Now you can see them again, everywhere in the parks, in the meadows and on the banks: people who sit on blankets and eat and drink.

And if you asked them what they do, many would say they were picnicking, even if they just had a pizza delivered on the towel.

The fun of a picnic is eating together in a situation in which it normally does not take place.

With dishes that traditionally have little to do with what you would order in a restaurant and the way they are consumed, which is hardly at all similar to what is usual in a restaurant.

Jacqueline Vogt

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung, responsible for the Rhein-Main section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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    It was a hot summer's day under a large tree, on a hill above Istanbul, with the sea shining far below.

    It's the only recallable reminder of a childhood picnic.

    Many friends were there, the parents, but none of them were there when the tussle with the brother in the potato salad ended.

    Foot in potato salad

    The right foot in the wooden mule was suddenly stuck in the mixture of potatoes and cucumber and hard-boiled eggs, which for who knows what reason was standing on the forest floor instead of the large camping table.

    Fortunately nobody saw it.

    The others will have just fetched the bread and the wine, the water, the meat, the blankets, the badminton rackets and whatever else you need for a picnic.

    So quickly leveled the deep dent a little with the spoon, took the shoe in hand and quickly ran into the forest, the potato pieces rubbed off the sole of the firm roots of a thick trunk: "I'll be right there!"

    But somebody had seen it, the father, and filmed it, that was fashionable before smartphones existed.

    Picnicking was also fashionable, as always, since the fourth Earl of Sandwich or his personal cook invented the folding sandwich in the 18th century, which is a part of a picnic like a wasp to a plum cake.

    The fact that the term picnic, a derivation from French, once had a completely different meaning than it does today is explained in the catalog of an exhibition that in 2017 at the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt was about the open-air meal: only since the beginning of the 19th century. In the early 20th century, the word meant eating outside, previously it was one for invitations to a salon to which the invited had to bring something (the catalog with a number of good articles is still available: "Picnic time", bookstore Walther König.)

    What is a picnic?

    Whether it's chicken thighs and wine, whether smoked salmon or cheese, vegetable patties or dumplings and whether it really has to be a fruit salad that always comes out of whatever container is a matter of belief and taste.

    There is no question for the tradition-conscious professionals among the picnic friends that they sit down in the sky-covered dining room while maintaining stylish behavior.

    Like the British in front of the opera house

    Like the British in front of the opera house in Glyndebourne, they sit on folding chairs they have brought with them, or at least on a checkered blanket with rubber on the underside.

    They eat cucumber and / or crab sandwiches and drink champagne or at least sparkling wine.

    Plates, mugs and cutlery, glasses, checkered cloths and the other utensils that distinguish a stylish feast from just eating outdoors are taken from picnic suitcases.

    You can buy them, in the simplest version, at prices of around 40 euros, but the purchase can also run into the thousands.

    It doesn't have to be that much money, however.

    And if you want, you can leave the roasting, cutting and smearing bread in preparation for a picnic to others: Many restaurants pack picnic bags or baskets.

    For example, the Flowdeli in the new Jewish Museum in Frankfurt (tip: order, pick up and sit down on the banks of the Main), the Schlosshotel Rettershof in Kelkheim and the Schlosshotel Kronberg, where the picnic basket order includes the opportunity to eat in the Park that surrounds the hotel. Wherever, whatever, a picnic can be many things - only the Lieferando pizza on the meadow is actually not one.