England is currently enjoying a four-day weekend, thanks to the Queen’s Jubilee on Tuesday, and the Spring public holiday which has been moved forward to tomorrow.
A few years ago, to engender a spirit of community, the Eden Project, an environmental organisation, came up with their ‘Big Lunch’ idea. The aim was to get as many people as possible to have lunch together on one Sunday in June each year, whether just a few neighbours or a whole street.
So, lots of Big Jubilee lunches are planned for today, with lots of street parties being organised. If you fancied attending a really upmarket do, you could have applied for (free) tickets for a seat at the Piccadilly Big Jubilee Lunch table.
It’s a bring-your-own-lunch affair, but a variety of food will be available from stalls, and also from the nearby shops – so you can pop into Fortnum and Mason for some larks’ tongues in aspic, or a jar of Beluga caviar if you fancy them!
I shouldn’t be at all surprised if coronation chicken appears on a huge number of lunch menus today. It was devised in honour of the Queen’s coronation in 1953 by florist Constance Spry and her friend Rosemary Hume, one of the principals of the Cordon Bleu cookery school, and it consisted of diced poached chicken in a curry-flavoured mayonnaise.
It’s become rather neglected over the years, but I have resurrected a recipe that is as near to the original as possible. It was originally made using a whole chicken, but I use chicken breasts instead. Served 1953-style with a rice salad, it is really good.
The British love both pork pies and Scotch eggs (hardboiled eggs, wrapped in sausage meat, then rolled in breadcrumbs and fried) and I expect there will be plenty of both at lots of Big Lunches. My pork, ham, sausage meat and egg pie is a marriage of the two, and it makes a good item to pack in a cooler box for a picnic or the beach.
There are two puddings which would be appropriate, although I don’t think they will appear at any street parties. Queen of Puddings is an old English favourite made with milk, eggs, breadcrumbs and raspberry jam, topped with meringue and served warm from the oven, but sometimes, for a special occasion, I replace the jam with fresh or frozen raspberries.
Then there is the simple but sensational Cherries Jubilee, which are poached cherries flambéed with brandy and poured flaming over vanilla ice-cream. The dish was created by Auguste Escoffier for the Queen’s great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, in celebration of her Diamond Jubilee in l897.
A good choice for a lunch box, though, would be Prince William’s favourite no-bake Chocolate Biscuit Cake, which was made for him by McVitie’s as an extra cake for his wedding. There is a wonderful picture of it on the internet, but I’m afraid mine isn’t quite so spectacular.
Apparently, the cake was always made for him when, as an Eton schoolboy, he went to nearby Windsor Castle for tea with his granny on Sunday afternoons. The recipe supposedly includes a secret ingredient which has never been published.
A version given to me by a friend contains raisins soaked in whisky so that may be it – not really suitable for a schoolboy but, having tried both versions, my vote goes to the raisins.
This afternoon, the Queen boards a royal barge for the Thames Jubilee River Pageant. Tomorrow there’s a concert at Buckingham Palace, and in the evening beacons will be lit across the country.
On Tuesday she attends a Thanksgiving service at St Paul’s Cathedral, followed by lunch at Westminster Hall with the great and the good, then a carriage procession back to the palace.
And after all the pomp and pageantry, I think an 86-year-old lady would probably like nothing better than to put her feet up and have a nice cup of tea.