding at the outset what eatables each one is to bring. One girl may
promise to furnish a certain portion of rolls or sandwiches, and another, part of the cake. Others may promise
cold or potted meats, sardines, stuffed eggs, Saratoga potatoes, olives, pickles, fruit, lemonade and cold coffee.
Salad may easily be carried if the lettuce and chicken or lobster are arranged in a dish set in a basket, and the
dressing contained in a wide-mouthed bottle or pickle jar. The best way to transport lemonade, if fresh water
can be readily procured at the picnic grounds, is to take the lemon juice and sugar in a jar, adding the water after
the party reach their destination. Apollinaris water is excellent for lemonade. The coffee and milk should have
been put together before leaving home, but the sugar is carried separately.

Tongue and Sandwiches
        To begin with the substantials, a cold roast, a boiled tongue, deviled eggs, are simple and tasty. The roast
may be sliced off before going, and carefully wrapped up, but the tongue should be carried whole and cut up
when required, or it is apt to become dry. The eggs are easily prepared, being hard boiled, cut lengthwise, the
yolks taken out, mixed in a bowl with pepper, salt and mustard, and a few drops of Worcester and put back
again in the whites.
        Different kinds of sandwiches may be served. For one time there may be finger-rolls, split, the inside
hollowed out and filled with the narrowest of ribbon. Again, bread and butter, cut wafer thin and rolled may ap-
pear. Sweetbread sandwiches, sardine sandwiches, egg sandwiches, are delicious and easily prepared variations
upon the ever-lasting ham and tongue. Very dainty sandwiches are made of two thicknesses of thin bread and
butter, with a layer between of cream cheese and chopped water cress. The fruit should be heaped in a basket or
arranged as a center-piece with flowers.
        Ice cream may be taken to a picnic without much additional trouble. The brick molds can be so packed

by a confectioner in pails of ice that there will be no danger of the cream melting. For this, of course, wooden
plates are not available, but china saucers will have to be transported. For the sweets some plain cake and bon-
bons, and a box of crystallized ginger are all-sufficient. Cold tea, with lemon and ice, is certainly the most re-
freshing and satisfactory.
        If more side dishes are preferred, there are olives, salted peanuts or pecans, gherkins, radishes or club-
house cheese and wafers to choose from, and if berries in season are desired, they are best carried in a glass pre-
serve jar.
        If one person gives a picnic, she should expect to furnish all the food, the means of transportation for her
guests, the plates, glasses, knives, forks and napkins—in short, to defray all the expenses of the trip. This is apt
to prove a rather expensive proceeding, if there are many guests invited, but it is a very pretty style of entertain-
ing for those whose means permit them to indulge in it. A “Basket Picnic” is a more general affair, where each
member of the party supplies a quota of the provisions. Some one person undertakes the charge of the party, and
invites such people to join it as she thinks would make it a success. The girls usually provide the refreshments.

Chaperons

         It seems needless to say that there should always be a chaperon on picnic parties if it were not that even
in this day there appears, in some places, to be a lack of proper understanding of this subject. Dwellers in large
cities see matters in a clearer light, and a young man who is thoroughly versed in points of etiquette will not
think of inviting a young lady to accompany him to the theater without also requesting her mother or a married
friend to join them. In the same manner he asks a chaperon to go with them when he escorts a young lady to a
ball or party.
         When a number of young people get off together, they are apt, without the least intention of impropriety,
to let their spirits carry them away and lead them into absurdities they would never commit in a graver moment.
If a chaperon is bright and cheery, sympathizing in the enjoyment of the young people, and avoiding making her
presence a bar upon innocent gayety, she need be no drawback to the pleasure of the expedition. On the con-
trary, most young men and women will feel a security and sense of comfort from having someone along to take
responsibility of the conduct of the party that they could never know were there no chaperon present.
         It is a good rule, if possible, to have an equal number of persons of each sex on a picnic. This is espe-
cially desirable if the party is to be on the water, in rowboats, where each boatload must be evenly divided. The
hostess or projector of the party may arrange in whose escort each girl is to go, or this may be left to the young
people themselves.

Home Queen Cook Book Thompson & Thomas, Chicago., 1898

Picnic Baskets
        Have two of them by all means; one for provisions, and the other for the utensils you may need. Pack
your plates, sauce-dishes (old-time stoneware, not the glass berry comports you use at the home meal), and
cups, at the bottom of the basket, with towels and table linen (unbleached damask or colored table-cloth, with
napkins to match) in between, to prevent breakage; tumblers on top, and knives, forks and spoons where they
will go best, with a piece of cloth over all.
        Don’t forget to take a big tin pail for water; you can carry your lemons, bananas, or other fruit in it; also
a can of rich cream for the coffee, without which an open air picnic dinner would be incomplete; so bring along
your coffee pot without fail. If you use the bean from “Araby the blest,” have it already ground and measured, in
a small tin box, an empty spice-box will do; also carry tea, salt and gar. (sic - I think this may have been an error
and should have been sugar). “Golden coffee” or other hygienic” substitute, will answer nearly or quite as well;
some think better. Chocolate, already prepared with milk and sugar, but with the cocoa butter which gathers on
the top when cold carefully removed, is a pleasant and slightly stimulating beverage, and need not be warmed
unless you choose to do it; but lovers of “the cup that cheers” will clamor some for hot, and some for iced tea,
so carry along a well-blanketed block of ice in the northeast corner of your picnic-wagon, with a tin box of

butter close at its side, and if you can add a freezer full of frozen cream, so much the better. But pack ice all
around it, and heavily cover it with carpeting, or the contents will be melted when you want to use them.
Have freshly-baked biscuit, rolls, etc., even if it necessitates very early rising, and pack them in the second blan-
ket, with the rest of the good things provided. We subjoin a sample list of suitable articles for a picnic lunch or
dinner, from which, if at a loss, a bill of fare for spring, summer, or fall can easily be selected.

Poultry — Chicken, cold, baked or roasted, or in salad; broiled cold roast turkey, sliced thin; broiled partridge.
Fish— Freshly caught, fried or broiled on live coals; sardines; canned salmon; canned lobster; lobster rissoles,
cold; oysters, raw, stewed, or pickled; clam chowder.
Meat — Chipped beef; pressed veal; veal loaf; cold roast veal; smoked tongue; canned corn beef.
Pickles — Cucumber; mixed pickles; piccalilli; sweet pickled pears and peaches, catsup.
Sandwiches of tongue, fresh or smoked; steamed beef; sausage, sliced thin; or of hard boiled eggs, sliced
lengthwise and sprinkled with grated cheese, laid between unbuttered bread.
Vegetables, in their season. Roasting-ears; sweet or Irish potatoes, roasted in hot ashes; cucumber salad, or to-
matoes sliced with vinegar, and garnished with cold boiled eggs, sliced and laid on top.
Bread — White; Boston brown; graham fruit-bread; lemon biscuit; quick soda biscuit; French rolls.
Cake — Pound; sponge; chocolate layer; cocoanut; excellent cake; sultana; hermits; lemon snaps; macaroons.
Nuts — Mixed; English walnuts; Brazil nuts; hazel nuts; pecans.
Canned Fruit — Peaches; pears; plum jam; grape jelly, etc.
Fresh Fruit —Bananas, oranges, lemons, melons, or whatever may be in season.
Drinks — Tea; coffee; chocolate; lemonade; pineapple.

The Universal Household Assistant by S. H. Burt. S. H. Moore & co., publisher; NY. Copyright 1884

Salad (Orange) —1. Take one dozen oranges, peel and cut in slices, lay a layer of them in a glass dish, sprinkle
over each layer, so as to cover, prepared cocoanut, and squeeze the juice of three oranges on top.

Salad (German) — Take six medium sized cold potatoes, and slice thin, three good-sized sweet apples, also cut
in small slices, four silver-skinned onions chopped fine, and a little parsley cut in bits; dress these with two
tablespoonfuls of oil, salt pepper, sugar and a little mustard and vinegar to blend the whole; beat it very light
and stir through salad; garnish with hard boiled eggs cut in rings.

Mustard — to make — Mustard should always be made in small quantities, fresh as required. It soon spoils by
keeping. Put the quantity required into a teacup, and stir in the boiling water till it is of the proper consistency,
and perfectly smooth. It should never be made in the mustard-pot in which it is brought to the table. The French
mix mustard with vinegar instead of water, and some persons add salt; but good Durham mustard is best made
plain. Milk, with the addition of a little cream, if used instead of water, is said to take away the bitterness and to
impart great softness to the mustard.

Lemonade (Portable) —Tartaric ac’d, one ounce; white sugar, two pounds; essence of lemon, one-quarter
ounce. Powder and keep dry for use. One dessert spoonful will make a glass of lemonade.

Presidential Cook Book Adapted from the White House Cook Book by Ida Saxton McKinley, 1895

Cold Eggs for a Picnic
      This novel way of preparing cold egg for the lunch-basket fully repays one for the extra time required.

Boil hard several eggs, halve them lengthwise; remove the yolks and chop them fine with cold chicken, lamb,
veal or any tender roasted meat; or with bread soaked in milk, and any salad, as parsley, onion, celery, the bread
being half of the whole; or with grated cheese, a little olive oil, drawn butter, flavored. Fill the cavity of the egg
with either of these mixtures, or any similar preparation. Press the halves together, roll twice in beaten egg and
bread crumbs, and dip into boiling lard. When the color rises delicately, drain them and they are ready for use.

Sardine Sandwiches
        Take two boxes of sardines, and throw the contents into hot water, having first drained away all the oil.
A few minutes will free the sardines from grease. Pour away the water and dry the fish in a cloth; then scrape
away the skins, and pound the sardines in a mortar till reduced to paste; add pepper, salt, and some tiny pieces
of lettuce, and spread on the sandwiches, which have been previously cut (trim crusts and butter). The lettuce
adds very much to the flavor of the sardines.
        Or chop the sardines fine and squeeze a few drops of lemon-juice into them and spread between buttered
bread or cold biscuits.

Iced Coffee
        Make more coffee than usual at breakfast time and stronger. When cold put on ice. Serve with cracked
ice in each tumbler.

Iced Tea
       Is now served to a considerable extent during the summer months. It is of course used without milk, and
the addition of sugar serves only to destroy the finer tea flavor. It may be prepared some hours in advance, and
should be made stronger than when served hot. It is bottled and placed in the ice-chest till required. Use the
black or green teas, or both, mixed, as fancied.

Lemonade
     Three lemons to a pint of water makes strong lemonade, sweeten to your taste.

For a Summer Draught
        The juice of one lemon, a tumblerful of cold water, pounded sugar to taste, half a small teaspoonful of
carbonate of soda. Squeeze the juice from the lemon, strain, and add it to the water, with sufficient pounded
sugar to sweeten the whole nicely. When well-mixed, put in the soda, stir well, and drink while the mixture is in
and effervescent state.

House and Home: A Complete House-Wife’s Guide by Marion Harland. J. S. Ziegler & Co.; Chicago, Ill., 1889.

Excerpts from the section entitles The Dinner Pail—
        What is known as the “picnic basket” is heavy and costly. Otherwise, the neat service of plate and china
stowed away in sockets made fast to the sides and top, would soon drive the unsightly tin vessel from the field.
A stout willow basket of convenient size, with straight sides and a well -fitted cover, can be made as commodi-
ous by the exercise of a little feminine ingenuity. Let inch-wide strips of linen, doubled and stitched at the
edges, be tacked in loops on the inside, with white flax thread that will be scarcely visible on the exterior. In
these keep knives, forks, spoons, pepper and salt cruets, and napkins. Lay a folded napkin in the bottom, another
over all, when the provisions are packed in the interior; tie the top in place with a bright ribbon or braid, and
you have what, while it is really a pannier (from the Latin panis — bread), might be a pretty hamper of fruit and
flowers, such as an opulent householder would be willing to carry to a neighbor.
Deviled Eggs
        Boil six eggs hard and throw them into cold water. Divide into halves cut crosswise, take out the yolks
and rub into a paste with a generous teaspoonful of butter. Season with pepper, salt and a suspicion of mustard.
Mold into balls the size and shape of the abstracted yolks, put back into the hollowed whites, fit the halves

neatly together and roll each up in tissue paper, as you would a bon-bon, twisting the paper at the ends. If you
want to make the entrée ornamental, fringe the squares of paper before enveloping the eggs. They are yet more
savory if you have some minced giblets (boiled and cold) to mix with the yolks, and a little gravy with which to
moisten the paste.

Chicken Salad
        A can of boned chicken will make enough for two days. Mince coarsely, season with pepper and salt,
and pack into a small bowl or cup. In another, put some crisp lettuce-leaves with a small lump of ice, tie a piece
of cloth over the top, paper over this, and set securely in the bottom of the basket. Pour a few spoonfuls of Dur-
kee’s incomparable salad-dressing into a wide-mouthed phial, and cork it. With this send thin slices of buttered
bread. To eat, drain the lettuce at lunch-time, and after lining the bowl with the leaves, put the chicken on them,
and pour the dressing upon the chicken.

Hood’s Practical Cook’s Book C. I. Hood Co., Lowell, Mass. 1921

Salad Sandwiches
       Are made with lettuce, cucumbers and capers, all finely chopped and mixed with a little mayonnaise
dressing, then placed between two unbuttered slices of bread.

Potato Salad
        Cut in thin slices cold boiled potatoes, choosing those that are waxy rather than mealy ones. Make a
dressing of equal parts of salad oil, and vinegar, a small pinch of red pepper, a big pinch of salt, and four drops
of onion juice. Turn this over the potatoes, and mix carefully to avoid breaking the slices. The garnish of this
salad depends entirely upon the taste of the cook. Some garnish with chopped parsley, carrot, or beet, while
grated cheese is liked by many. Chopped onion may be used instead of onion juice, if a more pronounced flavor
is desired.

The Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking School Cook Book. 1896

POTATO SALAD
Cut cold boiled potatoes in 1/2 inch cubes.
Sprinkle 4 cupfuls with 1/2 tablespoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
Add 4 Tablespoons oil and mix thoroughly; then add 2 Tablespoons vinegar.
A few drops of onion juice may be added, or 1/2 Tablespoon chives finely cut.
Arrange in a mound and garnish with whites and yolks of 2 hard boiled eggs, cold boiled red beets, and parsley.
Chop whites and arrange on 1/4 of the mound; chop beets finely, mix with 1 Tablespoon vinegar, and let stand
15 minutes; then arrange on fourths of mound next to whites.
Arrange on remaining fourth of mound, yolks chopped or forced through a potato ricer.
Put small sprigs of parsley in lines dividing beets from eggs; also garnish with parsley at base.

Words to know
Saratoga Potatoes - Potato Chips
Japanese Napkins - Paper Napkins
Paraffine Paper - Wax Paper