London, England — Buckingham Palace revealed some juicy coronation news this week, and it has nothing to do with who will attend King Charles III’s ancient ceremony or which of the Crown Jewels may have been looted from former British colonies. Coronation Quiche has been named the official dish of the coronation.
Let’s dig in.
The dish:
Some culinary commentators were offended by the palace’s use of the word “quiche” in the official recipe. Few saw a lot of French influence in the new king’s signature dish of cheddar, eggs, spinach, and a few other select ingredients encased in a buttery pastry crust.
While French chef Manon Lagrève praised the choice as a boost for Franco-British relations, it turns out that quiche, like the British royal family, originated in Germany.
On a more personal note, Darren McGrady, a former royal family chef, said the choice was perfectly in line with the king’s preferences, tweeting, “The King loves anything with eggs and cheese.”
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The dish was reportedly chosen by the monarch and his wife, Queen Consort Camilla, to commemorate their coronation. The royals suggested it as a feature dish for the “Coronation Big Lunches” being organized at the community level across Britain to commemorate the occasion.
Quiche controversy:
There has been much debate about the optics of holding a taxpayer-funded coronation ceremony brimming with jewels and inherited wealth at a time when millions of non-royal Britons are struggling with a dire cost of living crisis and joining labor picket lines to demand fair pay.
As a result, the palace may have been wise to provide a recipe for coronation quiche that uses relatively inexpensive and common ingredients. However, that ingredient list — and one ingredient in particular — has not gone down well.
My take on the coronation quiche as an ex professional chef and baker is that broad beans are such a weird choice. Are they fresh? Are they double shelled? Have these people peeled broad beans, because it’s a pain in the arse. And tarragon? Why?
— Emily Cooper (@Emily_S_Cooper) April 17, 2023
It’s unclear who has the final say on whether beans belong in a quiche, but the coronation quiche recipe calls for broad beans (fava beans to Americans) or soybeans in the filling. Some Twitter users slammed the addition as “disgusting” and “nonsense” on the harsher end of the spectrum, and as “a weird choice” by another who chose less harsh words for the lunch fare.
The history:
Coronation quiche isn’t the first official royal coronation dish to hit the British Isles, and its forerunner can still be found on grocery store shelves and café shelves across the country.
The famous Le Cordon Bleu cooking school created a recipe for cold chicken in a mild curry cream sauce to be served to guests attending Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation Luncheon in 1953.
Coronation Chicken has remained popular in the United Kingdom, despite the controversial recent addition of raisins. It can be found in restaurants as a salad served with lettuce or rice, or stuffed into baguettes and sold as a lunch option at low-cost sandwich shops.
Aside from the bean-bashing and raisin debates, food journalist Felicity Cloake said the quiche recipe — which she described as “more like spinach pie” — was less original than its predecessor, “but it’s also likely to be less divisive, which is exactly what the country needs right now.”
Perhaps that will be its legacy: a non-divisive if mildly controversial, quiche-like pie to bring a divided Britain back together. If you can get it between two slices of bread in a London sandwich shop when Prince William is crowned at some unspecified date in the future, the coronation quiche will be vindicated.
