And Elizabeth II’s menu for her coronation lunch, much like that for George IV’s coronation banquet, was written almost entirely in French, though it told a British story. George V’s English Christmas pudding was devised by a French chef. In opting for a French dish, Charles thus follows in the footsteps of his forebears. The Royal Banquet, the Bringing Up of the First Course, 19th July 1821. When George IV employed the most celebrated chef of his day, Antonin Carême, to cook in his London and Brighton homes in 1816, Carême observed that much of Britain’s diet was, in fact, French. Fine dining in Britain has long been influenced by new trends from across the channel. And it was topped off with ices, biscuits and fresh fruit – melons, grapefruits, plums and nectarines.Īny cultural animosity that persists between the British and the French is held with much greater ambivalence in the kitchen than elsewhere. The meal included sole cooked in champagne, turtle soup, a spun sugar vase filled with meringues and a pastry temple. Two courses followed, with even more dishes: 22 and 31, respectively. The first course was made up of 20 dishes including les filets de poulards, sautés aux champignons (chicken sautéed with mushrooms), les cotelles d’agneau, panées, grillées, sauce poivrade (breaded, grilled lamb chops in a pepper sauce), and le paté chaud de caille à l’espagnole (a quail pie, served hot). Public domainĪt the top table sat the new king and six male members of the royal family. The Coronation Banquet of King George IV in Westminster Hall, 1821. The Christmas pudding was meant to show the greatness of belonging to the British empire, but is now more likely to remind people of the violence at its heart. Perhaps, like George V’s 1927 empire Christmas pudding, itself devised by a French chef, the quiche is meant to tell us something about who we are.
The question, then, is what a French staple is doing at the centre of the table. The message of any British coronation is arguably that we should celebrate Britishness. Like Queen Elizabeth’s 1953 coronation chicken, it reveals much about the inevitability of multiculturalism in the kitchen. The recipe features a traditional shortcrust pastry with added lard, encasing a cream-and-egg filling of spinach, broad beans and cheddar, spiked with tarragon. Devised by a Buckingham Palace chef, the idea is that people will cook it at home, as part of a Coronation Big Lunch, a nationwide and indeed international feast. King Charles III and Queen Camilla have announced a quiche as the official coronation dish.
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