Virtual Train Picnic Game

[Earthmaiden]

I just saw this as a game on FB and thought it looked amusing.

"You’re at the railway station with a long journey ahead and just enough time to do a quick sweep of the little M&S Simply Food. What’s going in your train picnic?"

[Earthmaiden]

I have to be honest and say that if I was travelling alone I would find it difficult to eat anything much as I dislike eating when I am sitting with people I don't know. Maybe a biscuit or chocolate bar. It depends how long the journey is!

In a crowd on a longish journey then all those picky deli bits for sure, nice bread, fresh exotic fruit, cake ........

[Suelle]

There are so many ready to eat bits for picnics that I'd be spoilt for choice - savoury mini-muffins and pin-wheels, scotch eggs, exotic sausage rolls, a tub of mixed fruit salad, posh biscuits, iced coffee.

[Renee]

I go on a long journey to Berkshire when I stay with Colin, so treat myself to the 'special' prawn sandwich from M&S. The sauce has brandy in it, which is why it is special no doubt! A small bottle of white wine, bought from Asda, because I'm not paying M&S prices, also pick up orange and mango juice from M&S.

[Stokey Sue]

I haven't seen the special prawn sandwich, I'll look out for it.

I tend just to grab a sandwich and bring fruit from home, I might also get juice of some kind. Or gin-in-a-tin

I tend in fact not to use M&S but one of the baguette places - Upper Crust or Delice de France, or AMC coffee on Marylebone - I like them, and I find the cramped and over lit station M&S Simply Food shops much more difficult than the kiosks that have counter service. The down side of counter service is the queue it tends to set up of course.

If I were planning an actual train picnic like Suelle I'd be inclined to go down the Scotch egg and even pork pie route - nothing that needs making up such as buttering the bread, just things I can eat as they are, though a salad with fork or spoon is fine

[scullion]

there's no m&s in redruth but there's a pasty shop nearby!
however, i learned, a while back, that if you book a meal in the restaurant car, it's first class and you can stay there for the rest of the journey so maybe i'd do that just for the experience...

[mistakened]

Personally I would love an M&S Simply Food.
I used to travel from Paddington to Torquay 30 years ago, I found containers of Waldorf type salads very useful.

Moira

[Smitch]

I like some of the M&S plant kitchen sandwiches and their salad pots. Or a hot wrap from Pret.

I also often get a packet of Percy Pigs and some fizzy water.

[Busybee]

Warning………..my uncouthness will become apparent!

For starters a gin and tonic in a can, then water and or tea.

It has to be either a pork pie or scotch egg, and is it even a picnic if there isn’t egg and cress sandwiches???

Grapes or nice fruit to follow. Pre diabetes days I’d want a slice of fruit cake or Victoria sandwich. Now I’d do without.

But like EM I’m always a bit self conscious eating on a train, I feel as if I’m being judged.

We had quite a lot of picnics last week in Galway and Connemara- usually a hand made sandwich from a bakers plus fruit and crisps. Ideal for sitting on the gorgeous beaches.

BB

[scullion]

a similar 'game' would be - what snacks do you take on a long car journey?
ours include -
nuts, fruit, peeled segments of pomelo (if it's i season - makes a refreshing' drink'), pastys (if I've made them).
maybe something flapjack-y.
and a lap cover for the driver. can you get adult catch-it bibs‽‽
- yes, you can! but i'm not sure my partner would want one and it might interfere with driving...

[herbidacious]

Basically most times I used to go up north, if it were a meal time, I would (quickly) grab some stuff from M&S, but not sure it would constitute a picnic - a sandwich or wrap and maybe a carton of prepped fruit if they had spoons on offer. Pretty functional. Sitting on a train does not feel like a conducive environment to luxuriate in nice food, even if you can get it, to me. (But then most of my journeys in recent years have had stressful things at the other end.)
East Midlands trains are not brilliant for vegetarian food and often run out anyway, so can't be relied on if you are hungry.

I am now wondering what makes something a picnic if it doesn't have to be outdoors...

[Uschi]

Not knowing what M&S has on offer I would have to rely on my own resources.
The area my mother hails from has been hit by famine quite often, so the natives do not venture on a trip or an outing without a Butterbrot for sustenance. It is deeply ingrained into me and I do the same. Axel laughs when I prepare sandwiches in the morning, as there are so many places to stop and eat, but I still do it. And several times we have stood in tailbacks where he was glad to partake.

I am not shy about drinking and eating on the train, either. Fruit like grapes or cubed water melon (plus a fork) are nice, as is a slice of cake. Duplos always feature.

[Earthmaiden]

I think it then has to to be called a train, car, hotel bedroom or whatever picnic, Herbi. It's ok then . 'Packed lunch' doesn't really sound right.

[Stokey Sue]

The best train picnic I’ve had was a fresh Kaiser roll filled with salami somewhere near Maribor - we were inter-railing as students and the family in our compartment treated us as it was supposed to be the best salami on the rail network. Possibly was.

Uschi, we noticed when travelling in the Czech Republic 30 years ago that nearly everyone else on the train had a little meal that seemed to be mainly bread and cucumber as soon as they sat down, to fortify themselves for travel.

[herbidacious]

When I was little, on at least one occasion, we had a picnic indoors for my birthday party. The floor would be covered with a sheet for this purpose. Not sure if the food was on the sheet or on a table to be taken to the picnic area. So = a spread of food, buffet style, eaten without a table? But you can have a picnic at a picnic table (with cutlery)... But what makes it a picnic?! I guess it's one of those definitions that needs a Venn diagram.

A packed punch requires either tin foil (to wrap sandwiches in) or a plastic box And consists in a more limited number of items.
We had a few packed lunches during Covid semi-lockdowns - when you could go out and about but nothing was open. It felt very 1970s.

[Earthmaiden]

It does seem that it should be outdoors but respectable people didn't eat in hotel bedrooms, trains etc then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picnic

... and packed lunches had to be wrapped in greaseproof paper because M&S plastic pots of things hadn't been introduced.

So nice but at rather huge cost to the planet .

I sat next to a young lad the other day on a train (double seat, me by window). The rest of his family were at the table across the aisle. They had picked up very pungent hot food which looked like slices of pizza with something hot, spicy and not Italian on top. I was stuck with the smell but the lad's impeccable table manners made up for it. He ate elegantly with a plastic knife and fork with pizza box perched on the little table that pulled down from the seat in front. A joy to behold. Full credit to the lovely family.

[Uschi]

The best train picnic I’ve had was a fresh Kaiser roll filled with salami somewhere near Maribor - we were inter-railing as students and the family in our compartment treated us as it was supposed to be the best salami on the rail network. Possibly was.

Uschi, we noticed when travelling in the Czech Republic 30 years ago that nearly everyone else on the train had a little meal that seemed to be mainly bread and cucumber as soon as they sat down, to fortify themselves for travel.

I guess tucking in passed the time and made up for the less than luxurious surroundings. But West Germans did the same, even if less enthusiastically, too. Cucumbers are rarer, but depending on where you are you can see Schnitzelbrötchen being consumed, or down south Leberkäs-Semmeln.

[Stokey Sue]

A picnic used to be indoors - the Regency Cook tweeted this recently

Picnics didn't use to be OUTDOORS.

In 1826 A Legacy for Young Ladies tells us:

'In a pic-nic supper, one supplies the fowls, another the fish, another the wine & fruit, &c.; and they all sit down together and enjoy it.'…

It was a bring a dish event - more and pictures in his tweets
https://twitter.com/theregencycook/stat ... nZIuvqenrQ

[Seatallan]

I know exactly what's going in my train picnic. It's an M&S egg & cress sandwich (love their egg & cress sandwiches), a packet of the low fat crisps, a punnet of raspberries if there are any and a bottle of the fizzy mineral water.

[Lusciouslush]

Lordie........bring back the buffets....!!!!!!!

On a train with someone next/opposite you with stinky sandwiches/crisps etc. etc. munching away........ my idea of hell.......

Much more civilised to just have a nice little drink from the buffet before it was defunct....

My lasting memory of coming down on a lat(ish) train from Town was a guy in the carriage eating a curry - I had to move quite a few carriages along - & still I could smell it.......