That started to change with the publication of the Constance Spry Cookery Book in 1956, which included the recipe for coronation chicken.Īs home cooks emerged from an era of austerity, it rose in popularity. “Most people couldn’t afford to eat chicken it was enormously expensive.”Ĭhicken was a treat and curry was unheard of so, initially, it wasn’t a dish that many people cooked at home. “It’s hard to overplay how much of a blingy dish this would have been at the time… this is a nation that was still suffering from rationing,” she says. The other myth that tends to circulate is that coronation chicken was chosen as a budget-friendly option that home cooks could easily replicate: a recipe that struck the balance between “luxury and austerity” in postwar Britain. They settled on a cold chicken dish in a creamy, mildly curried sauce that, on the day, was washed down with Krug champagne. “They needed to come up with dishes that were real crowd-pleasers, quite impressive but not budget breaking, and things that they could prepare without a kitchen,” says Gray. The menu needed to be suitable for a “large number of guests of varying and unknown tastes”, in Spry’s words. The luncheon was served in the Great Hall of Westminster School, which had limited cooking facilities. It was created with practicality in mind. “I think we can credit for it pretty much all on her own.” Food for a crowd “ came up with the dish and then two days later she said it had been inspired by a canapé in Mrs De Salis’ cookbook Savouries à la Mode, which I’ve looked at, and it bears very little resemblance,” says food historian Dr Annie Grey. Constance Spry, the society florist in charge of organising the luncheon, also played a part, although she didn’t have quite as important a role as she is often given credit for. Instead, Poulet Reine Elizabeth was created by Rosemary Hume and her students at Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in London specifically for the coronation banquet for visiting dignitaries. Others mistakenly say it was made to be served to the Queen (it wasn’t). Where did it come from? One common origin theory is that coronation chicken was based on a recipe created for George V’s Silver Jubilee. In the 70 years since, it has gone from a luxury fit for dignitaries, to a lurid 1970s staple, to an enduringly popular supermarket sandwich filling and a regular fixture on bad buffets. They were served Poulet Reine Elizabeth: a dish that is now better known as coronation chicken.

On June 2 1953, at two o’clock in the afternoon, 350 foreign dignitaries sat down to tuck into the Coronation luncheon after Queen Elizabeth II was crowned.

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