All across America, Shakespeare Festivals have gain popularity. Most are outdoor theaters with areas for picnic before or during the performances. Two festivals that I attended in California have small cafes that provide picnic or deli style foods and drinks for those that don't want to carry their own picnic baskets. Foods like Panini and potato chips or Italian subs. However, the majority of festivals organizers like those in Delaware and Maryland will tell their audiences to bring their own baskets of goodies to enjoy. This presents an opportunity to explore delightful finger foods.

Having lived in Britain and attended Shakespearean plays in the theaters of the author's birth city of Stratford upon Avon and in London, I decided my picnic for a group of Shakespeare fans needed to be as English as the author. I began my culinary journey by remembering those trips, and the great British gardens and the wonderful eloquent meals I enjoyed. I began researching English picnic ideas and found that the perfect picnic was the English High Tea. As Alice Walker, another author put it - “Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.” Learning how the English hosts tea both indoors and out on their garden patios provided many delicious recipes for tea sandwiches and tarts.

The perfect picnic meal is a rare accomplishment; however, arranging a picnic of tea sandwiches that are ideal for transport, the picnic can only be successful. There are many variations of tea sandwiches, such as Boursin cheese spread with cucumber slices, smoked turkey breast, basil, and sun-dried tomatoes, or egg salad sandwiches, all with crust trimmed and cut into special shapes. With the tea sandwiches as the main entree, I needed to choose other menu items that would compliment. Items to include on a tea picnic menu should be grapes, apples, cheese, water crackers, and shortbread cookies or fruit tarts. Lastly, I wanted to pair the menu with a nice wine. Traditionally, an English tea has a black tea and sherry aperitif. However, since this menu was for a picnic dinner at a Shakespeare play, I wanted to include a chilled semi-sweet white wine.

If you are planning a picnic for a Shakespeare festival or any other festival where you want to tailgate or picnic, try out this menu. Get creative with your theme and most of -- enjoy!

Picnic Menu

• Brie and water crackers
• Grapes
• Curried Egg Salad Tea Sandwiches
• Spicy Chicken salad Tea Sandwiches
• Shortbread Cookies
• Strawberry Tarts
• Chilled Dry Riesling Wine

The Picnic Basket

• Salt and pepper
• Flatware - light sliver, never plastic
• Good plastic plates and cup or Tin
• Good plastic or silver wine glasses
• Tablecloth and napkin linens
• Pillows and a blanket
• Corkscrew
• Candles and matches - I have tea light lanterns that provides for a great romance

Curried Egg Salad Tea Sandwich

Ingredients

• 6 hardboiled eggs
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• ½ tsp curry powder
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 12 slices of thin white bread, crust removed
• 1 tbsp chopped chives

Method

1. Chop eggs into a small bowl, mast with a fork.
2. Stir in mayonnaise and curry powder.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Cut bread into shapes with cookie or biscuit cutters.
5. Spread the bottom slices with the egg salad mixture.
6. Dip sandwich edge in the chives.

The problem is the Onigiri's ingredients wasnt found in hawaii so the japanese immigrants improvised. They used spam to make Onigiri, seeing that the spam is rectangularly shaped, they molded the rice to he spam's shape. Hawaii became a state in those days so people called it Spam Musubi. Other people that lived in hawaii back then altered the recipe.

They added terriyaki sauce, they also put tamagoyaki(japanese omellette) which was wrapped with the spam with nori(dried seaweed) and they also put furikake(a japanese seasoning composed off small shredded pieces of nori, sesame seeds, sugar, salt and monosodium glutamate).

Ingredients

• 3 cups uncooked short- or medium-grain rice
• 4 cups water
• 5 sheets of sushi nori (seaweed in big squares):

• 1 (12-ounce) can Spam luncheon meat

• (optional)1/4 cup soy sauce
• (optional)1/4 cup sugar
• (optional)1/4 cup rice wine (mirin)

• Water

(This recipe is meant to make multiple spam musubis not only one)

Procedure

Rice

First, wash and clean rice. Then let rice soak in water for 30 minutes so it will be soft. Cook rice in any way you can including boiling it or using a rice cooker, but make sure the rice is moist, but not too moist or it will become saggy.

Nori(dried seaweed)

There are two ways to wrap a spam musubi with nori: partial wrap or full wrap. I mostly prefer full wrap so you can taste the seaweed in all of your bites, but people also use partial wrap.

Partial wrap:

Full wrap:

Spam

Cut Spam into 8 rectangular slices approximately 1/4-inch thick. In a large ungreased frying pan over medium heat, fry slices until brown and slightly crispy. Remove from heat, drain on paper towels, and set aside.

Optional Spam Marination

In a small saucepan over high heat, add soy sauce, sugar, and rice wine; bring just to a boil, then remove from heat. Add fried Spam slices to soy sauce mixture, turning them to coat with the sauce; let spam slices sit in marinade until ready to use.

Water

Put water in a small bowl to use as a seal for the edges of nori for wrapping later on. Then set aside.

Spam Musubi (with mold):

Using a Spam Musubi press, place a piece of nori on a plate. Position press on top of the nori so the length of the press is in the middle of the nori (widthwise). The press and the width of the nori should fit exactly the length of a slice of Spam. (Note: If you don't have a musubi maker, you can use the empty Spam can by opening both sides, creating a musubi mold.)

Spread approximately 1/4 cup cooked rice across the bottom of the musubi maker, on top of the nori; press rice down with flat part of the press to compact the rice until it is 1/4-inch thick (add more rice if necessary). Place a slice of Spam on top of the rice (it should cover most of the length of the musubi maker).

Cover with an additional 1/4 cup cooked rice; press until 1/4-inch thick. remove the musubi from the press by pushing the whole stack down (with the flat part of the press) while lifting off the press. Fold one end of nori over the musubi and press lightly onto the rice.

Wet the remaining end slightly with water, then wrap over musubi and other piece of nori; press down on the other end. Cut log into 4 pieces. Repeat with the other 7 Spam slices, making sure to rinse off musubi maker after each use to prevent if from getting too sticky.

Spam Musubi (without spam musubi mold)

Use your hands to mold a block of rice the two times the length of the spam musubi (but same shape as spam). Put the spam on top of the block of rice. Then mold another block of rice the size and shape of the spam and put it on top of the spam. After that wrap the block of spam and rice with nori and seal the edges with water(rub water on edges not soak it).

Here is the Final Product (partially and fully wrapped)

You should try making this. Spam musubi is a popular snack for children and good for field trips. It's popular in Hawaii, but I'm not sure if it is in North America. Either way it is still a good snack due to it's taste and portability.