The art of the State Banquet

The French epicure Jean-Anthelm Brillat-Savarin, writing in the early decades of the nineteenth century, remarked, 'Read the historians, from Herodotus down to our own day, and you will see that there has never been a great event, not even excepting conspiracies, which was not conceived, worked out, and organized over a meal.' And indeed it is true that State Banquets are amongst the most important opportunities for discussion and diplomacy.

Her Majesty The Queen has over the past 70 years received well over 100 inward State Visits. She has undertaken over 260 official visits overseas including nearly 100 outward State Visits, making her the most travelled monarch in history.

As TRH The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall say in their joint foreword toThe Platinum Jubilee Cookbook, 'On all Royal Visits, food plays an important part, presenting opportunities to enjoy a taste of the host nation’s culinary heritage, while also offering a chance to share the best of British cuisine'. And that culinary aspect to the Royal Family’s work often finds its greatest expression in State Banquets.

Preparations begin over a year in advance. Typically held at Buckingham Palace or sometimes Windsor Castle, the room features a horseshoe-shaped table seating up to 170 guests and takes between three and five days to set. George IV’s Grand Service is unpacked for the occasion – the 4,000 pieces for dining and display are all silver-gilt, in the King’s attempt to rival the gilded collections of Napoleon I. Napkins are folded in a Dutch bonnet and each place setting is 45 centimetres from the next.

The procession of dishes at a State Banquet is time-honoured: a starter (often fish), followed by a meat-based main course with accompaniments, then dessert, followed but fresh fruit and petites fours. The starter was once typically preceded by a soup course but in more recent years it has often been dispensed with. The legendary French chef Auguste Escoffier would be turning in his grave: he considered soup to be the 'agent provocateur of a good dinner'.

The menus may be written in French but The Queen has used the occasions to champion British produce. Thus the State Banquet for President Trump in 2019 featured steamed halibut with watercress mousse, asparagus spears, and chervil sauce to start, a main of new season Windsor lamb (served with ‘Pommes Elizabeth’) and a port sauce, before finishing with a strawberry sable with lemon verbena cream. To drink, the guests were offered Windsor Great Park 2014 English sparkling wine (which has its roots in Windsor Castle’s own ancient vineyard, planted in the 12th century in the reign of Henry II), and Churchill's 1985 Vintage Port – though of course the teetotal President stuck to soft drinks. When it comes to flying the flag for British food and drink, Her Majesty is as meticulous in her approach as in the other parts of her work.

The guests at State Banquets are of course dominated by the visiting country’s delegation and their opposite numbers from within government. But one of the glorious eccentricities of these occasions is the eclecticism of the guest list: Royal family relations, hereditary aristocracy, luminaries and celebrities from both the UK and the visiting country, and of course spouses. The peculiarities of the Order of Precedence leads to rather surprising seating plans. At the 2016 State Visit of the Colombian President the Foreign Secretary was placed halfway down the room (sat next to the wife of the Colombian Ambassador) because space at the top table needed to be found for The Viscount Hood and The Duchess of Norfolk.

On overseas trips the excitement of the hosts when receiving a State Visit from The Queen is palpable. Our Ambassador in Brazil, Sir John Russell, reported back to London the scene at the presidential reception for The Queen in Rio in 1968: 'Spurs and a lit cigar came in very handy and I realised that in a previous incarnation I must have been a police horse'. In Sao Paolo meanwhile, the heaving crowds were such that the poor Sir John 'lost two buttons and a CMG.' The State Banquet is often the focus for such excitement.

Another former Ambassador, Sir Anthony Brenton, recalled that during the first ever State visit by the Queen to Russia they had to fly in a planeload of dinner jackets for the Russian elite attending. When George H.W. Bush, who loved to entertain, hosted the Queen in May 1991, he went to great lengths to impress: the dessert featured marzipan cobblestones topped with a ten-inch, dark chocolate carriage filled with mousse. The Queen, who is known to love chocolate, presumably came away reassured that the special relationship was in robust health.

State Banquets have likewise been a regular feature of Jubilees. For Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887, fifty foreign kings and princes, along with the governing heads of Britain's overseas colonies and dominions, attended a feast at Buckingham Palace. Queen Victoria recorded the event in her diary: 'Had a large family dinner.' For George V’s Silver Jubilee in 1935 there was similarly an evening banquet for foreign royalty. The regal spread began with 'Aguillettes de Caneton Reine Mary' and finished with 'Soufflés glacés Roi George V'.

The dining will, for this Jubilee, have a different, more inclusive, feel. There will be no royal banquet; rather the focus will be on an equally venerable British tradition – the street party. With their roots in the ‘peace teas’ held for children at the end of the First World War, street parties have been an established way of celebrating royal weddings and Jubilees for over a century. This year these community gatherings are being encouraged as part of a ‘Big Jubilee Lunch’. Eight and a half million people took part a decade ago for the Diamond Jubilee and the organisers hope to top the number this year. The festivities won’t be limited to the UK: more than 600 Big Jubilee Lunches are planned in more than 70 countries across the Commonwealth and around the world. And, following a nationwide competition, there is a new dish to act as a centrepiece of the food spread: the Platinum Pudding, which will take its place alongside Victoria Sponge, Cherries Jubilee, and Coronation Chicken in the pantheon of royal foods. It has all the makings of a right royal feast. Bunting at the ready.