The absolute classic is mine frit made the night before and eaten cold. It surprises visitors, but stir-fried noodles with chicken, vegetables and a dash of soy hold up perfectly overnight in the fridge and eat very well at room temperature. Every family has its own version, and how much chilli belongs in it is a genuinely contentious subject.
Then come the fried things, which travel effortlessly: gâteaux piment (yellow split-pea fritters with chilli and coriander), boulettes, samosas and sweet potato cakes for something sweet. Buy them in quantity at the market that morning — Goodlands, Flacq or Quatre Bornes depending on your region — or from the hawker already walking the beach. Home-made bread and butter with a tub of sausage rougaille is also a very common beach meal.
Rougaille is THE Mauritian picnic dish: tomato, onion, thyme, chilli, and your choice of sausages, salted fish or fish balls. It travels in an airtight box, is eaten with bread or cold rice, and it's better the next day. If you're going out with people who don't know it, pack a mild version alongside — Mauritian chilli is not decorative.
For fruit, follow the season: Victoria pineapples cut in advance and salted with chilli for those who like it, mangoes in austral summer, lychees in December and January, Chinese guavas in winter. A pineapple seller with a knife eventually walks every major public beach, which settles dessert without preparing anything.
To drink, alouda (milk, basil seeds, agar-agar, syrup) travels badly and is better drunk at the market. On the beach it'll be water, local sodas and, for adults, Phoenix beer or home-made arranged rum. Worth remembering: alcohol is tolerated on public beaches but drink-driving is punished very severely in Mauritius, and Sunday-evening checks on the coast roads are systematic.
