Before you even think about food for your picnic, you should involve the most practical member of the family in some of the preparations, the results of which can last all summer long. It could be a time for being macho about eating, a time for the man of the house to make himself useful without letting himself down. In my home I find myself responsible for the hardware, which is not essential for good al fresco eating but if well-chosen and properly prepared, it can make the difference between pleasure and pain.
The first item is the cold box. It is worth paying a little extra for a good cold box, which will have better insulating properties. The little blue ice blocks they sell with the cold boxes are really too small to be any use and anyway they are no more efficient than ordinary ice in a plastic bottle. I find that two frozen 1.5 litre water bottles will still contain some ice after 48 hours, even in June, camping in the South of France.
The secret of good cold box management is to never put anything into it which has not already been chilled. If everything is at fridge temperature going in and you have two big water bottles full of ice in, as well, you will have cool food and drink for up to 48 hours. So: throw a couple of big plastic water bottles full of tap water into the freezer and keep them there for the summer. When you are filling them squeeze the bottles a little before you put the caps on so that the ice will have room to expand without bursting the bottles.
I was once invited to a steamboat rally on the river Cam near Cambridge. My host was chairman of the association and he welcomed me on board with a plastic tumbler of warm chardonnay. Just as we were cheersing, the chimney belched and we were covered in soot, some of which landed in the tumblers. We drank to the pleasures of steamboating. My host and his friends are into steamboating, so who cares if the chardonnay is warm and sooty in a scratched plastic tumbler?
I can appreciate their point of view while holding my own which is that food and drink, al fresco, are best appreciated from fine glass and crockery. We bought a dozen very delicate and inexpensive plain claret glasses about three years ago. We use them all the time, including for picnics and barbecues and we have only broken three so far. Two of the three were broken in the kitchen. Likewise, we use nice old plates that we don't really care about and they reappear year after year. You can use napkins, dishcloths and tablecloths to protect delicate ware in the picnic hamper.
If you are into one-upmanship and you are going to be picnicking close to others, then you will find that nothing impresses so much as the sight of fresh linen, fine ware and dewy bottles. These will make more of an impression than what you are eating. To carry the oneupmanship even further, not forgetting your own pleasure, a small spirit stove with an espresso pot gurgling atop is both heartening and impressive.
It is not always possible to be well-prepared for a picnic, especially if you are travelling. I remember recently we found ourselves on a lovely beach in Co Kerry with a loaf of ciabatta, a wedge of mature Coolea cheese and a bottle of water. No cold box, no crockery, no glasses or cutlery, not even a penknife. We had to use the old bare hands method which works very well if you can avoid the sand and suntan oil. It just reaffirmed our belief that Coolea is the best and more forgiving food to travel with.
If you are in Cork or you are holidaying on the continent then you only need to go to the nearest municipal market to fill your cold box with goodies. Cheeses and cured meats can also be very handy. Some tinned foods are useful, as they don't need to be refrigerated. Try bonito tuna or anchovy fillets in olive oil. The anchovies can be eaten with scallions on chunky bread dunked in olive oil.
Cheeses are always good to have on board. During the summer it is a pleasure to eat the seasonal cheeses. Don't forget that cheeses made during the summer are made from the milk of cows which are grazing in the fields. Cheeses made in the winter are made when the cows are being fed on silage and other feeds; the quality of the cheeses is affected and usually, though not always, for the better in summer. Mine-Gabhar goat cheese from Wexford is very hard to find but worth the effort. Milleen's cheese is not pasteurised but even Veronica Steele who makes it will admit that it is surprisingly good. St Tola goat's cheese from Co Clare, available from April to December, is very versatile, a good picnic quality. Coolea is at its best from April to December, made last year from summer milk.
The more widely available soft cheeses such as Cooleeney from near Thurles and St Killian from Carrigbyrne in Co Wexford are fun to ripen at home. Keep them in the salad drawer of your fridge and turn them every few days. Durrus, Gubbeen and Ardrahan are great picnic cheeses which are usually farm-ripened if brought from a good deli. Cashel Blue doesn't start to get good until it is at least 12 weeks old, so check the production date rather than the use-by date. Crumbly old Desmond and Gabriel from Schull are good with your aperitif, the younger versions are more versatile and always very tasty. For a good ploughman's picnic with beer or cider you have to have an authentic cheddar; Keens and Montgomery from the Cheddar Gorge are becoming more and more widely available.
It is hard not to buy too much, especially if you visit a really good market where the stallholders take a pride in tempting you with their goods. You will probably end up with some leftovers after your picnic, which you will want to bring home to the fridge. Bearing this in mind, it is a good idea to keep the lid of your cold box closed as much as possible during the picnic so that it retains its refrigerating qualities for the journey home. After a long drive a second picnic at home with the leftovers could be very appealing.