I admit it.
I did watch the coronation of King Charles, at least chunks of it.
Officially we are not supposed to care about a 74-year-old man ascending to a throne built on the spoils of colonialism. But the Royal Family, like a regressive soap opera, is a bit of guilty pleasure.
I wanted to see whether Harry, Duke of Sussex, made it to the balcony for the gathering of the royal clan. Would William and Harry speak? Would Queen Camilla wear the quietly triumphant look of a cat who finally got to swallow the canary? It didn’t end with the coronation. In the latest episode of the never-ending soap, were Harry and Meghan really hounded all over New York in a “near catastrophic car-chase”?
A lot of friends seem to secretly feel the same way about the royals. They mouthed “Who cares?” but followed the coronation from the corner of their eyes. I noticed friends, some of them in Britain, post on social media about watching it with anti-monarchist friends. Mocking memes and sarcastic jokes were the order of the day. But clearly even ardent anti-monarchists were happy to give up hours of their time to watch (and diss) a long and ponderous religious ceremony. They could have had a beer at the local pub or gone to the gym or binge-watched on Netflix. But they chose an afternoon with Charles and Camilla instead.
That’s either masochism or a guilty pleasure. I reckon it’s the latter and we should make peace with it. There will never really be reparations for colonialism or an excuse for royal extravagance. But I was almost sorry for the royals doing their best to keep up the pomp and pageantry while trying to give it all a wholesome post-colonial makeover. Women bishops. Clergy from other faiths like Islam and Hinduism. Lionel Richie. And a coronation quiche.
That set some stiff upper lips quivering because a quiche is not English. It’s a French dish that originated in Germany, countries that have fought wars with Britain.
Also a broad bean and spinach quiche sounds less than festive. The ‘Morning Show’ in Canada described the coronation dish as the “food equivalent of a grey April drizzle.”
Chefs have said a quiche reflects King Charles’ love for eggs and cheese and like the new king it’s a no-fuss dish. It can be had hot or cold and shared among friends and family. It aspires to be unobjectionable. However it’s unlikely it will survive the test of time the way the coronation chicken from his mother’s 1953 coronation has. Coronation chicken came with mayonnaise doused in curry powder, a piquant little reminder of colonies past. When the Queen had her Platinum Jubilee in 2022, KFC came up with the Coronation Chicken Tower Burger. It had curry powder mayonnaise but the raisins, KFC said, had abdicated from the recipe. Love it or hate it, it’s clear coronation chicken still has currency.
But curry powder just won’t pass the political correctness sniff test in 2023. In fact it’s tricky to get a British dish that doesn’t have postcolonial guilt baked in. In her book The Hungry Empire, Lizzie Collingham writes about the making of an Empire Christmas pudding in 1926. The Royal family agreed to eat the pudding to send out the message that the Empire was Britain’s family. The recipe sums up the story of colonisation in one pudding.
The sultanas were from Australia, the candied peel from South Africa, the cinnamon from Ceylon, the rum from Jamaica and so on. India’s contribution was 1 tsp pudding spice but those who were upset about that could rejoice in the fact that on the grand mixing day, every ingredient was announced and carried in by turbaned Indian servants.
These days the hapless royals cannot be seen to be taking pleasure openly in colonial riches. Poor Queen Camilla chose not to wear the Koh-i-noor at her coronation and King Charles must settle for a dull quiche made with doughty English lard. The tasters at the Evening Standard said that for a recipe that sounded like “complete nothingness” it wasn’t half bad, “sort of like a walk through your grandmother’s garden in that it’s nice, hello, but also quite boring.”
That sounds like a pretty succinct review of the new monarchy as well.
Colonisation in a dish
Sandip Roy is the author of ‘Don’t Let Him Know’, and likes to let everyone know about his opinions whether asked or not.
