Royal feasts

Kate and Wills' wedding breakfast looks like soup-kitchen fare compared to these regal meals from the pastMulti-course Michelin-starred meals and mind-boggling molecular gastronomy might seem the pinnacle of culinary achievement. But compared to royal feasts of years past, today’s master chefs might as well be dishing up fast food. Take a trip back in time to indulge in Britain’s most extraordinary banquets.RICHARD II’S ROYAL ROAST, 1387Medieval kings were often in precarious political situations, with threats from English rivals and French invaders always looming. Vast feasts and lavish attire became a method of showcasing a ruler’s power and influence – an early form of public relations.Richard II was one of the most flamboyant Medieval monarchs and particularly interested in food and fashion. He was so obsessed with mealtimes that he had his master cooks write down the first English recipe book, The Forme of Cury (cury meaning cookery in Middle English).In September, 1387, Richard and his uncle, the Duke of Lancaster, hosted a vast and elaborate feast for hundreds of courtiers. At that time, roasting meats was expensive as it required the use of a great amount of fuel (wood), and the employment of a boy to stand all day, turning the animal, not to mention the cost of the animal itself. It was therefore an impressive display of wealth to have a meal entirely based around roasts.Among the huge quantities of land animals and birds (and a few hundred fish) used in the feast were:

  • 14 salted oxen
  • 84 pounds salted venison
  • 12 boar, including heads
  • 120 sheep heads
  • 300 marrowbones
  • More than 100 waterbirds, including cranes, herons and curlews
  • 50 swans
  • 150 castrated roosters
  • 1,200 pigeons
  • 210 geese
  • 11,000 eggs

Despite the fact that it had only three courses, as was the custom of the day, each course had 10 to 20 dishes, including

  • boar’s head (essential for any Medieval feast)
  • venison and wheat porridge
  • roast swan, heron, pheasant, pig, rabbits, larks, ox, goat and dozens of other animals
  • pastry of wine, dates and honey
  • white soup, possibly made from almonds, leeks and milk or wine
  • mixed meat stew
  • jellied deer
  • sweet stew of almonds, honey and eggs
  • subtleties – a dish whose goal was entertain by either being in the form of mini-sculptures of animals, a coat of arms or mythical scenes, or by containing unexpected tastes, such as a model of a boar’s head made in marzipan

QUEEN ELIZABETH I’S SWEET FEAST, 1591While jellymongers Bompas & Parr and cocoa sculptors Choccywoccydoodah might think they’re breaking the mould with their gourmet artistry, they had nothing on the Tudors. Their addiction to sugar spearheaded a centuries-long love affair from which our waistlines have yet to recover. In the mid-1400s, Spain began cultivating sugar in the Canaries, Madeira and Antilles, making it readily available – to those who could afford it – and Elizabeth I became particularly enamoured of it.Trying to gain favour with the queen, who had previously put him in the Tower of London for several years, SirEdward Seymour, the 1st Earl of Hertford, provided perhaps the world’s most elaborate dessert display for the famously sweet-toothed queen. As Elizabeth I and her courtiers sat in a temporary gallery watching a firework display, 200 men, lit by 100 torchbearers, paraded up the hillside to her, bearing1,000 desserts, including:

  • Sugar sculptures of castles, guns, soldiers and forts (EnglandFrance), as well as peacocks, swans and other animals.
  • Marzipan creatures, fictional and real – eagles, lions, apes, frogs, snakes, worms, unicorns, mermaids and whales.
  • Crystallized fruits, mostly apricots, damsons and plums.
  • Preserved citrus peels (citrus fruits were still exceptionally rare in England)
  • Sugar-coated almonds and spices, such as aniseed and fennel.
  • Clear, cream and coloured jellies, flavoured with fruit juice, wine, rose-water, cinnamon and ginger, wobbling in bowls and or served in stiffened slices.
  • Biscuits made from almonds, rosewater and ambergris (a rare and surprisingly still-sought-after ingredient formed in the stomachs of sperm whales, then excreted in the faeces or vomit and found floating on the sea - yum).
  • Fruit tarts of apples, pears and plums.
  • Spice cakes made with cinnamon, cloves, saffron and mace.

How she kept that slim waistline while scoffing calorific desserts like these is anyone’s guess, but she didn’t manage to keep her pretty smile, with many of her teeth blackening and falling out over the years.See Tudor cookery in action at Hampton Court, where they now put on frequent displays of historic meals in the kitchens used by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I: http://www.hrp.org.uk/HamptonCourtPalace/WhatsOn/tudorcookery.aspxKING GEORGE V AND QUEEN MARY’S WEDDING BREAKFAST, 1893While today’s weddings frequently take a year or more to plan, George V and Princess Mary had only two months to arrange theirs. Queen Victoria was still ruling at the time, and George, Victoria’s grandson, wouldn’t take the throne until 1911, after the death of his father. Nonetheless, he was very much seen as an heir-in-waiting, and the wedding was given all the pomp and circumstance of the most regal of events.Unlike Queen Elizabeth II’s wedding breakfast in 1947, which was a modest – and very British – affair, as the country was still under rationing, George and Mary’s meal was sumptuous and reflected the vogue for European travels and tastes. (Mary’s trousseau, however, was made entirely in Britain.)Despite constant bickering with our neighbours across the Channel, most British royal wedding menus in recent centuries were written in French, and the only exceptions on George and Mary’s were the side table dishes. The menu below is taken from Five Gold Rings: A Royal Wedding Souvenir Album, from Queen Victoria to Queen Elizabeth II (£9.99, Royal Collection Publications), but some of the recipes have been lost in the annals of time.6 July 1893, Buckingham PalacePotages (soups)Bernoise à l’Impératrice (Bernese-style Empress soup, the ingredients of which are unfortunately a mystery)Crême de Riz à la Polonaise (Polish-style creamy rice soup)Entrées chaudes (hot starters)Côtelettes d’Agneau à l’Italienne (Italian lamb cutlet)Aiguillettes de Canetons aux Pois (Ribbons of duckling with peas)Relevés (main course)Filets de Boeuf à la Napolitaine (Neopolitan-style fillet of beef)Poulets Gras au Cresson (Fattened chicken with watercress sauce)Entrées froides (cold starters)Chaudes Froides de Volaille aux Légumes (Cold chicken covered in creamy, jellied sauce, with vegetables)Salades de Homard et Saumon (Salad of lobster and salmon)Galantines de Volaille à l’Aspic (Chicken breast in aspic)Filets de Veau à la Gelée (Fillets of veal in jelly)Side dishesHaricots verts (Green beans)Epinards (Spinach)DessertKälte Schalle von Früchten (Fruit salad)Pâtisserie assortie (Assorted pastries)Side tableCold fowlCold beefTongue

Archive, LifestyleJill Starley-GraingerFood, UK