What do they eat at royal funeral dinners?

Everything from Scotch Broth and plum pudding to Mayonnaise de Homard and Eton Mess

It’s always good to aim high. For Menus That Made History which I co-wrote with Vincent Franklin, we aimed to provide the most interesting menus from the entire swathe of human history from Neanderthal munchings up to high-tech insect-heavy repasts of the future. We wanted to include a bit of everything and so naturally there were various royal menus including Henry VIII’s choice on ‘Flesh’ days, Robert Dudley’s 1560 feast for Elizabeth I, and the vast coronation banquet of George IV. We also had a couple of funerals, the Bishop of Bath and Wells’ wake menu from 1424 and King Midas’s from c. 700 BC. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to combine the two and include a royal funeral menu so this week seems like an appropriate opportunity to pay my culinary respects.

Obviously a lot of thought is put into a royal’s last supper. Former Viceroy of India Louis Mountbatten even prepared summer and winter menus for his body’s final removal by train from Waterloo to Romsey to cover either seasonal scenario (both were snack-based, revolving around sandwiches). There’s been no announcement as I write about what Charles III might serve to guests next week, but I thought it would be interesting to look back at a couple of previous examples.

The Waterloo Chamber by Joseph Nash, 1844

This then is what was on offer in the Waterloo Chamber of Windsor Castle on February 2, 1901, when King Edward VII - and his wife Queen Alexandra - entertained guests after the funeral service of his mother Queen Victoria. It’s a decent buffet spread as befits a guest list that included the German Emperor, the King of Portugal, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, and numerous Crown Princes from Norway to Siam. Naturally it was all in French, back then still very much the lingua franca of royal menus, so I’ve added brief explanatory notes in brackets and italics, some of which are best guesses because the menu is necessarily sometimes vague.

Consommé à la Doria (game soup with truffles)

Côtelettes d’Agneau à la Rossini (lamb cutlets with foie gras and truffle shavings)

Cailles Rôties (roast quails stuffed with foie gras)

Pommes de terre à l’Indienne  (slightly spicy roast potatoes, think Aloo chaat)

Céleri à la Moëlle (celery baked with beef marrow served on toast)

Quenelles d’Epinards à l’Anita (fried spinach dumplings, a bit like croquettes but lighter)

Aloyau de Bœuf (beef sirloin)

Mayonnaise de Homard (lobster dressed with mayonnaise sauce then put back into the shell)

Poulards, Jambon, Langue (cold roast poulards - spayed hens - , ham, pressed ox tongue)

Terrine de Faisan (pheasant terrine)

Gâteau de Riz à l’Ananas (a kind of rice pudding cake with pineapple slices on top)

Savarin au Kirsch et Vanille (rich cake, drowned in kirsch, topped with vanilla cream, not unlike a rum baba)

Gelée à la Polonaise (cherry, or maybe redcurrant, jelly, perhaps served in a vol-au-vent type pastry)

Eight years later on May 22, 1910, it was Edward’s turn. This is the menu for dinner at Buckingham Palace hosted by Alexandra, now the Dowager Queen, for her late husband two days after his funeral. Again, those sitting down to break bread represented the cream of the world’s royalty, including her own sister, the Dower Empress consort of Russia Maria Feodorovna. This is what they were served:

Potage l’Eccosaise (Scotch broth, so some mixture of barley, lamb or beef stock, and vegetables including peas)

Saumon grillé Sce Ravigote (grilled salmon with vegetabley or herby sauce, perhaps with Dijon mustard)

Chaufroid d’agneau Printanier (vegetables and lamb in aspic)

Poulets rôtis et Langue (roast chicken and tongue)

Petits pois à l’Anglaise (peas tossed with butter)

Plum Pudding au Sabayon (plum pudding served with an egg yolk, white wine, and sugar sauce)

Eton Mess aux Fraises (crunched meringue, whipped cream, and strawberries)

What I’ve been reading this week: I very much enjoyed Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson in the lovely Persephone edition. A kind of Cinderella story written in 1938 and surprisingly racy, marred only by some very brief racism which is very much at odds with the rest of the story (so please don’t be put off from giving it a go). I’ve also just started Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past by Richard Cohen, a kind of history of historians. Good so far, certainly very readable.